The Singapore government, through its government linked company, Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd (ST Kinetics), manufactures, stockpiles and publicly advertises two types of cluster ammunitions for sale (Cluster Munition Coalition 2008).
They are the ‘155mm DPICM artillery projectiles (containing 63 or 49 grenades) equipped with electro- mechanical self-destruct fuzes with an advertised dud rate of 3 percent’ and ‘a 120mm mortar bomb which delivers 25 DPICM grenades’ (Singapore Technologies Engineering n.d., cited in Cluster Munition Coalition, 2008 ).
As world governmental representatives converged in Dublin on the 19th May to seek an agreement on banning cluster bombs, the absence of major producers such as United States, China and Russia have seriously undermined these efforts (Gergely 2008). The U.N. Development Programme claimed that ‘cluster munitions have caused more than 13,000 confirmed injuries and deaths around the world, the vast majority of them in Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan’ (Gergely 2008).
‘One Nation Under Lee’ was a critical documentary about Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the senior minister of Singapore. When it was privately screened to an invited audience (who also had to purchase tickets to watch the film) at the Tulip Room in the Peninsular Excelsior Hotel on 17 May, government officials from the Media Development Authority entered the premises and seized the film, asserting that the movie contravenes the Films Act. To add ridicule to the fiasco, the officers demanded the organisers hand over the LCD projector despite having the DVD.
Yesterday in Sydney we attended an event organised by ACON for the International Day Against Homophobia. There were two groups of people, the first arrived and then stood still and then the second (more colourful) group arrived and started to move the “still” ones into different poses. After about 10 minutes, the “still” ones move and we all drew hearts on the floor and phrases against homophobia. It was a small, but very effective, event.
