Singapore’s Phantom Workers

In 2009, the Singapore state prosecuted a string of businesses for listing fictitious local workers on their books in order to stretch their foreign worker entitlement. These “phantom” worker scams, prevalent since the 1980s, appear out of place in Singapore – a country with a strong international reputation for its government’s efficiency and strict legal enforcement. This paper examines the state’s prosecutions of the phantom worker scams in the context of the exceptional economic and political stresses in 2009, when Singapore was most severely affected by the global economic crisis, in order to address the employment regime in Singapore. It argues that the belated efforts to tackle the phantom worker scams reflected the pro-business state’s reluctance to tackle illegalities crucial to facilitating employers’ otherwise unlawful access to wealth and resources in Singapore.     

Internet intermediaries: The liability for defamatory postings in China and Hong Kong

The debate between protecting the freedom of expression on the one hand and the right to an individual privacy on the other is not new. Certainly with the introduction of the Internet, the debate has moved onto a whole new level. While no-one disputes that the Internet has significantly transformed lives by allowing netizens to create, share, and communicate within the global village, the Internet has also provided the means to publish and disseminate false information and derogatory remarks callously and expediently. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief comparative study of the approaches in China and in Hong Kong with respect to Internet intermediary liability for defamatory postings and whether the approaches taken provide the necessary balance between the right of free expression and the right to protect one’s reputation. The paper starts by dealing with the position in China pre and post Tort Liability Law. The paper then continues by examining the position in Hong Kong focusing particularly on the recent Court of Appeal decision in Oriental Press Group Ltd v Fevaworks Solutions Ltd. In comparing the position in China and Hong Kong, the paper provides a conclusion as a possible way forward for Internet intermediary liability in China and Hong Kong.     

Local aid workers in the digital humanitarian project: between “second class citizens” and “entrepreneurial survivors”

This paper examines the experiences of Filipino workers recruited for technology and communications work by international aid agencies involved in the Typhoon Haiyan response. Filipino workers, many of whom were personally coping with the social and economic impact of this disaster, were hired on short-term contracts to test and implement various digital humanitarian innovations such as feedback and hazard mapping technological platforms. These workers were doubly marginalized: first, as tech workers whose work was viewed by aid officers on the ground as less substantial than that of food or shelter programs; and second, as local voices often drowned out by national and international colleagues. Moving beyond the usual figure of the cosmopolitan and adventure-seeking Western humanitarian acting on distant suffering, this paper draws attention to local aid workers’ aspirations for personal and professional mobility as they seize novel opportunities opened up by the digital humanitarian agenda. It outlines how the digital humanitarian project’s ambition to facilitate the inclusion of disaster-affected communities is fundamentally undermined by labor arrangements that doubly marginalize local aid workers.     

斯坦福大学的教育理念及其启示

斯坦福大学的教育理念在其成长为世界一流大学的过程中发挥了重要的引领作用。斯坦福大学以培养有用的人为其教育宗旨,注重培养和发展学生的创造力,积极营造宽松自由的教育环境,致力于打造卓越的教育质量。斯坦福大学的教育理念及其成功经验,对我国大学教育改革与发展具有重要的启示作用。     

Beyond the Rails

The inauguration of the railway be-tween China and Laos is a key milestone in the realization of the Pan-Asian Railway Network running between Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, and Singapore.     

NEW DIMENSIONS

The active involvement of China in UN peacekeeping operations in the past three decades has earned it the status of global peace provider. Ever since China first deployed troops to the UN's blue helmets in 1990, when it sent five military observers to the Middle East, its commitment to serving the wellbeing of humanity through UN peacekeeping remains a key initiative showcasing the country's soft power.     

RCEP: Building Bridges,Not Walls

The parliamentary ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement by 10 signatory states has finally set the world's biggest ever free trade bloc into motion, albeit only among the ratifying na-tions, on January 1, 2022. Six Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand, have completed the ratification procedures. The RCEP was also signed by another four ASEAN members, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines, as well as the Republic of Korea (ROK). Once in full effect, it will cover approximately 30 percent of the world's population and one third of global GDP. The agreement manifests the firm commitment of all 15 signatory economies in the Asia-Pacific region to upholding an open, inclusive and rules-based multilateral trading system. Its implementation is particularly timely for the region as its economies struggle to recover from the impacts of COVID-19 and rising trends of de-globalization.