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  • Singapore PM orders probe into ministers’ homes amid public anger

    Singapore PM orders probe into ministers’ homes amid public anger

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    [1/2] Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong attends the 22nd ASEAN Plus Three Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa/File Photo

    SINGAPORE, May 24 (Reuters) – Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has ordered an investigation into the circumstances around the rental of state-owned homes in an exclusive location to two cabinet ministers following questions from the opposition.

    The matter has prompted comment in the wealthy city-state, which has long prided itself on a government free from corruption, with the annual salaries of many cabinet ministers exceeding S$1 million ($755,000) to discourage graft.

    Lee said the review by a senior minister, whose results will be made public before lawmakers take up the issue in July, would establish whether “proper process” was followed in the rental of the colonial-era bungalows and if there was wrongdoing.

    “This must be done to ensure that this government maintains the highest standards of integrity,” Lee said in a statement.

    This month, opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam questioned how the law and home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, and the foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, could afford the market rate for such “pricey” properties.

    Shanmugam said accusations of impropriety were “outrageous” and he had nothing to hide. Balakrishnan said he was “very glad” a review was taking place.

    Social media posts in Singapore mocked the ministers or expressed outrage over the size of the properties, while others questioned why the government needed time until July to explain the issue.

    The expression of disapproval comes as many in Singapore battle rising living costs, amid high inflation and rising prices of homes and cars.

    Eight in 10 of Singapore’s 3.6 million citizens live in public housing and just a third of households own cars.

    Lawmakers, including three members of the ruling party and the leader of the opposition, have submitted parliamentary questions on whether the ministers acted on privileged information to secure the leases.

    The Singapore Land Authority has said the ministers leased bungalows that had been vacant for years and had made bids that were higher than the rent guidance, a price that had not been disclosed to them.

    Government graft scandals are rare in Singapore.

    A minister was investigated in 1987 but died before the inquiry concluded.

    Lee and his father – founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew – both addressed parliament in 1996 to answer accusations, investigated at the time by the prime minister, that the family had bought prime real estate at a discount.

    The investigation concluded there was nothing improper about the Lee’s property purchases.

    ($1=1.3245 Singapore dollars)

    Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by Martin Petty

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Xinghui Kok

    Thomson Reuters

    Xinghui leads the Singapore bureau, directing coverage of one of the region’s bellwether economies and Southeast Asia’s main financial hub. This ranges from macroeconomics to monetary policy, property, politics, public health and socioeconomic issues. She also keeps an eye on things that are unique to Singapore, such as how it repealed an anti-gay sex law but goes against global trends by maintaining policies unfavourable to LGBT families. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/even-singapore-lifts-gay-sex-ban-lgbt-families-feel-little-has-changed-2022-11-29/

    Xinghui previously covered Asia for the South China Morning Post and has been in journalism for a decade.

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  • Germany, U.S. to send battle tanks to Ukraine, Russia slams decision

    Germany, U.S. to send battle tanks to Ukraine, Russia slams decision

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    • U.S. providing Abrams tanks, Germany to send Leopard tanks
    • Biden: Tanks pose ‘no offensive threat’ to Russia
    • Russian-backed leader: Wagner force advancing on Bakhmut

    WASHINGTON/BERLIN/KYIV, Jan 26 (Reuters) – The United States and Germany have announced plans to arm Ukraine with dozens of battle tanks in its fight against Russia, which denounced the decisions as an “extremely dangerous” step.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the commitments and urged allies to provide large quantities of tanks quickly.

    “The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine. The numbers in tank support,” he said in a nightly video address on Wednesday. “We have to form such a ‘tank fist’, such a ‘fist of freedom’.”

    Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks to give its troops the firepower to break Russian defensive lines and reclaim occupied territory in the south and east. Ukraine and Russia have been relying primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.

    The promise of tanks comes as both Ukraine and Russia are expected to launch new offensives in the war and as fighting has intensified in Bakhmut in Ukraine’s east.

    Ukrainian forces destroyed 24 drones, including 15 over Kyiv, that Russia launched in overnight attacks, the military said on Thursday, adding there was major danger of more Russian air raids. An alert had been declared over most of the country.

    U.S. President Joe Biden announced his decision to supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks hours after Berlin said it would provide Leopard 2 tanks – the workhorse of NATO armies across Europe.

    Maintaining Kyiv’s drumbeat of requests for more aid, Zelenskiy said he spoke to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and called for long-range missiles and aircraft.

    Ukraine’s allies have already provided billions in military support including sophisticated U.S. missile systems.

    The United States has been wary of deploying the difficult-to-maintain Abrams but had to change tack to persuade Germany to send to Ukraine its more easily operated Leopards.

    Biden said the tanks pose “no offensive threat” to Russia and that they were needed to help the Ukrainians “improve their ability to manoeuvre in open terrain”.

    Germany will send an initial company of 14 tanks from its stocks and approve shipments by allied European states.

    The Abrams can be tricky, but the Leopard was designed as a system that any NATO member could service and crews and repair specialists could be trained together on a single model, Ukrainian military expert Viktor Kevlyuk told Espreso TV.

    “If we have been brought into this club by providing us with these vehicles, I would say our prospects look good.”

    ‘DANGEROUS DECISION’

    [1/17] Spanish army tank Leopard 2 of NATO enhanced Forward Presence battle group fires during the final phase of the Silver Arrow 2022 military drill on Adazi military training grounds, Latvia September 29, 2022. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

    Russia reacted with fury to Germany’s decision to approve the delivery of the Leopards.

    “This extremely dangerous decision takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation,” said Sergei Nechayev, Russia’s ambassador to Germany.

    Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, Russia has shifted its rhetoric on the war from an operation to “denazify” and “demilitarise” its neighbour to casting it as a face-off between it and the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

    Senior U.S. officials said it would take months for the Abrams to be delivered and described the decision to supply them as providing for Ukraine’s long-term defence.

    Germany’s tanks would probably be ready in three or four months, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said.

    Pledges to Ukraine from other countries that field Leopards have multiplied with announcements from Poland, Finland and Norway. Spain and the Netherlands said they were considering it.

    Britain has offered 14 of its comparable Challenger tanks and France is considering sending its Leclercs.

    BAKHMUT FIGHTING

    The Kyiv government acknowledged on Wednesday its forces had withdrawn from Soledar, a small salt-mining town close to Bakhmut in the east, that Russia said it captured more than a week ago, its biggest gain for more than six months.

    The area around Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of 70,000, has seen some of the most brutal fighting of the war.

    Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces were attacking in the direction of Bakhmut “with the aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region and regardless of its own casualties”.

    The Russian-installed governor of Donetsk said earlier that units of Russia’s Wagner contract militia were moving forward inside Bakhmut, with fighting on the outskirts and in neighbourhoods recently held by Ukraine.

    Analyst Kevlyuk said losing Bakhmut would not change much in terms of the tactical scheme of things but that he was more concerned by Russian efforts to regroup and concentrate resources in the Luhansk region.

    Donetsk and Luhansk make up the Donbas region. Russian forces control nearly all of Luhansk, while Russians and their proxies say they control about half of Donetsk.

    Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

    The 11-month war has killed thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and reduced cities to rubble.

    Reporting by Reuters bureaus; writing by Cynthia Osterman and Himani Sarkar; editing by Grant McCool, Robert Birsel

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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