Duty now for the future

[wombat_socho]

Der Spiegel has an interesting article on Singapore's recent move to loosen up politically as part of a general drive to encourage creativity and spur the city-state's transition to a post-industrial economy. I'd seen posts in other blogs about the enormous rallies in support of the opposition Workers' Party, so this doesn't come as a complete surprise, but I wasn't aware that the ruling PAP was actually tolerating this sort of thing. I wonder how similar this really is to the steps taken by the KMT in Taiwan some years ago? Granted, the political situation isn't entirely the same, since Singapore doesn't have a ginormous neighbor continually making irredentist threatening noises, do they? Last I heard, neither Malaysia nor Indonesia were terribly keen on the ethnic Chinese who (IIRC) make up the vast majority of Singapore's citizens, but it's not a corner of the world I claim to know much about.

Via Colby Cosh. Also worth checking out is the interview with the retiring President of Costa Rica, the story on polio in Somalia and the asshats in India who made a four-year-old run ten and a half miles.Talk about news of the world.