Here we have the inner workings of Jihad training with one of our most eloquent reporters…

Iblees

One day as I walked to the market to buy some eggs, I noticed strange graffiti on a wall. Emblazoned in red paint was an invitation to join the fight against zionist subversion, western imperialism and painful hemorrhoids; the end having been muddled with a physician’s note.

It was an open call to Jihad by a militant Islamic organization. Jihad! The camaraderie, the righteousness, the third degree burns; it’s all I’d ever wanted. I was tired of being oppressed. There I was, in the prime of my youth, jobless, eggless, with subnormal visual acuity and four strands of the dengue virus, and who was to blame? I could imagine the conversation with my therapist.

“Doctor, I’m moody, I can’t sleep and I never seem to have enough energy to do anything.”

“Why, I believe you’re suffering from oppression”

I called their toll free number and signed myself up. They sent…

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Facebook Shares Personal Information w/ Advertisers w/out Consent

CANADA: The Canadian privacy group, The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPC), has filed a complaint against Facebook, citing 22 separate breaches of privacy law in the country.

There are about 7 million users on Facebook (out of a total of 17.5 million Canadians on the Internet) and Clinic Director Phillipa Lawson feels that the company “needs to be held publicly accountable”.

The complaint that was filed with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner states that Facebook does not share with users exactly how their personal information will be used; neither does it completely remove the information from their database after a user account has been deleted.

A 35-page action was lodged after law students who studied the company’s policies and practices identified many policies that seemed to violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda).

Facebook rejects the complaint. Their official argument against the complaint:

We pride ourselves on the industry leading controls we offer users over their private information. We believe that this is an important reason that nearly 40% of Canadians on the internet use our service.

We’ve reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors, most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users.

This is not the first time that Facebook has been accused of violation of privacy laws. Harley Finkelstein, 24 and a Facebook user for the last three years says, “Some 14-year-old kid might not know that privacy settings exist or how to take advantage of them or appreciate the ramifications of having their private information disclosed to third parties.”

In response, a Singapore student argues, “You can not talk about some 14-year-old kid who does not know how to use the Facebook interface. Chances are, the 14-year-old knows more about privacy settings than any older Facebook user.”

It all boils down to action now. Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has a year to act on the CIPPC’s complaint but it may not even come to that because Facebook has promised Stoddart to educate the public around privacy controls on Facebook. This includes a brochure and even a video project that has already been completed with Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian.

“There is no general data protection or privacy law in Singapore. I wonder what kind of protection will be given by the small privacy division in (the) Ministry of Finance or the Information Development Authority (IDA) to protect Singaporeans from Facebook and other online social networking websites that exploit user information,” inquired another anonymous Singapore student.

The Singapore Constitution does not contain any explicit right to privacy. The High Court has ruled that personal information may be protected from disclosure under a duty of confidences. The IDA website states that there is “no overarching legislation for the protection of personal data in Singapore”.

Financial Aid Results Released by NUS

SINGAPORE: The Student Financial Aid Unit (SFAU) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) yesterday released the financial aid application results for the next academic year, 2008-2009. The deadline for application was April 14 and SFAU announced the results after taking six weeks to evaluate the ‘need’ of the applicants. The financial aid website makes this commitment:

“NUS is committed to a needs-blind merit-based admission policy that ensures no deserving student admitted to the University is denied an education because of financial difficulty.”

This in-depth report aims to establish how committed NUS is about removing its students’ financial difficulties.

NUS offers a wide range of financial assistance schemes through SFAU, Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and Overseas Chinese Bank Corporation (OCBC). The loan that covers tuition fees is administered by DBS and OCBC, while the sources for the other schemes are donations from NUS alumni and sundry.

The major chunk (70-90%) of the tuition fees can be covered by the Ministry of Education (MOE) Tuition Grant that is available to nearly all undergraduates. The full tuition fee varies on various factors; whether you are a Singaporean, a Singaporean Permanent Resident (PR) or an international student; whether the course you study is lab-based or not; and it also depends on the faculty you enroll in.

For example, the fee for international students in the Faculty of Engineering (FoE) who matriculated in the academic year 2006-2007 is S$22,420*, academic year 2007-2008 is S$29,120, and academic year 2008-2009 is S$31,940. The tuition fee is fixed for the tenure of the student’s degree program.

To give a real depiction of what financial aid at NUS can be like, and repayment of loans, we picked the financial aid package being received by an international student who matriculated in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) in the academic year 2006-2007.

The student’s full tuition fee payable for one whole year (covering two semesters) is S$20,420. This amount is covered by the following schemes:

• MOE Tuition Grant** covers S$13,700 every year (about 70% covered)
• Tuition Fee Loan worth S$2,749.50 per semester comes to S$5,499 a year (about 25% covered)
• NUS Study Loan covers S$305.50 of the remaining tuition fee per semester that amounts to S$611 (about 2% covered).
• NUS Study Loan also gives ‘living allowance’ worth $3,600 every year (S$1,800 per semester). Though not stated clearly, the living expense amount is often used to offset any remaining tuition fee, which, in this case is S$915.50 for the entire academic year (about 3% covered and no tuition fee balance left). The student lived at Prince George’s Park Residences (PGPR) in a Type B room past year and the total fee for two semesters amounted to S$2,678.50 last year, which was settled using the S$1,800 living allowance, leaving the student with S$6. (Had the student chosen to live in a Type C room he would have been left with around S$200 or more for food and other living expenses.)

To provide further support, the student was also offered the following schemes based on the needs-assessment by the SFAU:

• Bursary worth S$1,200 was awarded that is not a loan and doesn’t need to be paid back.
• Subsistence Loan worth $2,200 was awarded that is ready cash transferred to the student’s bank account once a year to supplement living costs and sundry.
• Work-Study Assitance Scheme that enables students to supplement their finances through part-time work on-campus and helps students minimize their debts servicing burden upon graduation. (They receive a “priority consideration” letter from the school to show to prospective employers.)

The student is also in receipt of the Notebook Ownership Scheme, which is an interest-free loan administered by DBS or OCBC of up to a maximum of S$2,000 to purchase a computer notebook from the NUS Global Campus Notebook Tender. The student’s outstanding for this scheme is S$1,972.90.

When we asked the student if he had seriously considered paying off all those loans, the student replied with a levant ‘no’. “I am just focusing all my energy on graduating at the moment. Loan payments will come in later once I graduate and find a job,” he said.

So we sat down with the student and took out the terms and conditions of all his loans to enable him and others to see what kind of payments will need to be made once he starts working. The total outstanding loans (assuming that he receives/received the same package every year) for a four year course would be S$47,640. Adding in the Notebook loan brings the total amount payable to S$49,612.90.

Paying off the MOE bond is easy as long as you can manage to find a job and work in Singapore for three years. There is no payment required.

For the Tuition Fee Loan (total S$21,996) and NUS Study Loan (total S$16,844), interest computation is deffered until after graduation after which the average prime rate of DBS, OCBC and UOB applies. Minimum repayment is S$100 per loan per month to start with and maximum tenure for repayment is 20 years. At S$100 a month each, both loans could be paid off well before 240 months if there was no interest. But we must calculate interest to have a fair idea of what he will be paying off in the future. For this purpose we shall assume a prime rate of 5% and a variable rate of 7.00% (Prime Rate + 2.00%).

Given the real term of the Tuition Fee Loan, which is 20 years, the average monthly payment would be S$170.53 . The number of payments would be 240 for a total payment of S$40,928.34, of which S$18,932.34 is the interest on the loan. The cost of interest and fees per dollar borrowed is S$0.86 . The APR for this loan is 7.00%.

The average monthly payment for the NUS Study Loan would be S$130.59 . The number of payments would be 240 for a total payment of S$31,341.92 , of which S$14,497.92 is the interest on the loan. The cost of interest and fees per dollar borrowed is again $0.86. The APR for this loan is also 7.00%.

For the Subsistence Loan, it is interest-free but the repayment period varies from 3 to 5 years. For a total of S$8,800 for four years to be paid off in 5 years, the minimum repayment is about S$150 per month.

You get 30 months to repay the Notebook loan, which is also interest-free. The S$1,972.90 amount can come to a monthly payment of S$65 and you can be done with the loan in two and a half years.

We spoke to several students receiving maximum financial aid about making payments of more than S$500 every month at some point after graduation and they were shocked. We also mentioned that they may need to make Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions as well if they take PR in Singapore. We were surprised to find out that most students didn’t realize the kinds of legal obligations they get themselves into when they accept a financial aid offer. When we asked them to share their feelings, they were skeptical about sharing their identity with us.

A student who wished to remain anonymous said, “I come from a poor family and (we) don’t have the kind of money to be able to afford an interest of S$35,000. My mother saves every penny that she can.”

Another student who also wished to remain anonymous thought that the financial schemes offered by NUS were fair and that the interest dollars were “just a token to pay for an excellent career opportunity”.

“I think the bursary is brilliant. I got S$1,500 and it will solve all my problems,” he said. We asked him to share what kind of problems he was facing and he said he needed to buy a camera so that he could join Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) to get CCA points that are used to allocate on-campus housing.

Most of the students were unaware that the bursaries were collected from organizations such as Great Eastern and were matched dollar for dollar by MOE.

There is no doubt that the financial aid schemes offered by NUS are among the best in the world to the point of covering not only every cent of the tuition fee but also accommodation and other living expenses. The SFAU has a great responsibility in ensuring that the aid goes to the people who really need it.

Some students complained about untimely disbursement of the funds because they often face a lot of problems in the beginning of the first semester. Most people in receipt of financial aid live hand to mouth but they also need to understand that processing so many forms and so much money takes time. Perhaps SFAU can work with students to place a priority to disburse funds to students who need them more urgently.

*All figures are quoted in Singapore dollars (SGD).
**Required to sign a 3-year bond to work at a Singapore-listed company in Singapore upon graduation. Bond duration may vary from student to student.

Fat Indians sit and talk?

INDIA: 47% of Indian population reportedly fights the battle with gluttony while the state holds talks with Pakistan foreign ministry officials.

According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), 27% of India’s workforce suffers from hypertension, 10.1% suffer from diabetes and 47% are overweight. The study said that this was particularly evident in industries located in “highly urbanized areas”.

“So you’re telling me that half the country is dying in poverty while the other half is fat?” commented a Singapore student who wished to remain anonymous.

The top foreign ministry officials from both Pakistan and India intend to have a composite dialogue Tuesday that won’t have any major breakthroughs, and the Kashmir problem will definitely not be resolved. But 100 straying Indian fishermen in Pakistan’s custody will be released as a goodwill gesture when the Indian foreign minister visits Pakistan, while India will not blame Pakistan for the 63 dead in Jaipur in bomb blasts. This is characterized as a maturing relationship.

Whatever the case, if the talks have any result, it will be in the form of a lavish vacation trip for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Pakistan.

Author’s note: Since half of the Indian population is ‘overweight’, odds are that the half of the Indian foreign ministry officials sitting down to ‘talk’ are fat. Hence the title.

Great News from Facebook

UNITED STATES: After repeated requests from hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of people who have a lot of friends, Facebook has allowed users to add more than 5,000 friends.

This news comes in after they announced they are working to simplify the profile page – dividing it into several pages. They said this would allow them to retain the site’s easy interface for which it became popular in the first place.

This will be a good move to remove all the clutter created by the applications that are considered much like spam at the moment.

Whatever the case, I think the main complaint has been answered finally and you can add your 5,000 friends now.

Life in PGPR moves on

SINGAPORE: Since most of the student body in Prince George’s Park Residences (PGPR) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is done with exams, you can see the life in PGPR phasing out. Even life on campus seems to be coming to a halt. Lesser and lesser people are now seen at the various study rooms all around campus.

For someone who finished their exams on the 5th of May or sooner, they must be back home already, enjoying their vacations. After all, they did have a smaller semester than those who end their exams later, which means they had to cram more information in less time, so they deserve the early rest they get.

For others who end as late as this Saturday on the 10th of May, people may feel bad for you, but they probably don’t realize you had so much extra time to study – but of course at the expense of being under exam stress for a longer duration.

Quite a few people can be seen wearing formal clothes in PGP. It must be internship and job interviews that they dress up for, or perhaps they have already started working.

An interesting thing that people should know if they don’t have accommodation for next academic year and are counting on the vacation stay for three months: You are only given two months of vacation stay. Early July onwards you will be evicted so that you have one month out on the streets to find yourself a house, a condo, an apartment, a sidewalk – whatever it takes.

And eviction isn’t pretty. They actually get campus security over if you refuse to move out and get the cleaning staff to pack all your stuff randomly into neat little boxes. Then they put those boxes at the foyer so that you are ready to taxi away. Actually, that is a very good option if you are too lazy to pack. They pack your stuff for you free of charge if you refuse to move out.

NUS as a university has its policies and it can’t just kick out USP students who are Singaporeans with cars and homes nearby, just to accommodate a financially needy foreign student. That is life. Suck it up.

Natural Disasters & Doomsday

MYANMAR: The cyclone in Burma Myanmar is being seen by the locals as a God-willed retaliation against their totalitarian, lazy leaders. The government, they said, was more concerned with their constitutional referendum until it really hit them – literally and more adversely in their southern parts. Now the government has received its punishment and must work its ass off.

Calamities have lately been seen as God-sends in the recent years. The issue of increasing homosexuality in Northern Pakistan was cited as being the reason for the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. “God wanted to rid the world of those evil-doers.”

And for labelled-and-treated-as-terrorists Muslims at many parts around the world, the December 2004 Indian Ocean undersea earthquake was God’s punishment for ‘idol worshipers’.

Together, many religions take calamities as signs of Doomsday approaching. The Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam at least have a concept of heaven and hell, and for that concept to materialize, the world must come to an end soon sooner or later. With calamities becoming a common occurrence there is no doubt in a lot of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike that Doomsday is near.

I suppose, one day a major calamity will earth the entire planet. Maybe, like in the movie Armageddon, we will use science to survive and prevail. Or maybe, like the people of Lut, we will cease to exist and perhaps be preserved in some special way.

Lut was the nephew of Abrahim who went to the city of Sodom (now you know where ‘sodomy’ comes from) which was on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The people of Lut engaged in homosexuality and other evil so they were apparently engulfed in burning lava by God’s will and the whole thing was so sudden that their entire town was preserved (and rediscovered centuries later according to a show on National Geographic).

Launch of Newsblog

SINGAPORE: The blog “Nubeals Reports” has been officially launched on May 9th, 2008. The people behind this news-blog hosted it on WordPress in hopes of using some funky layout design in the near future.

The reporters have no agenda but since they are mostly students situated in a small country in SouthEast Asia, their reports will have a limited scope and a reasonable delay. They hope they will still be able to make some impact, if not a considerable amount, one of them said.