Posts tagged: ethics
Yahoo SG News:
Party chairman Sylvia Lim explained that Yaw was “expelled because he has not addressed allegations”.
This is the hallmark of accountability. Something that has not been heard of in Singapore in a very very long time.
BBC News:
A Tibetan nun has set herself on fire near a restive monastery in western China, in the ninth such incident in recent months, reports say.
It is as clear as day that the Tibetan people do not welcome the suppressive colonisation of Tibet by the PRC government.
It puzzles me greatly why the PRC government so expansionist and hungry for territory. They have sufficient natural resources, land, and human resources, only lacking in ethics and morals in their society.
Now, infringing upon the sovereign rights of another territory, for what gain? More suppression of the innocent?
NYTimes Opinion Blogs:
The problem, according to the writer, Liu Shinan, a high-ranking editor at the paper, is that many in China worry that they will be found liable for the injuries that they are seeking to alleviate.
The fear is not unfounded: in 2006, a man who helped an elderly woman to the hospital was dragged to court by her family and later made to pay a large share of her medical bills.
The difference between the Law of Torts in Common Law, and the lack thereof in Chinese Civil Law jurisdictions.
Reuters:
Video footage of a two-year-old child run over by a van and ignored by passersby in China has ignited public uproar for what some are calling the immorality of modern society.
Very clearly, the difference between under-developed or developing country and a developed country. There’s no need for GDP figures.
Summary: Singapore journalists say they are increasingly frustrated with GOS-imposed limits on their domestic reporting. Political leaders put pressure on the Straits Times (ST) staff to ensure that the paper’s domestic coverage follows the government line. Reporters say they are eager to produce more investigative and critical reporting, but they are stifled by editors who have been groomed to tow the line. Some reporters seek an outlet for their journalistic passions by serving as overseas correspondents, where ST allows reporters much greater latitude; others consider plying their trade elsewhere. Given that media restrictions are no greater now than in the past, reporters’ increasing frustration may reflect this generation’s rising expectations. End Summary.
Good that they journalists are actually frustrated.
After stumbling on a Facebook page dedicated to posting hurtful comments about local high school students, McKendrick did a little investigative work and discovered the page was created by a group of teenage girls that the photographer had booked for future photoshoots.
“It was beyond ‘your clothes are ugly’ or ‘you don’t have any brand clothes’ or ‘you are ugly, your hair is not right,” she told Pittsburgh’s 6 News. “It was vicious. It was talking about sexuality.”
McKendrick promptly contacted the real-life mean girls and their parents via email, explaining she could no longer provide her photography services.
Nice. Encouraging to see people taking a stand with ethical businesses.
In a major about-shift, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the People’s Association have lifted restrictions on who residents can invite to events held on public sites leased by the PA.
However, these activities had to be “non-political” in nature and that they had to be organised by “non-grassroots organisations”.
That’s still a major contention. What on earth is the difference between grassroots organisations and non-grassroots organisations?
The liberalising of rules, announcing in a joint HDB-PA statement on Tuesday night, is the latest twist in a public debate over the use of open spaces in Aljunied GRC, which is under the Workers’ Party (WP).
It’ll be interesting to see how this goes.
The Worker’s Party sets the record straight:
This release seeks to enlighten the public about what transpired in the weeks after the May General Election, which has led to the current controversy about use of public spaces by residents of Aljunied GRC to organise events.
HDB owned common areas which were once leased and managed by the former Aljunied Town Council are now suddenly leased to PA and managed by PA.
From the background facts provided, I find it extremely distasteful that the WP was only “informed retrospectively” of such arrangement after the fact. I know that there isn’t a legal case but this really smells like a Tort.
We need an Ombudsmen to investigate the hell out of these “public” institutions to ensure that public funds really benefit the public, not only the ruling party.
Judge Alsup — the federal judge presiding over this litigation — attaches a great deal of importance to that particular document. At a recent hearing, he essentially said that a good trial lawyer would just need that document “and the Magna Carta” (arguably the origin of common law) to win this case on Oracle’s behalf and have Google found to infringe Oracle’s rights willfully.
Google’s behaviour is pretty appalling. What’s happened to “Don’t be Evil”?
A Tibetan monk set himself on fire Monday to protest the lack of religious freedom in China, the second such protest in five months. Yesterday the government announced a “strike hard” campaign aimed at the Muslim Uighur minority in the northeastern territory of Xinjiang. Meanwhile, the authorities are tightening control over mainstream Christian churches, stepping up arrests of Catholic priests.
I smell greater tyranny up and coming. Before long, it’ll spill over its borders.
I guess it’s just lucky for us that this was an experiment, and that we don’t make our full time income from selling Android apps, but rather from developing for iOS. That said, we want to make a clear stand here, so that Amazon doesn’t take advantage of those less fortunate than us.
So today we’re making a stand. Effective immediately we are removing ourselves from the Amazon Store. We’re not the only ones doing this.
That’s extremely unethical. I recommend boycotting the Amazon Appstore.
In recent years, Apple’s Chinese suppliers have been involved in a string of labor and environmental infractions, from a string of suicides linked to poor or inhumane working conditions at plants managed by one of its major suppliers, Foxconn, to allegations by green groups that chemicals leaching out from its factories are polluting China’s fields. True, Apple is hardly alone among international companies with Chinese factories in having problems arise from the practices of its suppliers. But what makes Apple singular, say Chinese environmental and labor rights activists, is its sluggishness in responding to complaints and its secretiveness about just which factories are in its supply chain.
Ma Jun is one of the leaders of the Green Choice Alliance, a coalition of 36 Chinese NGOs that tracks pollution reports among international brands operating in China. In January, they released a report focusing on global IT companies that ranked Apple dead last among 29 companies in responding to inquiries about pollution and workers’ safety. Last winter, Ma met with Jia and helped him pen a letter about working conditions and medical compensation to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. It went unanswered. So did a second letter.
According to Ma, most multinational companies go through an evolution in dealing with complaints presented by Chinese civil society groups: “from nonresponsive, to somewhat resistant, to at least listening, to a proactive response.” Two examples of the latter category would be Siemens and Vodafone, which now use the NGO’s database to check potential suppliers before renewing contracts. Apple, however, has stayed resistant, fighting off attempts by others to uncover whether factories where workers have been poisoned or where pollution is extreme are their suppliers. “They said, it’s our long-term policy not to disclose our supply chain,” Ma told me. “So no one can make any public scrutiny? No one can really know what is really happening?”
Richard Brubaker, a Shanghai-based supply-chain consultant who follows sustainability issues, has a similar impression: “Name another firm that has … billions in reserves and [continues to work] with suppliers who have a clear record of failure to comply with Apple’s own codes of conduct.”
As for Jia, now resting at his parents’ home in the tiny village of Heze, he says: “I never feel the so-called ‘human rights protection’ and ‘respect’ that have always been advocated by American corporations. I only feel hypocrisy.”
Though ethics isn’t one of their core products, it is critical to have ethical behaviour embedded within their corporate culture. I think it’ll do Apple even greater good in dedicate more resources to managing ethical compliance.
The attitude of the government official in the cartoon above is exactly the attitude adopted by the Ministry of Manpower whenever workers bring complaints to them. I don’t only refer to foreign workers; I’ve heard similar frustrations from Singapore employees when they claim to have been shortchanged — albeit these examples were from several years ago. Rogue employers (and these are a small fraction of employers, most of whom are honourable) are like the robber above. Their failure to pay what’s due to workers has the same effect as robbing them.
The ombudsmen, if exists, would be able to investigate such complaints of government ministries and departments impartially.
We have created a monster of a migrant worker policy that is almost designed to exploit the vulnerable. One of the key features of that policy which renders all other better-intentioned aspects null and void is that of giving employers a blank cheque as to when to terminate and repatriate an employee. Employers then use this “veto power” to intimidate and silence the workers.
Unethical employers, unethical public policies, unethical attitudes of public institutions. No wonder human rights are in such a dismal state here.
We really need an ombudsmen to ensure that all these complaints are addressed.
