Why isn’t Changi Int’l not protected against drone intrusions?/ Paper weapons?

Recently, I wrote SAF got this meh? and asked if SAF had anti-drone weapons because Changi Int’l recently had problems with two drone intrusions, resulting in disruption of flights. Two men were subsequently arrested and will be charged in court.

A regular reader (also of the constructive, nation-building ST) sent me a link from ST, the opening paras read

 Fly a drone within 5km of an airbase, and you could find it taken down by one of the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) latest weapons.

The Jammer Gun, when fired, emits a signal to jam the control signals of the drone, which will then be unable to survey the premises of the base.

The RSAF also has the Drone Catcher system, which uses a net to snare errant drones. The two weapons will be in action this weekend (May 26 – 27) at the open field next to Jurong East MRT station.

ST

Why only airbases protected? Why not Changi Int’l?

If these weapons worked as advertised, they’d have been shot down the drones. But maybe, they don’t work as advertised? Hence their absence from Changi? If the weapons don’t work at an SAF base, the public will be none the wiser, even if an intruding drone damages the base: “Top Secret – Drone attack succeeds”.

But at an airport, good luck keeping a weapons failure a secret. Too many civilian eyes.

 

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Enough space for Queen Jos to have sex?

On the same day I read about S’pore’s declining birth rate

The number of babies born here last year fell to an eight-year low, posing more demographic challenges for an ageing population.

The Report on Registration of Births and Deaths 2018 said 39,039 births were registered last year, a 1.5 per cent drop from 2017.

I read a BBC article about a couple who built a house on the back of a flatbed trailer in County Down, NI. See photo below.

This reminded me about a story about a tiny apartment in Tokyo: width the length of outstreched hands but over two stories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

“You don’t need much space to have sex,” Jos Teo. More at: MOS Josephine Teo was misquoted

HK: Inconvenient truths for China and West/ FT PAP missed

As the letter to the Editor of the Economist (see below) points out

— “The promise of universal suffrage as the ultimate aim appears in the Basic Law”, HK’s “constitution” that was approved by Beijing. One in the eye for China for being that stupid. Another in the eye for now changing it’s mind. Why pretend in the first place?

— The British only took “action to return power to the people until they learned that there would be no hope of extending British rule beyond 1997”: “Perfidious Albion” as the French would say. Saboing China isit? Planting a bomb and hoping it would explode after they left?

To be fair to the British Foreign Office, the mandarins there were appalled by the decision of Chris Patten (last governor of HK but the first British politician to hold that post) endorsed by the British cabinet to give the HK people democratic rights which the British had long withheld from them.

The mandarins like the Chinese leaders thought that HK would be returned to China on an “as is” basis. The clock on political and social changes had stopped at the time the Sino-British joint declaration on the future of Hong Kong was agreed upon, unless both sides agreed to changes. But Patten saw a loophole in the declaration, and sensed that China did not want to make HK people more fearful of China by publicly kicking up a huge fuss about giving the HK people democratic rights previously denied to them.

The letter is from a pro-China member of LegCo. She was the Secretary for Security and tried to pass some really draconian laws but the Hongkies demonstrated and the laws never passed.

I must take issue with “China’s chance” (June 22nd), which ascribed the recent turmoil in Hong Kong to China’s alleged suppression of Hong Kong’s freedoms and reluctance to grant the territory universal suffrage in electing its chief. China has gone much further than Britain in democratising Hong Kong. The promise of universal suffrage as the ultimate aim appears in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, not in the Sino-British joint declaration on the future of Hong Kong. Nor did the British overlords take action to return power to the people until they learned that there would be no hope of extending British rule beyond 1997.

It is naive to suggest that universal suffrage will solve all Hong Kong’s problems. Its people, especially the young, are deeply angered by the acute housing and land shortage, the widening wealth gap, worsening living conditions and the narrowing opportunities for upward mobility because of competition from a rising China. Hong Kong, however, is not unique in experiencing deep divisions because of growing disparities.

Universal suffrage to elect the city’s leader, with groups fighting on opposing ideological or socioeconomic platforms, would serve only to amplify the existing schisms. Britain’s recent political polarisation among Remainers and Leavers is a cautionary tale for those who have romantic illusions about democracy. Our city’s priority must lie in tackling deep-rooted social and economic problems with a view to improving the livelihood of our people.

regina ip
Member of Hong Kong’s
Legislative Council
Hong Kong

Maybe PAP govt should have offered her a job in the civil service after she resigned as Secretary for Security. She’s their kind of FT: what with her dismissal of universal suffrage, and emphasis on security and keeping the masses contented. But she really has talent, and has a mind of her own, like many Hongkies.

Related posts:

How Xi can hurt HK the non violent way

HK demonstrations: What I’d like to know