OTGV #37 - Balaji's Concerns
Broadcast Date: 22/09/03
In a recent talk to tertiary students, Minister of State for Health and Transport Balaji Sadasivan spoke about the various threats to Singapore’s security.
Chong Ching Liang, who was at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs-organised event, brings you the highlights.
=========================
It was a student seminar on international affairs.
But perhaps in current times, the focus of the day was on the negative aspects of international affairs.
The students were exposed to the pessimism of a world re-shaped by globalization.
Hi welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
The Guest of Honour for the seminar was Dr Balaji Sadasivan the Minister of State for Health and Transport.
He started off by highlighting how globalization might have changed the world for the worse.
"This seminar title "borderless threats, boundless enemies" aptly describes the security challenges of today. In the past, the threat to a country came across its borders. Your borders are finite and you only have a limited number of neighbours. But today with globalisation, with air travel, international communications, every country in the world is your neighbour. And every country where there is a conflict, that conflict can come over and affect the security of your country. A good example is the Middle-east conflict and the terrorism it generates has an impact on us and the security in Singapore today."
Globalization and the Internet may have benefited research and communications but this benefit also extends to people seeking to topple the current world order.
But while terrorism using conventional bombs may be on everyone's mind, Dr Balaji touched on what he considered the more lethal threats facing the world today.
"I consider the most lethal forms of borderless threats: infectious disease and bio-terrorism. A single atypical pneumonia carrier in the province of Guang Dong was all it took to spark off the outbreak of SARS worldwide. The SARS incident has also brought to the foreground the need to adequately prepared against the threat of bio-terrorism. Defence against bio-terrorism has been on the top agenda since the anthrax attacks following 911. But the SARS outbreak and its impact on such a global scale has been a rude awakening for many countries and exposed the inadequacies of their emergency preparedness."
SARS is a disease that evolved from nature and as a result the outbreak had an idiosyncratic behaviour that epidemiologists worldwide could detect and subsequently subvert its spread.
Dr Balaji told the students that a bio-terrorist attack may come with synchronized attacks in different parts of the world or in a country.
This makes policing and containment ever more challenging.
The current New Economy has also been called the Age of Biotechnology.
Biotech firms are supposed to provide the push for the next phase of the global economic evolution.
But the proliferation of biotechnological research also has its downside said Dr Balaji.
"The possibility of bio-terrorism attacks is more probable than what is commonly believed. Biological weapons are sometimes called the "poor man's atom bomb" because it is relatively cheaper to administer than conventional or nuclear weapons. Some experts have estimated it to costs only about one dollar per square kilometer of disruption. With bio-technology on the rise, discoveries in life sciences may further increase the potency and diversity of bio-weapons. It is also becoming difficult to distinguish between legitimate research in biotechnology and ill-intended research in bio-weapons."
Half of Dr Balaji's 20-minute speech was on infectious diseases and bio-terrorism, the other half was on conventional terrorism.
No wonder when it came to the turn of the students to speak most asked him about threats and challenges posed by terrorism and regional conflicts.
The first question asked.
"I am Kelvin from Anderson JC. Sir you have pointed out the bio-terrorism can inflict more damage as it can be synchronized. However during the infection outbreaks of SARS we have lives lost so how can we keep the damage low when an unexpected virus attacks synchronized by terrorists have occurred?"
Dr Balaji's answer to Kelvin's worry.
"You must have sufficient intelligence to pre-empt it to make sure they don't even cross the border into Singapore. And second you must have adequate surveillance we have put into place. System to monitor what is happening so that if there is some unusual pattern then you immediately know something is wrong and investigate because it is easier to contain an outbreak when it is small than when it becomes widespread."
But this answer doesn't seem to assuage the students’ worries.
All who spoke seem fixated on the issue of violent conflict.
The last question of the day to Dr Balaji was on what he considered to be his main concerns.
His reply wasn't anywhere near terrorism at all, which might have surprised the students though it shouldn't have.
"Empower youth to deal with the current situation. If I were a young person today in the current situation, my biggest concern would be employment and career prospects. And how you empower young people to deal with that."
That was the only time economic challenges was raised in the half an hour that students had in their question and answer with the Minister of State.
Globalisation - seen in its most violent and sensational incarnation.
Ironic, in world made so much smaller by air-travel and the Internet, the ties that bind are seen as ties that constrict and force conflict, and not a forger of friendship.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
================================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
Singapore Institute of International Affairs
http://www.siiaonline.org/
In a recent talk to tertiary students, Minister of State for Health and Transport Balaji Sadasivan spoke about the various threats to Singapore’s security.
Chong Ching Liang, who was at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs-organised event, brings you the highlights.
=========================
It was a student seminar on international affairs.
But perhaps in current times, the focus of the day was on the negative aspects of international affairs.
The students were exposed to the pessimism of a world re-shaped by globalization.
Hi welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
The Guest of Honour for the seminar was Dr Balaji Sadasivan the Minister of State for Health and Transport.
He started off by highlighting how globalization might have changed the world for the worse.
"This seminar title "borderless threats, boundless enemies" aptly describes the security challenges of today. In the past, the threat to a country came across its borders. Your borders are finite and you only have a limited number of neighbours. But today with globalisation, with air travel, international communications, every country in the world is your neighbour. And every country where there is a conflict, that conflict can come over and affect the security of your country. A good example is the Middle-east conflict and the terrorism it generates has an impact on us and the security in Singapore today."
Globalization and the Internet may have benefited research and communications but this benefit also extends to people seeking to topple the current world order.
But while terrorism using conventional bombs may be on everyone's mind, Dr Balaji touched on what he considered the more lethal threats facing the world today.
"I consider the most lethal forms of borderless threats: infectious disease and bio-terrorism. A single atypical pneumonia carrier in the province of Guang Dong was all it took to spark off the outbreak of SARS worldwide. The SARS incident has also brought to the foreground the need to adequately prepared against the threat of bio-terrorism. Defence against bio-terrorism has been on the top agenda since the anthrax attacks following 911. But the SARS outbreak and its impact on such a global scale has been a rude awakening for many countries and exposed the inadequacies of their emergency preparedness."
SARS is a disease that evolved from nature and as a result the outbreak had an idiosyncratic behaviour that epidemiologists worldwide could detect and subsequently subvert its spread.
Dr Balaji told the students that a bio-terrorist attack may come with synchronized attacks in different parts of the world or in a country.
This makes policing and containment ever more challenging.
The current New Economy has also been called the Age of Biotechnology.
Biotech firms are supposed to provide the push for the next phase of the global economic evolution.
But the proliferation of biotechnological research also has its downside said Dr Balaji.
"The possibility of bio-terrorism attacks is more probable than what is commonly believed. Biological weapons are sometimes called the "poor man's atom bomb" because it is relatively cheaper to administer than conventional or nuclear weapons. Some experts have estimated it to costs only about one dollar per square kilometer of disruption. With bio-technology on the rise, discoveries in life sciences may further increase the potency and diversity of bio-weapons. It is also becoming difficult to distinguish between legitimate research in biotechnology and ill-intended research in bio-weapons."
Half of Dr Balaji's 20-minute speech was on infectious diseases and bio-terrorism, the other half was on conventional terrorism.
No wonder when it came to the turn of the students to speak most asked him about threats and challenges posed by terrorism and regional conflicts.
The first question asked.
"I am Kelvin from Anderson JC. Sir you have pointed out the bio-terrorism can inflict more damage as it can be synchronized. However during the infection outbreaks of SARS we have lives lost so how can we keep the damage low when an unexpected virus attacks synchronized by terrorists have occurred?"
Dr Balaji's answer to Kelvin's worry.
"You must have sufficient intelligence to pre-empt it to make sure they don't even cross the border into Singapore. And second you must have adequate surveillance we have put into place. System to monitor what is happening so that if there is some unusual pattern then you immediately know something is wrong and investigate because it is easier to contain an outbreak when it is small than when it becomes widespread."
But this answer doesn't seem to assuage the students’ worries.
All who spoke seem fixated on the issue of violent conflict.
The last question of the day to Dr Balaji was on what he considered to be his main concerns.
His reply wasn't anywhere near terrorism at all, which might have surprised the students though it shouldn't have.
"Empower youth to deal with the current situation. If I were a young person today in the current situation, my biggest concern would be employment and career prospects. And how you empower young people to deal with that."
That was the only time economic challenges was raised in the half an hour that students had in their question and answer with the Minister of State.
Globalisation - seen in its most violent and sensational incarnation.
Ironic, in world made so much smaller by air-travel and the Internet, the ties that bind are seen as ties that constrict and force conflict, and not a forger of friendship.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
================================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
Singapore Institute of International Affairs
http://www.siiaonline.org/
posted by CHONG Ching-liang | 3:28 PM
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