Tag Archives: LKY

The family of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew placed full-page advertisements in major Singaporean daily newspapers today thanking the public for the "affection and respect" shown in the wake of his passing. The advertisements were placed on Thursday, 23rd April, exactly one month following the founding Prime Minister's passing on 23rd March, following a protracted stay in hospital due to pneumonia.

Ultramarathoners Mr Lim Ngee Huat and Mr Yong Yuen Cheng will be running 50km a day together for 50 days to commemorate the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's significant contributions to building the nation and to honour some of his character traits. Each day of the run will be anchored by a theme based of one contribution or character trait. A total of 50 themes have been decided by the Institute of Technical Education students, such as independence, self-reliance, and kindness.

A committee will be set up to gather views from the public for a memorial dedicated to Singapore’s founding fathers, announced Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament today. The committee is chaired by former Shell Companies Singapore chairman Lee Tzu Yang, and if the idea is popular among Singaporeans, the committee will take the project further.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew visited SAFTI MI in Aug 1995 before the unit's opening ceremony. As you know, SAFTI's nearest MRT station back then was Boon Lay, a distance away. Our Commandant then (a Brigadier General) was giving a brief to Mr Lee. Lee suddenly asked how far is the nearest MRT to SAFTI MI. He was told it is 30 minutes by bus. Lee replied "How can our NS boys reach camp on time? Did you arrange the army tonners to pick them up?". The Commandant replied "No". Then Lee stared at the Commandant, turned to then Defence Minister Dr Tony Tan and said "Can you please arrange for ferry buses to pick up our NS boys as soon as possible? Four waves in the morning and four waves in the evening."

Papa thought he was answerable only to his own people. Even then, he wanted to do only what was right, regardless of whether it was popular or politically correct. It is now apparent that though he never courted popularity, most Singaporeans know how much he did for them and that he devoted his life to his country.

"They don't have to build many roads. They don't have racial problems. We have racial problems. And they can forget about the minorities and do what they like," Dr Mahathir said, according to news portal Malaysian Insider. "We can't do that here, we have to think about minorities, think about the rights of people..." he added. "So there is a certain give and take that we have to do here which you don't have to do in Singapore. So I would like to say that he (Lee) had a much easier time than I had."

Many Singaporeans made use of their long weekend to go visit the late Lee Kuan Yew's memorial exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore yesterday. More than 5,500 people turned up at the NMS to view the "In Memoriam: Lee Kuan Yew" exhibition. The queues were up to at least four hours’ yesterday. Some were left stranded when the queues were cut off at 4pm, 4 hours ahead of the NMS' closing hours because of the overwhelming demand..

A Singaporean couple who started an online petition for an annual public holiday to honour the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew have received a death threat. Businessman John Lim and his wife, Madam Tan Lay Geok, started the website – www.lkyday.com – to petition the Government to declare 23 March a public holiday. This was the day Mr Lee died.

Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, who was formerly the late Lee Kuan Yew's principal private secretary, had written about a red box that the late LKY used to carry around in a Facebook post last Tuesday. According to the post, the late LKY used it to record and store materials about his work and had used it up till the day before he was hospitalized in February this year.

"Well, it's not a matter which I can decide or any government can decide. It's a question of what a society considers acceptable. And as you know, Singaporeans are by and large a very conservative, orthodox society, a very, I would say, completely different from, say, the United States and I don't think an aggressive gay rights movement would help. But what we are doing as a government is to leave people to live their own lives so long as they don't impinge on other people. I mean, we don't harass anybody."