Protest

Excerpt from TODAY Online,
PROTESTING THE WORLD BANK FROM BATAM
Thursday August 31, 2006
On Sept 18, as many as 700 people from a dozen countries will take to the
streets, waving banners and chanting slogans to protest the policies of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group.
But instead of marching in Singapore, where the annual meeting will be
held at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition
Centre, the protesters are taking their gripes to Batam.

The first thing that came to my mind was a chinese saying 'Ge An Guan Huo' (watching a fire from the opposite bank). How do u protest fm such a distance??!! Sounded quite ridiculous and hilarious to me. And why Batam?

The International People's Forum (IPF) will be attended by delegates from
several international groups and is being coordinated by Mr Ramches
Merdeka, an anti-human trafficking activist based on the island. Batam was
chosen because it is close to Singapore and offers cheap accommodation,
said Mr Ramches.

Cheap accomodation only? I suspect that the organisers / participants must be predominantly male, and staging a protest in Batam will give them a legitimate excuse to go Batam, which also offers a certain pleasurable activity at very cheap rates. How abt that.

Most of the foreign participants are expected to enter Batam through
Singapore. Several Singaporeans will also attend the forum, said Mr
Ramches, but did not say how many have signed up so far.

Oh well, if they need more Singaporeans, there will definitely be alot of Singaporean DOM (Dirty old men) in Batam to supplement numbers. Or maybe, for a small fee, they can easily hire more pp to join in the protest. Afterall, Batam labour is much cheaper than Singapore labour .