Lee Kuan Yew health condition worsens

Lee Kuan Yew health condition has deteriorated further and former Prime Minister of Singapore remains 'critically ill' according to a new statement from Prime Minister's Office Singapore. "Mr Lee Kuan Yew remains critically ill in the ICU and has deteriorated further."[1]

Yesterday, PMO has released a statement to announce that "Mr Lee Kuan Yew's condition worsened due to infection". Mr Lee, 91, has been hospitalised in the Singapore General Hospital since Feb 5, when he was admitted for severe pneumonia.[2]

Elected to Legislative Assembly in 1955 and becoming the first Prime Minister of Singapore in 1959 at the age of 36, Singapore's founding leader Lee Kuan Yew is widely credited with transforming Singapore from a relatively poor country to one of Asia's wealthiest economies. He has step down in 1990.

Mr. Lee was hospitalised at Singapore General Hospital after suffering a prolonged cardiac dysrhythmia in Feb 2013.

Meanwhile, rumour and fake news mill in internet is non-stop working and deceiving people. A fake Singapore government site was the last source in a serious "Lee Kuan Lew died" fake news and some international outlets like CNN fell to it. According to The Staits Times, Prime Minister's Office is lodging police report about fake website announcing death of Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

CNN was among several news outlets
which fell to fake news of Lee Kuan Lew's dead.

CNN later acknowledged that the death report was a hoax

Screenshots of the fake website started circulating on Wednesday night, leading some foreign media outlets to carry reports of Mr Lee's death, only to retract them later.

[1] - PMO Statement on Lee Kuan Yew's health
[2] - Mr Lee Kuan Yew remains 'critically ill'
[3] - PMO lodging police report about fake website announcing death of Mr Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew in hospital, ill but recovering

Singapore government announced on Tuesday that Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding prime minister, is in hospital after suffering from an infection. Mr. Lee 90, was admitted to Singapore General Hospital on Sunday after suffering from a fever and bad cough caused by an infection, his press secretary Yeong Yoon Ying said in a statement.

Singapore's first and longest-serving prime minister "has been advised by his doctors to avoid public appearances," Ms. Yeong said. This means that Mr. Lee, who remains a lawmaker, will skip an annual Lunar New Year celebratory dinner on Tuesday at his constituency in Tanjong Pagar, located in the island state's south, she said. Source - Singapore's Former Leader Lee Kuan Yew Hospitalized

Lee Kuan Yew led the Southeast Asian city-state from 1959 to 1990 and is widely credited with leading its transformation into a wealthy financial center after it became a nation in 1965. He is the father of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong was holding a ministor mentor position until recently.

Yeong Yoon Ying added that Lee would not attend a Lunar New Year dinner in his constituency of Tanjong Pagar on Tuesday evening due to his illness.

Lee Kuan Yew has just seen in NDP 2012

Lee Kuan Yew (88), founding father and former Prime Minister of Singapore, has just came to National Day Parade 2012 (NDP 2012). This will end the baseless rumors about his health in the past few days circulating around the Singapore social media.

There were rumors in the internet in the past few days which claim that he has passed away and they are not announcing the news until NDP 2012 ends. These kind of rumors about the health of elderly politicians are quite common around the globe and as far as I remember this is not the first time these false claims came out about Lee Kuan Lew.

Already yesterday, Tessa Wong tweeted that the rumors are not true and later Lee Kuan Yew was spotted leaving Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

According to Yahoo News, one of the first tweets referring to Lee Kuan Yew's health came on Aug 7th from the tweeter account of a Singapore blogger izreloaded. He claimed "high-level" sources had told him Lee's health was "critical" and that "several government agencies had been put on standby". [1] Yahoo! Singapore contacted him later and according to the news article he has repeated his claim that his "credible" sources told him Lee was "alive but critical".

[1] - Singapore heaves huge sigh of relief at Lee Kuan Yew's NDP appearance

Lee Kuan Yew seen at SGH on August 8th 2012

Yesterday we have written the rumors about  Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's health which are widely circulated in Singapore's social media and hearthlands. The rumors are basically like this: "Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew passed away on August 5th and they will announce the news after NDP 2012".

Yesterday,  SPH political journalist Tessa Wong tweeted that Lee Kuan Yew is alive and one of her  colleagues will meet him tomorrow in his office." And then, a photo appeared in the internet which shows Lee Kuan Yew walking out of Singapore General Hospital (SGH). The photo is said to taken on August 8th 2012.

Lee Kuan Yew at SGH

Lee Kuan Yew not dead tweets Tessa Wong

UPDATE : This a post about an old event. Refer to Lee Kuan Yew health condition here for 2015 events.

As a blogger, I regularly check Google Trends Singapore to find out what people are searching in Singapore. This is a very good way to find out what is going on in Singapore. A few days ago, I have started to see "Lee Kuan Yew passed away" type of searches trending up in Singapore. And today most searches were about this: "lee kuan yew" is the number one search in Singapore as of today and "lky dead", "lky passed away", "lky died", "lky rumour", "lky sick" and "lky death" kind of search terms are all in the top 20 list (see screenshot below). (Update : As of August 9th "lee kuan yew death" is the top search term.)

I remember these type of rumors circulating before (back in 2010 a rumour/hoax was doing the rounds that Lee Kuan Yew suffered a “massive” heart attack and was hospitalized at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Cardiac Unit of the Singapore General Hospital (SGH)). They are not new and I think they are periodic. It is quite global also especially for important and elderly political figures who do not appear in the media for a while. I guess this time, the rumours about the health of Lee Kuan Yew (88), the founding father of Singapore, originated in twitter and quickly spreaded online and in the HDB heartlands.

Searches about Lee Kuan Yew's health are trending up as of  8 August 2012

And just today, I have heard two dudes in the train talking about it. One said "They are hiding it now because of NDP 2012 and will announce after that".

Later today, I have seen SPH political journalist Tessa Wong's tweet where she says Lee Kuan Yew is alive and one of her colleauge will meet him tomorrow. She twitted:

"People. LKY not dead. Okay? My colleague is seeing him tomorrow. And not in a mortuary."

She also wrote:

"The idea tt media is coverg up LKY's death cos "dowan spoil NDP" is ludicrous. Hello, NDP is gr8 excuse for giant LKY mourning parade, can?"



UPDATE: Lee Kuan Yew seen at SGH on August 8th 2012

Tessa Wong of SPH says Lee Kuan Yew is alive.