By Zakir Hussain

SENIOR Pastor Derek Hong of the Church of Our Saviour has said that he regrets using the pulpit to mobilise support for one camp in the ongoing dispute over leadership of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware).

'I regret that this matter has caused concern and unhappiness. My actions on the pulpit have aroused some tension in this saga. I now stand corrected,' he said in a statement last night.

His statement comes a day after the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) issued a statement to say it does not condone churches getting involved in the matter, or pulpits being used for that purpose.

How it got to this
Aware's new exco has shrunk from 12 to 8 in just five weeks

THE women who founded and ran Aware for 25 years had a rude shock at its annual general meeting on March 28, after more than 100 people turned up. They were expecting 30 or 40.

Most of those who came were new members who had joined in recent months. Aware's rules made it easy for anyone to join, and any member could stand for elections.

When the election of new office bearers began, outgoing president Constance Singam nominated Mrs Claire Nazar to be president and she was returned without a contest. But when longtime Aware member Chew I-Jin was put up for vice-president, she lost to new member Charlotte Wong Hock Soon by a wide margin.

Will face-off take off? No confidence vote not on EGM agenda
By Wong Kim Hoh, Senior Writer

IT HAS been billed the big showdown, but today's face-off between the opposing sides of Singapore's leading feminist group could well turn out to be the big letdown instead.

Long-time members of the Association of Women and Research (Aware) called for today's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) hoping to table a vote of no confidence in the new executive committee.

But will the meeting even get to discussing that?

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