SINGAPORE - A swarm of bees was killed by a Punggol resident who allegedly found them residing in a shower head in his bathroom last Sunday (Feb 26).

Photos of the bees were posted on Twitter by user @yokey017 - who claimed to be the resident's friend - and have since gone viral, garnering close to 3,000 retweets.

The bees were exterminated using the pesticide Baygon, according to @yokey017.

When contacted by The Straits Times on Monday, @yokey017 said his friend did not want to be interviewed, but confirmed that the incident had occurred in the latter's Punggol home.

This follows an incident last week at Ang Mo Kio Garden West, where a woman in her 30s was stung badly by a swarm of bees.

She was later taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the National Parks Board (NParks) cleared the swarm within the day.

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Photo Gallery

Swarm thing: Bees form growing hive on tree

Source: Stomp, Lianhe Wanbao, The New Paper

Bee sightings have also been reported in the Sengkang and Punggol areas in the past.

In August last year, big swarms of bees invaded at least five HDB blocks in Punggol. Exterminators were called in and it took nearly two hours to kill them.

Over a thousand bees also reportedly swarmed into two blocks of flats in nearby Sengkang in June 2015.

To report sightings of bee hives, the public can contact the National Parks Board's (NParks) helpline at 1800-471-7300.

Here is what to do if you are attacked by bees:

- Cover your face and run as fast and as far away as you can;

- Run against the wind, as the resistance makes it harder for bees, which do not fly very fast, to keep up;

- Run until you get to shelter, as most bees are disoriented by lights and changes in temperature;

- Do not swat at the bees, flail your arms or jump into water, as the bees will wait for you to surface.

This article was first published on Feb 27, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

It is a tech race among condo developers this year.

Smart technologies, such as facial recognition devices for access to gyms or mobile apps to book facilities or even control appliances are now must-have features in new condominiums.

Future residents at Clement Canopy, launched on Saturday, will use a mobile app that integrates smart technology for their home and common areas in the estate.

Other developments such as Qingjian Realty's iNz Residence executive condominium in Choa Chu Kang and Fantasia Investment's 6 Derbyshire also promise smart-living technologies for residents.

Smart home concepts are not new.

Qingjian Realty's Visionaire, launched last year, was one of the first few projects to feature smart-home technologies.

Mr Li Jun, executive director of Qingjian Realty, said the features have been well-received, with about 80 per cent of buyers opting for smart homes.

He said: "At an industry level, we are quite heartened that developers have subsequently introduced smart home packages.

"This will ultimately benefit the buyers, as the industry evolves to better serve their needs."

Such innovations should be integrated with smarter communities and digital payments, said Mr Andrew Tan, director of business development and sales at Smart Gateway, who is behind 6 Derbyshire's app.

The app, named LifeUp, allows residents to book facilities and make payments for maintenance fees, as well as control appliances within the home.

The freehold development at Novena also has car plate recognition systems and facial recognition devices for residents to access facilities like the gym.

Mr Tan said that his firm has been approached by other condominiums.

"LifeUp connects residents, MCST (the condo's managing body) and managing agents in an entire ecosystem, creating unprecedented cost savings and productivity gains to the business," he added.

Smart technology has not been limited to private homes.

In 2015, the first "smart" Build-to-Order project was launched in Punggol and would be ready by 2020. These Housing Board flats will come with extra power and data points to support the smart systems.

Last April, the Yuhua neighbourhood in Jurong East became the first HDB estate to roll out smart home packages to over 3,000 households.

The technologies include a utilities management system which helps households monitor energy and water usage through a mobile app and an elderly monitoring system that consists of motion sensors and alerting capabilities.

Mr Desmond Sim, CBRE's head of Research, Singapore and South East Asia, thinks that developers have recognised that they have to provide smart features to remain competitive.

He said: "For homebuyers, (such features) won't be a compelling reason to buy, but it's a good-to-have. The price and location of a development is still the biggest factor."

Qingjian's Mr Li said: "In three to four years, Singapore would be a smart nation... Home owners would naturally expect to go home, at the end of the day, to a smart home."

linheng@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Feb 28, 2017.
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SINGAPORE - A taxi driver was jailed 18 weeks on Monday (Feb 27) for lying to the police that a Caucasian passenger had slapped him, which in turn led to the latter being convicted.

Read also: Three in the dock on cabby-abuse charges

Chan Chuan Heng, 48, was also sentenced to a week in jail for punching Norwegian Arne Corneliussen, 52, on his head at the intersection of Circular Road and North Canal Road at about 1am on Sept 22, 2014. Chan was found guilty after a four-day trial.

District Judge Adam Nakhoda ordered both sentences to run consecutively.

Chan, defended by Mr Steven Lam, began serving his sentence on Monday although he wants to appeal.

Mr Corneliussen, a Singapore permanent resident, had been given 10 weeks' jail in 2015, after pleading guilty to causing hurt by grabbing Chan's neck and choking him after a night of drinking. He also paid $30,000 compensation to Chan.

After reading about the case in The New Paper, Mr Roslan Zainul and his friend Mohamed Ayub Shaik Dawood came forward and told the police that Chan's version of events was not true and that Chan, and not Mr Corneliussen, was the aggressor.

The prosecution's case is that the attack was sparked off by Chan refusing to use his taxi meter and demanding a flat rate of $45 from Mr Corneliussen who said he would report him to the Land Transport Authority.

Corneliussen had already served more than half of his 10-week sentence when his guilty plea and sentence were quashed in May 2015.

He was re-tried and fined $2,000 after he was convicted of causing hurt by wrapping his arm around the cabby's neck.

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Photo Gallery

Cabby choked by drunk man thought he was going to die

Source: The New Paper, Lianhe Wanbao

Submitting for a sentence of four to six months' jail, Deputy Public Prosecutors Zhuo Wenzhao and Kelly Ho said Chan intentionally gave a false statement to put someone else into trouble.

They said Chan lied that Mr Corneliussen had slapped him without provocation after he told the passenger that he was going to the toilet.

The prosecutors added that Chan's statement clearly inferred that he was motivated by malice and his only aim was to get the Norwegian into trouble.

He had also given the police a selective portion of the video footage to bolster his lie and boost the chances of misleading the investigation officer into believing that Mr Corneliussen was the aggressor.

"Chan's insistence on repeating and perpetuating his lies to the bitter end evidences a startling lack of remorse, and represents a considerable aggravating factor,'' said DPP Zhuo.

Saying this was one of the worst cases of making a false report, DPP Zhuo said Mr Corneliussen lost his well-paying job and sustained emotional harm in the form of loss of sleep and constant worry over his job loss. He also had to pay a significant amount of legal fees to right the wrong committed against him.

Chan had previous convictions for outrage of modesty, providing entertainment without a licence and gaming in public.

He could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined up to $5,000 for causing hurt.

The maximum penalty for giving false information to the police is one year's jail and a $5,000 fine.

Read also: Norwegian meets his 2 Samaritans for first time

WATCH THE VIDEO

The three men meet for the first time outside the courtroom.

This article was first published on Feb 27, 2017.
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The landmark Katong Shopping Centre is looking for buyers again, now that plans to develop the site into a mall with serviced apartments have been approved.

More than 80 per cent of the owners by share value had agreed to a collective sale last June, but it did not go through as the Government did not give its approval for the proposed redevelopment plans.

"The Urban Redevelopment Authority had previously rejected approval of the first proposal as there had been concerns on the traffic congestion in the area, which the initial proposal of a fully commercial mall would add on to," said Ms Christina Sim, director for capital markets Cushman & Wakefield.

She added that the new zoning of the area for commercial/serviced residence use "would not add too much vehicular traffic".

Now that the plans have received the green light, the search for buyers is back on.

The property's reserve price remains $630 million, which translates to a land price of $2,248 per square foot of gross floor area.

Ms Sim said the plot should yield more than 400 units of serviced apartments, based on unit sizes of about 500 sq ft.

xinen@sph.com.sg

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

The last time Mr Stephen Sackur squared off with a Singapore politician, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam earned rave reviews for how he fielded questions from a man regarded as one of the world's toughest interviewers.

Mr Sackur, host of the BBC's flagship interview programme, HARDtalk, earned that reputation from conducting 30-minute one-on-one inquisitions that have seen celebrity agent Max Clifford storm off mid-show and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo threaten legal action.

Not that Mr Tharman was fazed.

The most memorable exchange at the St Gallen Symposium in Switzerland in May 2015 was perhaps Mr Sackur pressing Mr Tharman on whether he believed in the concept of a social safety net.

Without flinching, Mr Tharman replied: "I believe in the notion of a trampoline."

It left the crowd and his interviewer in stitches and earned him plaudits back home.

Read also: Safety net? More like a trampoline, says DPM Tharman

But Mr Sackur, 53, told The New Paper in an interview last week that Mr Tharman would have faced a more "challenging" test had their interview taken place on his home turf - the BBC HARDtalk studios - rather than the more academic setting of the symposium.

The British journalist said: "(The symposium is) supposed to be a more relaxed and more discursive format. It is different from HARDtalk. Of course it would have been different if it was a HARDtalk interview.

"It would have been more challenging, because that is the nature of the HARDtalk format, as opposed to the symposium, which is a more academic gathering."

While Mr Tharman may have dodged a Sackur punch, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be following his predecessors, Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Mr Goh Chok Tong, in taking up the HARDtalk challenge.

The episode will air on the BBC (StarHub TV Ch 701) tomorrow at 12.30pm, 5.30pm and 11.30pm.

Previewing the interview, which took place here on Thursday, Mr Sackur told TNP he would be speaking to Mr Lee about the Singapore experience, homosexuality and Section 377A of the Penal Code, tying human rights to trade agreements, the impact of new US President Donald Trump and what a post-Brexit United Kingdom can learn from Singapore.

SUCCESS STORY

He added that it is important for the world to reflect on Singapore's rise as "one of the world's great economic success stories".

Mr Sackur, who has helmed HARDtalk since 2006, said: "That is the basis of coming to Singapore to meet the Prime Minister and trying to tease out what Singapore has done, how it has done it, what the upsides and downsides of the Singapore experience are and to what extent it is translatable to the rest of the world."

That notion of translatability has become more relevant to his home nation, with several prominent figures in the UK both touting Singapore as a post-Brexit model as well as cautioning against the championing of the Republic as a template.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell of the opposition Labour Party has accused British Prime Minister Theresa May of "wanting to turn Britain into a Singapore of the North Atlantic".

Meanwhile, the single biggest individual donor to the Brexit campaign, billionaire Peter Hargreaves, has praised former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and said Singapore should be a model for the UK.

Mr Sackur said: "Some cite Singapore as the model we should pursue - committed to truly open global trading relationships, low taxes and a deregulated economy.

"People say let us be more like Singapore, without really knowing what Singapore is and how Singapore works.

"So that is going to be one of the things that intrigues me in my conversation with the Prime Minister, to try and tease out what it is that Singapore has done and whether it is translatable, and whether he believes there is anything Singapore can teach the UK as we contemplate our post-Brexit future."

Another thing that intrigues Mr Sackur is a chance to interview Mr Trump.

The Cambridge and Harvard-educated journalist has retweeted online comments urging Mr Trump to take his place on the HARDtalk hot seat.

Mr Sackur said: "It would be true to say that every journalist in the world right now would like an interview with Mr Trump, and the opportunity to put him on HARDtalk and have a full half-hour interview with him would be fantastic.

"We would love it, our audience would love it, but whether Mr Trump would love it is perhaps another question."

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Photo Gallery

From sports to economics, a peek into the life of DPM Tharman

Source: The Straits Times, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, The New Paper, MCI, Lianhe Zaobao

dilen@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Feb 28, 2017.
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Recognising the value of internships, the National University of Singapore is restructuring its curriculum to allow some of its students to go on work attachments for as long as 18 months, starting from the new academic year in August.

For a start, students from three computing courses - information security, business analytics and data science - will go on the 18-month internships from the end of their second year.

Besides using both years' long holiday breaks - from May to July - students will spend the whole of their third year working in a company.

They will be given an allowance.

In the fourth year, they can take on research and projects that are related to the firm's work.

NUS provost Tan Eng Chye said university officials had studied work-study schemes, called cooperative education at several American and Canadian universities.

These include the one run by Canada's University of Waterloo, which is known for boosting the job prospects of its graduates.

Professor Tan said the NUS scheme will start with students in the three computing courses, where the industry is hungry for talent and where the time taken from research outcomes to application is short.

Students can go out to work and apply what they have learnt from their professors and see how it can be applied to solve real-world problems in the industry.

Students' progress will be monitored by their professors and supervisors in the firms where they are attached.

"We will set out clear learning outcomes at various stages... so that students will get the most out of it," Prof Tan said.

Adding that students will be graded, he said: "This is to signal the importance we place on it. Besides acquiring work skills, it is an opportunity for students to try out jobs and learn more about the industry they will be entering. For employers, it is a good way to recruit talent."

Work attachments, of up to six months, have been made compulsory for NUS engineering and computing students since 2014.

Medical, nursing, pharmacy, social work, food science, new media and accountancy students are also required to undertake work attachments.

Though 70 per cent of NUS undergraduates undertake some form of internship, the university has yet to collate figures on how many end up working for the companies they interned at, Prof Tan said.

Anecdotally, many students do end up receiving offers at the end of their work stints.

NUS final-year student Luqman B. Lukman, who is majoring in quantitative finance, said he benefited from his three internships in a government agency, an accounting firm and global financial services firm J.P. Morgan Singapore - which offered him a permanent job as a technology analyst.

The 25-year-old, who took the job, said: "It meant giving up a chunk of my holidays, but it was well worth it as the work stints helped me discover where my strengths lie and what sort of job would suit me."

NUS computer science graduate Rey Neo Zhi Lei, 25, who became a software engineer at PayPal after interning there in his final year, said: "The six months were invaluable. I got a better understanding of what the work entails and what skills are important for work."

sandra@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Feb 28, 2017.
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SINGAPORE - The fight to return to her family's side is not yet over for Singaporean Irene Clennell, despite her deportation from Britain on Sunday (Feb 27).

The 52-year-old grandmother, who has a husband and two sons in Britain, arrived back in Singapore at around 3pm on Monday after she was suddenly removed from Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre in Scotland, where she was held since Jan 20.

Even though she now faces a 10-year travel ban back to Britain, Mrs Clennell said she will continue to appeal the decision and reach out to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for help.

The ECJ, which is the highest court in the European Union (EU), had previously ruled in favour of the free movement of non-EU family members.

Read also: Singaporean granny deported from UK with only $20 on her

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Photo Gallery

52-year-old grandma back in Singapore after deportation

Source:

The Straits Times

Irene Clennell

Speaking to the Straits Times at Changi Airport, she accused the UK authorities of denying her due process.

Mrs Clennell said she was under the impression that her case was still being looked at by her legal representatives and the day for her to leave would not be soon.

Said Mrs Clennell: "They brought me to a room surrounded by officers from Dungavel and the UK Home Office. There were around 12 other detainees, and they told us to call our solicitors, if we had any.

"But it was a Sunday, and I only had my lawyer's office number."

Her belongings are still in her UK home and she only carried £25 (S$43.60), which are her earnings from working at the detention centre's laundromat, she told ST.

Under flight escort by four officers with the British authorities, she was sent on a long flight back to Singapore, with a stopover in Doha, Qatar. Two of her three sisters, Lily and Juspin Anthony, met her at the arrival gate.

Said Ms Lily Anthony, 54, a financial accountant: "It was so sudden. None of us had any idea it was going to happen."

Read also: Singaporean married to Briton faces deportation although she has lived in UK for 27 years

Her case is a longstanding one spanning more than two decades.

She was first granted an Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) - which is typically given to foreign spouses of British citizens - when she married Mr John Clennell in 1990, after they met in a London pub. An ILR allows a person to stay in Britain without time restrictions.

In 1992, she moved back to Singapore with her husband. She stayed here as her mother was sick. When her mother died in 1999, she found that her ILR had lapsed as a clause in it says she cannot live outside Britain for more than two years. Her husband and their sons returned to Britain in 1998.

Her numerous applications for another ILR have been rejected.

Her case has caught the attention of the British press and pro-migrant advocacy groups in the past month. British MPs also weighed in on her plight, calling for the authorities to reconsider her deportation.

"Britain is her home, and there can be no justification for forcing her to leave," Mrs Clennell's MP, Mr Kevan Jones told BuzzFeed UK.

A Home Office spokesman said: "All applications for leave to remain in the UK are considered on their individual merits and in line with the immigration rules. We expect those with no legal right to remain in the country to leave."

This article was first published on February 28, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

SINGAPORE - From July, water prices in Singapore will increase by 30 per cent in two phases.

This was announced by Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat in Budget 2017.

The first hike will be from July 1 this year (2016), and the second from July 1 next year.

In this episode of askST, journalist Lin Yangchen explains how water bills are calculated.

Charges are based on how much water you use in a month.

Following the first hike, if you use 40 cubic metres of water or less, the charge is $2.10 per cubic metre. If you go beyond 40 cubic metres, the charge goes up to $2.61 per cubic metre.

A person uses an average of 0.15 cubic metres or 150 litres a day, according to the Public Utilities Board (PUB).

This article was first published on Feb 28, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Dynamic fares based on demand will apply to those using Grab ride-hailing app

Some taxi fares could soon fluctuate according to actual demand for cabs.

Two taxi operators are planning to implement dynamic fares, popularly known as surge pricing, with a third looking to join the fray.

Trans-Cab, Singapore's second largest operator with 4,566 taxis, and Premier Taxi, the second smallest with 1,889 cabs, said they had informed the Public Transport Council (PTC) of their plans.

Prime, the smallest operator with 731 cabs, is considering implementing the controversial fare system too.

Though taxi fares are not regulated here, operators are required to keep the PTC posted of all changes before they are implemented. The operators are awaiting the PTC's response.

The new fares will apply only to commuters hailing a cab via the Grab ride-hailing app.

ComfortDelGro and SMRT Taxis have not indicated that they want to join the initiative.

Dynamic fares vary according to real-time demand - lower than the current structured taxi fares during off-peak hours but possibly much costlier when demand surges.

During major rail breakdowns, commuters complained of Uber fares exceeding $140 - four to five times that of a usual taxi fare.

But supporters of dynamic fares point out that in cases of high demand, the supply of taxis under the current pricing plan is inadequate.

Premier Taxi managing director, Mr Lim Chong Boo, said: "During the peak, there would not be enough taxis even if we doubled the fleet."

He said dynamic pricing "is a Grab initiative, and as a business partner, we are supporting it".

The new format will give commuters another alternative to secure a cab, he added.

"It'll also allow taxi drivers some levelling of the playing field," said Mr Lim, referring to cabbies complaining they are losing business to private-hire drivers due to the rigid fare surcharge system taxis must adhere to.

Trans-Cab managing director, Mr Teo Kiang Ang, said he was keen to roll out dynamic pricing, "but the PTC asked us to hold on".

Asked why the council's approval had to be sought since taxi fares have been deregulated since 1998, a PTC spokesman would only say: "PTC and Land Transport Authority will jointly review the applications."

Observers reckon the Government is waiting for market leader ComfortDelGro - which controls more than 60 per cent of taxis here - to make a move before making a decision.

Two weeks ago, ComfortDelGro's chief executive of taxi business, Mr Yang Ban Seng, said: "We would love to do surge pricing, but I don't think we are allowed to."

Assistant Professor Yang Nan of the National University of Singapore Business School's strategy and policy department said taxi firms may actually lose some competitive advantage as "people prefer conventional cabs because there is more certainty in their fares".

"If everything is too similar, it will boil down to price competition. And the taxi companies do not have the advantage of these other players," he said, adding that the latter "have deep pockets and money to burn, and they can press down fares".

SIM University economist Walter Theseira said: "On the one hand, it is a good idea to have better responsiveness. But the risk is it will be next to impossible to get a street hail.

"This may be a transitional concern though. If people move entirely over to getting a taxi via an app, then it won't be a concern any more."

Grab would not comment when contacted yesterday.

This article was first published on March 1, 2017.
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A district judge was scathing in his remarks on SMRT Trains after imposing a record $400,000 fine yesterday on the company over an accident last year in which two trainees died.

Meting out the deterrent fine, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt found that SMRT's culpability was high and that the "failures were fundamental and serious".

What the employees were doing on the day in question was highly dangerous, he said.

He said that while it was revealed that there were operating procedures in existence, they, sadly, were "not worth the paper on which these were printed, if they were printed at all".

Read also: MOM, LTA issue interim safety instructions to SMRT in wake of fatal accident
SMRT sacks train driver in fatal track accident
SMRT trains, 2 employees charged over fatal accident
National Transport Workers' Union submits appeal against dismissal of two SMRT staff

SMRT had pleaded guilty yesterday to one charge under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for failing to take measures necessary to ensure the safety and health of its employees who had to access the train tracks during traffic hours.

On March 22 last year, two trainees died when a train hit them shortly after they stepped onto the tracks, in SMRT's worst fatal rail incident.

Mr Nasrulhudin Najumudin, 26, and Mr Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari, 24, were part of a 15-member team sent to check on an apparent fault when they were hit by the train near Pasir Ris MRT station.

In his remarks, the judge noted the scale of the lapses and SMRT's ignorance of its staff's practices.

He said: "It was also highly disconcerting and aggravating that the failures were systemic and had occurred on many levels, and that, at the very least, SMRT ought to have known of these failures, even if it did not in fact know of them."

He went into further details on the operating procedures and said that not only were these not followed, but a completely different and clearly unsafe set of practices had been adopted for a long time by SMRT employees.

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Photo Gallery

2 SMRT staff die in incident on MRT tracks

Source: Stomp, The Straits Times, Berita Harian

HAPHAZARD

The practices appeared to have evolved in a haphazard fashion to suit the convenience of the employees. These were neither documented nor disseminated. The official safety protocols were either unknown or completely disregarded.

The judge also found that the potential for harm was high.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Anandan Bala said this was not a one-off incident.

As early as 2002, the Operations Control Centre, which is in charge of granting permission for and supervising track access, had been approving requests that did not comply with the operating procedures.

This was SMRT's third transgression of workplace safety within a short span of 5½ years, he said.

In mitigation, SMRT's lawyers, Senior Counsel Andre Maniam and Ms Jenny Tsin, said the company has reviewed and tightened its operating procedures.

Mr Maniam said his client failed to detect that the employees had deviated from the operating procedures to minimise disruption of train services, albeit while maintaining adequate safety standards.

He said: "These deviations were never documented, approved or authorised by SMRT for the simple reason that SMRT did not know of them."

Both trainees' families declined comment when contacted. The company could have been fined up to $500,000.

elena@sph.com.sg

Read also: 
SMRT accident: Witnesses living near train station recount heart-stopping moments before tragedy
SMRT deaths: 2 killed were among 15 staff on walkway

This article was first published on March 1, 2017.
Get The New Paper for more stories.

LONDON - A crowdfunding campaign for legal fees to help a Singaporean grandmother deported from Britain for breaching immigration rules had raised more than £46,000 (S$80,000) by Tuesday (Feb 28).

Irene Clennell, who first arrived in Britain in 1988 and is married to a British man, was deported to Singapore on Sunday despite a high-profile campaign for her to stay on compassionate grounds.

Her sister-in-law, Angela Clennell, set up the crowdfunding campaign, saying that her brother was seriously ill and Irene was his "sole caretaker".

"Irene has nowhere to go in Singapore, both her parents have passed away - her whole life is here in Britain," Clennell said on the website gofundme.com.

"As you can imagine it was a great shock receiving the phone call from Irene at 11am to inform us she was being deported at 3.30" on Sunday, she said.

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2017-02-28 11:10:26

Photo Gallery

52-year-old grandma back in Singapore after deportation

Source:

The Straits Times

Irene Clennell

Clennell is staying with her sister in Singapore.

She and her husband John have two children and a two-year-old granddaughter.

She spent periods of time in Singapore to care for her parents before they died and lost her leave to remain as a result of Britain's spousal visa system.

The controversial system means that the British partner in a marriage has to prove earnings of at least £18,600 and the couple have to demonstrate long stretches of uninterrupted time living in Britain.

The threshold was put in place in 2012 as part of efforts to drive down the number of immigrants arriving in Britain from outside the European Union.

"All applications for leave to remain in the UK are considered on their individual merits and in line with immigration rules," a Home Office spokesman said.

"We expect those with no legal right to remain in the country to leave," he said.

In a stacking ring toy used to develop a child's fine motor skills, the biggest ring goes in first to form a sturdy base.

That base is what the Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDC) Bill hopes to be for the early childhood sector, said Minister of Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin.

"The ECDC Bill seeks exactly to be that strong and reliable base for the sector - to consistently provide good quality programmes that give our young parents peace of mind when it comes to the safety, well-being and development of their children," he told Parliament yesterday to kick off the debate.

The Bill was passed yesterday and the law will come into effect over the next year.

It will cover private childcare centres and kindergartens, which now come under the Child Care Centres Act, but exclude those run by the Ministry of Education (MOE), which are governed by the Education Act.

Three key provisions were introduced in the Bill:

• Childcare centres and kindergartens have to renew their licences regularly. Childcare centres already do this while kindergartens are registered through a one-off process. The maximum tenure will be extended to three years, up from the current two. Pre-schools with at least two consecutive two-year licences will be given a three-year licence.
• On top of entering and inspecting pre-schools and taking documents from them, Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) officers will get more investigative powers to interview people, and take photos, videos or audio recordings at pre-schools.
• The penalty framework will now have a wider range of regulatory sanctions to make sure the penalty is proportionate to the breach. The new law carries a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine and a year's jail.

The current Child Care Centres Act carries a maximum of $5,000 fine and two years' jail while the Education Act has a maximum $2,000 fine and a year's jail.

While MPs supported the Bill, some were concerned with potential fee rises.

Mr Tan said the new law is unlikely to, and should not, lead to higher fees as the regulatory framework has been carefully calibrated to raise the quality of programmes without unnecessarily raising costs.

He said the two main cost drivers for pre-schools are rental expenses and teachers' salaries.

Some MPs also raised concerns about MOE kindergartens staying under the Education Act instead of coming under the new law, with Nee Soon MP Lee Bee Wah asking if it was a case of double standards.

Mr Tan said that prior to ECDA, the early childhood space was left to the market. MOE later stepped in with MSF to develop a curriculum and standards for the sector.

"MOE is not a fringe player that's coming in or one of those establishments that has no background. They are intimately involved in the process from day one. And MOE, I think, will fulfil ECDA's requirements along with the rest of the industry," he said.

Manager Alan Cheng, 34, who has a three-year-old girl, told The New Paper: "As my wife and I work, we have no choice but to put our girl in a childcare centre.

"Knowing that everyone who works there, from cleaners to third-party vendors, will have to be approved by ECDA for their suitability gives us peace of mind."

fjieying@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 1, 2017.
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The water price hike was vigorously debated by Members of Parliament (MPs) yesterday, a little over a week after Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat had made the announcement in his Budget speech.

Mr Heng had announced that the price of water will go up by 30 per cent in two phases, starting from July 1, to pay for more costly methods of obtaining fresh water from sea water and to get people to save water.

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Budget 2017: Heng Swee Keat receives warm welcome back in Parliament

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This is the first time in 17 years that water tariffs will go up and on the first day of the Budget debate yesterday, Non-Constituency MP Dennis Tan said the increase has left many Singaporeans and businesses extremely nervous.

Calling it "a dramatic rise", Mr Tan said the ones most affected will be industries that use a lot of water, such as the food and beverage sector.

Read also: Cost of supplying water has more than doubled: PUB
Water price hike might not affect customers
Water-tariff hike will not blunt S'pore's competitive edge: Masagos
Water price hike: Water users worried but see need to curb wastage

He felt the sharp increase in water tariffs could have an adverse chain reaction - as a rise in such costs could lead to an increase in prices that would be passed on to consumers.

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Singapore's fifth NEWater plant at Changi

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But Mr Henry Kwek (Nee Soon GRC) said that the U-Save rebates will lessen the impact of the water hike.

Those living in one- or two-room HDB flats, for example, will end up spending a dollar less on their monthly water bills on average after the rebates are applied.

Those in four-room flats will see their bills rise by about $5 from the current average of $42 after rebates.

Mr Kwek said that hawker stalls he visited will see about a $30 increase in costs a month - an amount that was unlikely to translate to an increase in living costs.

Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh called for the Government to clarify how the Public Utilities Board (PUB) prices water to help the public better understand the hike.

He suggested the Government look at alternative policies, such as the tightening of regulations on sanitary appliances such as mixers and shower heads that use excessive water, to promote the use of water-saving appliances.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) suggested industry players get together and work with PUB and A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) and come up with long-term solutions.

Mountbatten MP Lim Biow Chuan backed the hike, agreeing with Mr Heng that water is critical to Singapore's survival, adding that there is never a good time to raise prices.

He felt the 30 per cent water hike may have distracted many from the main focus of this year's Budget - which is to plan for the country's future.

Mr Heng will respond tomorrow, after which Parliament will form the Committee of Supply to debate the budgets of the respective ministries.

rloh@sph.com.sg

Read also: Twitter users share how to save water after Budget 2017's announcement of water price hike
Budget 2017's water price hike: What you're not hearing about the 30 per cent increase

This article was first published on March 1, 2017.
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Born with brittle bone disease, he fractured his right leg more than five times in primary school.

Since then, Mr Mohamed Najulah has used a wheelchair for his own safety.

"In the hospital, my mum would tell me in tears that everything will soon go back to normal and these were but small obstacles I could overcome," the Singapore Polytechnic (SP) student, 21, told The New Paper.

These experiences would later help him develop an award-winning web-based app called Happy Wheel.

Mr Najulah joined SP as part of its pioneer Polytechnic Foundation Programme (PFP) in 2013. He studied business information technology and will graduate in May with more than 800 other PFP students.

The idea for the app came after he went for a talk at the Microsoft building at Marina Boulevard and realised his route there from the MRT station was full of barriers and steps.

He started developing Happy Wheel at his first hackathon, the Transport and You(th) Hackathon in April 2015. The app taps on publicly available data sets and Google to suggest wheelchair-friendly paths. It also allows users to share convenient paths for other wheelchair users.

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Happy Wheel won the People's Choice award at the hackathon and was even highlighted on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's Facebook page after he attended the event.

Mr Najulah said: "I was so nervous meeting him... and was honoured that he featured it."

He is still working on the app with seven coursemates.

The PFP is a through-train programme introduced by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the polys in 2013 for top performing Normal (Academic) students, said Ms Chao Yunn Chyi, director of SP's School of Mathematics & Science, which coordinates SP's PFP.

Students enrolled in the PFP will skip their fifth year in secondary school and move directly into poly.

Upon completion of the PFP, they will start on their full-time diploma courses as other poly-bound students.

MOE data shows that across the polys, 99.5 per cent of the pioneer PFP batch made it to their diploma course.

Mr Najulah has just finished an internship at A*STAR's Institute of High Performance Computing where he assisted in research to create barrier-free access for wheelchair users.

He aspires to continue developing apps that will be useful to society, and advises other people with disabilities: "There is no challenge that is insurmountable, there will always be an alternative way out.

"You just need to find it."

chualel@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 1, 2017.
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As many as 2.89 million Indonesians visited Singapore throughout 2016, contributing the highest figure of around 17.7 per cent to its total foreign tourist arrivals of 16.4 million, according to a statement released by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

The statement said last year's figure for Indonesians had increased 6 per cent, as compared to a 10 per cent decline in 2015.

STB director for Indonesia Raymond Lim said during a media gathering in Jakarta on Tuesday that his side would continue to carry out efforts to lure more Indonesians to visit Singapore.

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Top 10 hotels in Singapore 2017: TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards

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The Ritz-Carlton

Millenia Singapore

Capella Singapore

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore

Shangri-la Hotel

InterContinental Singapore

The Quincy Hotel

Raffles Hotel

The Fullerton Bay Hotel

AMOY by Far East Hospitality

Hotel Vagabond

"We really hope that we can maintain what we had last year. We have to maintain not just in numbers but we want to make sure Indonesia remains our number one market," he said, adding that around 30 per cent of Indonesian tourists visited Singapore for business.

He said the board would hold road shows to Palembang, South Sumatra, and to Medan, North Sumatra, in March and April for promotion. The road shows would continue to Bali and Sulawesi in August and September to attract tourists from the eastern part of Indonesia.

Lim said Singapore was expecting around 16.4 to 16.7 million foreign tourists in 2017, with total tourism revenue of around S$25 to S$25.8 billion.

He may be among the top guns in the Singapore Government but Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam is clearly also keeping tabs on the country's music scene.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Feb 28) evening, Mr Tharman, who is Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, praised singer-songwriter Joel Tan as an example of "a young Singaporean who knows what he wants, and works for it."

Tan, 22, who goes by the stage name Gentle Bones, had been featured in a BBC video for being Singapore's answer to Ed Sheeran. He was also featured in a recent Forbes Asia list of "30 under 30" personalities and quit university to focus on his music.

Mr Tharman wrote: "I've known Joel for some years now, and admire how he's carving his own path. A different path."

Incidentally, Joel Tan's father is Mr Tan Chong Huat, a prominent lawyer and founding member of law firm RHTLaw Taylor Wessing.

Mr Tharman also asked his social media followers to catch Gentle Bones at an upcoming gig on March 11, and to hear other top local performers and new talents.

But then came a cheeky comment from follower Roy Lim who made a post referencing the logistical nightmare at last Saturday's Guns N' Roses concert here which angered concert-goers for never-ending queues for food and beverages that snaked for hours, among other issues that cropped up.

Lim posted: "Will there by a 2 hour queue for beer?"

In a rare move by a Singapore politician, Mr Tharman wasted no time to reply him with something tongue-in-cheek.

Posting a cute emoticon character holding a mug of beer, Mr Tharman wrote: "I'm unreliably informed that the KPI is 5 mins max."

The man said it like it is, that no one should have to wait that long for a beer. And we agree too.

His reply attracted 117 likes while the original post has been shared 131 times as of Wednesday morning.

Here's the original post:

sujint@sph.com.sg

In a cruel twist of fate, a 67-year-old retiree suffered a fatal heart attack moments after catching a rare monster, 'Lapras' last Sunday (Feb 26), 5.30pm at Marina Bay Sands (MBS), near an entrance to Bayfront MRT Station.

The deceased's 66-year-old wife told reporters that during the time of the incident, the deceased was out hunting for Pokemon at MBS, reported Lianhe Wanbao.

According to her, her husband would regularly visit the site to catch Pokemon ever since the launch of the game, 'Pokemon Go'.

On the day of the incident, the family had met up for a meal together to celebrate a family member's birthday.

After the meal, the deceased went home to change before heading to MBS to catch Pokemon.

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Pokemon Go health hazards

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Said the heartbroken wife:

"There was a sudden call from the hospital after 6pm.

"They (The medical staff) told us to come see him one last time.

"At that moment, I knew things were bad."

She also told reporters that her husband had a history of cardiac disease, and when she received the call from the hospital, she instantly suspected that her husband had suffered a heart attack.

According to a statement issued from Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), at 5.30pm on Feb 26, paramedics conveyed a man to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

The man died shortly after being admitted.

GPS readings on the deceased's handphone showed that the deceased had indeed been catching Pokemon at MBS, and that he had managed to capture a rare 'Lapras' and a second generation monster, 'Granbull' before the heart attack was triggered.

The deceased was considered an avid player, having captured over 200 kinds of Pokemon and a player level of 28.

Read also: Grandfather shot and killed while playing Pokemon Go

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When Dr Albert Hong was hospitalised in 2013 for pneumonia, he was given a 20 per cent chance of survival - and he lived.

The pioneer architect's close encounter with death prompted him to do more for the community.

Soon after that, the philanthropist donated $30 million to the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday shared the story behind Dr Hong's donation to SUTD, which has named its largest lecture theatre after him.

In his speech at the dedication ceremony, Mr Goh called Dr Hong a good friend who had confided in him after recovering from pneumonia in 2013 that "there must have been a reason why God let him live".

So he decided to give away most of his wealth.

Mr Goh, an SUTD patron, suggested that he contribute to the university and its students.

Today, the Albert Hong Lecture Theatre seats up to 530 students and is designed as a central meeting venue for discourse and knowledge exchange, SUTD said.

The donation will aid in advancing teaching and research goals and provide more bond-free scholarships and bursaries, it added.

Prior to SUTD's formation in 2009, Dr Hong had advocated for a second school of architecture apart from the one at the National University of Singapore.

Dr Hong and his firm designed landmarks such as Ion Orchard.

In his speech, Dr Hong, 82, chairman of RSP Architects Planners and Engineers, said he was not born into a wealthy family.

But his mother, who lived frugally, managed to send him to London to study architecture.

There, he took on part-time jobs including working during the winter at an ice-cream factory in Birmingham, where he contracted severe pneumonia, which continues to afflict him today.

He said: "My aim is straightforward - to help the underprivileged receive the education they deserve. No deserving student should be denied formal education because of lack of financial support."

About 100 SUTD scholarships are disbursed every academic year.

Other donations to schools

• The Lee Foundation, which is synonymous with the late Mr Lee Seng Gee, a longstanding chairman of the foundation and the Lee Rubber Group, donated $50 million to the Singapore Management University (SMU) in 2004 and $30 million to the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2005.
• The Hotel 81-Choo Chong Ngen Bursary was launched in SMU in 2015, following a $2 million donation by budget hotel magnate Choo Chong Ngen, founder and executive chairman of the Hotel 81 chain.
• In 2013, SMU renamed its student counselling base the Mrs Wong Kwok Leong Student Wellness Centre after a donor who had pledged $1.6 million to it. Mrs Wong made her fortune in ship equipment and supplies, tin mining and the hotel business.
• Professor Saw Swee Hock, a demographer and statistician, donated $30 million to launch a new school at NUS in 2011. The money went towards researching cost-effective ways of improving public health that are relevant to Asia.

melodyz@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Mar 01, 2017.
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A district judge denied bail to Malaysian businessman John Soh Chee Wen on Tuesday, as prosecutors added seven new charges of witness tampering to the alleged "mastermind" of the 2013 penny stock crash and suggested additional involvement manipulating the stock of ISR Capital.

The judge said that the totality of the evidence, which included allegations by the prosecution that Mr Soh had previously used a fake Indonesian identity to enter and leave Singapore, suggested that Mr Soh was a flight risk. The judge also accepted the prosecution's portrayal of Mr Soh as a "protagonist" in the 2013 crash and who "has significant influence over the supporting cast".

Mr Soh now faces 188 charges related to the penny crash, in which the collapse of Asiasons Capital (now Attilan Group), Blumont Group and LionGold Corp in October 2013 triggered a massive sell-off in low-priced stocks on the Singapore Exchange.

Read also: Soh Chee Wen 'mastermind' of penny stock crash: Prosecutor

Prosecutors have already charged former Ipco International chief executive Quah Su-Ling and former Ipco interim CEO Goh Hin Calm in the case, which has been described by investigators as the largest securities fraud case in Singapore. Bail was previously set at S$4 million for Quah and at S$750,000 for Goh.

The bail hearing notably linked Soh to the probe of ISR, an investment services company whose stock remains suspended amid investigations.

Read also: "I've survived worse," says businessman involved in 2013 penny stock crash

Shares of ISR plunged on Nov 24, the day Soh was arrested. The investigation into the stock began a week later, on Dec 2, which led to certain evidence being seized, the prosecution said.

The evidence suggests that Soh was manipulating ISR while still under police bail, prosecutors said.

Soh allegedly exercised influence over key decisions at ISR while being an undischarged bankrupt, contravening the Companies Act; and is believed to have abetted insider trading by asking remisier Gabriel Gan to buy ISR shares ahead of an announcement.

Read also: Trio face 365 charges over penny stock crash

In written submissions, Soh's lawyer, Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng of WongPartnership, argued that the prosecutors have offered no evidence to demonstrate Soh's involvement in ISR.

In an oral reply, Mr Tan added that his client would be "stupid" to attempt to manipulate ISR "in this time and age where every trade can be traced".

Recordings of conversations between Soh and Mr Gan, which were found on Mr Gan's laptop, as well as testimony from former LionGold business and corporate development director Peter Chen Hing Woon and former analyst Ken Tai Chee Ming, led prosecutors to add the witness tampering charges. The prosecution alleged that the recordings included Soh instructing Mr Gan to "deny everything" and rehearsing answers to give to investigators.

Read also: Penny stock crash's alleged mastermind John Soh Chee Wen arrested

Soh's lawyer argued that the testimony of those individuals were unreliable, given that they were facing potential charges themselves and may have an axe to grind against Soh.

Mr Tan also disagreed with the portrayal of his client as a flight risk, arguing that if Soh could or wished to abscond, he would have had many opportunities between October 2013 and his arrest in November 2016. Even after prosecutors told a court in January 2016 that they expected to charge Soh by the end of that year, he remained in Singapore, albeit with his Malaysian passport confiscated.

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Soh Chee Wen 'mastermind' of penny stock crash: Prosecutor

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Citing the recorded conversations between Soh and Mr Gan, deputy public prosecutor Teo Guan Siew argued that Soh had remained in Singapore not because he thought he was innocent, but because he did not think that investigators had enough to convict him. Given that Soh now knows the full extent of the charges against him and that prosecutors have allegedly detected witness tampering, Soh may have more motivation to flee, DPP Teo said.

Commotion broke out in the courtroom when it was revealed that the prosecution was alleging that Soh had tried to leave Singapore by boat while on police bail; that attempt failed because the boat malfunctioned, prosecutors said, citing testimony from Soh's former girlfriend Cheng Jo-Ee. Mr Tan dismissed that as hearsay.

Prosecutors also said Soh used to travel in and out of Singapore with an Indonesian passport under the name of "Didi Supardi", a fake identity, until January 2000. They further alleged, based on testimony from Soh and others, that he had crossed Singapore's borders between 1999 and 2002 even though the immigration authorities had no record of those passages.

Mr Tan argued that links between Soh and Didi Supardi were tenuous, and that some of the testimonies on this matter were inconsistent with the evidence.

Even if the court felt that Soh was a flight risk and capable of tampering witnesses, it could address all of those concerns with strict bail conditions such as electronic monitoring devices and prohibitions against contacting certain people, Mr Tan said. Keeping Soh under the prison's strict restrictions hindered his ability to prepare a proper defence for a complex case, the lawyer argued.

"Let not a conviction be secured because of Mr Soh's inability to prepare a proper defence," Mr Tan said. "We are sure the prosecution is not seeking to secure a conviction at all cost."

But the prosecution disagreed, saying that Soh was capable of getting around those restrictions, and if he were allowed bail, "there will either be no trial, because he will abscond, or there will be no fair trial, because the witnesses will be tampered with."

The court did grant Soh slight consolation: A local phone call.

Mr Tan said Soh wanted to call Quah Su-Ling.

This article was first published on Mar 01, 2017.
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Ten current and former employees of waterproofing and general works company TAC Contracts were charged in court with corruption yesterday.

The men were accused of individually giving bribes ranging from $490 to more than $59,000.

They allegedly gave the money to employees of various companies as an inducement to advance TAC Contracts' business interests.

According to court documents, the firms include Far East Organization, Stature Real Estate Enterprise and Parkway Hospitals Singapore.

Read also: 86% of S'pore execs have identified corruption in their businesses

Nine of the men are Singaporean. They are:

• Senior sales and operations executive James Tan Gin Meng, 36. He faces 150 charges involving $42,818 in total.

• Sales manager Ng Kok Thai, 34. He faces 88 charges involving $59,074.50.

• Sales executive Justin Heng Lye Chai, 34. He faces 44 charges involving $31,076.

• Sales and operations executive Sim Kah Wah, 35. He faces 17 charges involving $6,790.

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Top 10 most corrupted countries

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• Former sales coordinator Donald Chang Poh Lung, 37. He faces 11 charges involving $5,562.60.

• Sales and operations executive Thomas Ler Tze Pin, 35. He faces six charges involving $2,453.

• Sales and operations executive Aaron Wong Wentong, 34. He faces two charges involving a total of $3,885.

• Former sales executive Ng Weng Boon, 40. He faces two charges involving $490.

• Former sales executive Chan Hon Kai, 47. He faces two charges involving $1,750.

Read also: Fight against corruption: Singapore's experience

The 10th man, sales and operations executive Alagappan Suriyanarayanan, 38, is an Indian national. He faces 46 charges involving $36,839.50.

The 10 men allegedly committed their offences between January 2011 and February 2014.

They will be back in court on March 21.

Two of their alleged accomplices from the same firm, company director Donald Ling Chun Teck, 43, and former sales and operations executive Lee Zhijian, 34, were dealt with in court in December last year.

Ling was sentenced to 30 months in jail on 20 counts of corruption involving $182,581, with 517 charges taken into consideration.

He is appealing against the sentence and is out on $200,000 bail.

Lee was sentenced to a total of 15 months and four weeks in jail, plus six strokes of the cane, on six corruption charges and two charges of unlicensed moneylending harassment.

He is also appealing against the sentence and was offered bail of $60,000.

The maximum penalty for each count of corruption is a $100,000 fine and five years in jail.

This article was first published on Mar 01, 2017.
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