SINGAPORE – Singapore’s central bank on Tuesday said it had permanently barred Yeo Jiawei, a former wealth manager of Swiss bank BSI involved in breaches related to Malaysia’s 1MDB fund, from managing financial services firms and advisory activities.
In July, a Singapore court jailed Yeo for 4 and 1/2 years for money laundering and cheating in a case linked to investigations into the siphoning of billions of dollars from Malaysian sovereign fund 1MDB.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it has issued a permanent prohibition order against Yeo, effective Monday, and a three-year ban for former chief executive of financial advisory firm NRA Capital, Kevin Scully.
“NRA had been appointed to perform the valuation of PetroSaudi Oil Services Limited (PSOSL),” MAS said in a press release.
“Mr Scully had failed to ensure that NRA’s valuation of PSOSL was carried out with sufficient care, judgment and objectivity,” the central bank added.
MAS has now issued prohibition orders against eight people involved in 1MDB-related breaches, following two bans announced last month.
Once a pet project of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who chaired its advisory board, 1MDB is the subject of money-laundering investigations in at least six countries including Switzerland, Singapore and the United States.
Najib has denied any wrongdoing.
Singapore’s central bank had said in May that it had ended its two-year review of banks with 1MDB-linked transactions.
South Korean band Dear Cloud’s vocalist Nine9 revealed the late Jonghyu’s painful suicide note on his Instagram on Tuesday.
The singer, whose stage name is Nine9, released the letter with his family’s permission, reported Koreaboo.
In a lengthy Instagram post on Tuesday, she wrote: “I was not sure whether I should be posting his will or not, still contemplating in fact, but Jonghyun asked a favour to release his final words if he leaves this world behind. I was really hoping that this day would not come…..”
The following is the unofficial English translation of Jonghyun’s suicide note in Korean.
I asked, “Why do I keep on losing my memory?” They said it’s due to my personality. I see. It’s all my fault.
I wanted someone to notice (my suffering), but no one knew. Of course, they wouldn’t. They never met me before.
I asked why people live. Just. Just. They live “just because.”
If I ask why people died, they would probably say they couldn’t bear it any longer.
Troubling thoughts flooded my head. I never got the chance to learn how to change dull pain into pure joy.
Pain is just pain.
I kept reprimanding myself not to do so.
Why? Why can’t I even end my life with my own will?
I tried figuring out the reasons for my pain and suffering.
I already had the answer. I was in pain because of me. It’s all my fault that I carry so many imperfections.
Teacher, is this what you wanted to hear?
No. I didn’t do anything wrong.
I used to think that it’s so easy for doctors to blame your personality for the suffering in their calm voice.
It surprises me how I am feeling this much pain. Those people, who have suffered worse than I, seem to go on living perfectly fine. Those weaker than I am live on as well. I guess not. Among the living, there is no one who is suffering worse and no one who is weaker.
The only answer I got back was “just live nevertheless.”
Asking the purpose of life more than one hundred times is not for me. It’s for you.
I wanted to do it for me.
Please don’t say things you don’t know.
How could you ask me to still look for reasons behind my pain? I told you multiple times why I’m suffering. Do I need more reasons to be in pain? More dramatic details in my stories? More stories even?
I told you already. Were you absent-minded when I told you? Things you can bear and even come above do not leave scars.
It wasn’t my responsibility to go against the world.
It wasn’t my path to become world-famous.
That’s why they say it’s hard to go against the world and to become famous. Why did I choose this path? It’s quite funny now that I think about it.
It’s a miracle that I endured through it all this time.
What more can I say. Just tell me “good job.”
You did great. Tell me I suffered enough.
Even though you can’t laugh right now, just don’t send me off blaming me.
Good job.
You suffered a great deal.
Good-bye.
HELPLINES
Samaritans of Singapore (SOS): 1800-2214444
Singapore Association for Mental Health: 1800-2837019
Jonghyun stood out as the main vocalist of the group, captivating fans with his powerful voice and dancing ability. He demonstrated his skills outside the band as well, such as through S.M.’s project group S.M. The Ballad.
In 2015, he launched his solo career with the EP Base, followed by his first studio album She Is the following year.
Jonghyun was successful as a solo artist. He received the bonsang award at the 2016 Golden Disk and was nominated for the best male artist award at the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards.
The singer was also recognised for his songwriting, which began with the lyrics for SHINee’s hit song Juliet. He wrote the lyrics and melodies for most of the songs in his solo career.
SHINee was expected to hold a Japan concert in February 2018. Jonghyun was also expected to appear on JTBC’s Night Goblin that was to be aired on Sunday.
The singer had also posted a final photo on his Instagram account on Nov 20. The photo had shown lyrics from a song by the group Dear Cloud, which read “persistent scars and sighs of exhaustion, will they have stopped?”
The body of the late K-pop star Kim Jong-hyun will not undergo an autopsy, Seoul police said Tuesday, as the singer’s cause of death is clear.
“We’ve decided not to autopsy the body, as it is certain that the deceased had taken his own life and the bereaved families did not want it,” said an official from Seoul Gangnam Police Tuesday morning. “We will wrap up the investigation as soon as we’ve finished talking to the family.”
Kim, a member of boy band SHINee, was found dead in Gangnam, Seoul at 6:10 p.m., Monday. Police received a call from his sister around 4:42 pm. that he had sent a text message indicating that he was going to kill himself.
SINGAPORE: Madam Lim Siew Heng was 38kg at her heaviest, underweight even for her petite 1.55m frame. In recent years, her weight dropped to below 30kg. Now aged 94, Mdm Lim was probably undernourished.
Her granddaughter Candy Quek, 26, told Channel NewsAsia that dietitians would always advise Mdm Lim to eat better, and that her family would try to feed her nutritional drinks. However, Mdm Lim had a small appetite and would reject such offerings.
Things changed two years ago after a fall that resulted in a pelvic fracture. She became bedridden as a result. “There was an urgent need for her pelvis to recover. We didn’t want her to be bed-bound,” Ms Quek said.
At this point, Mdm Lim started actively taking nutritional drinks and eating more. This worked wonders, Ms Quek said. Mdm Lim recovered and is able to walk, although she prefers getting some assistance for fear of falling again. She now has phases where she eats the same food in small portions for a period of time. Some of her favourites have been french fries, beancurd and kaya toast. Her weight has gradually been increasing.
A study aimed at finding healthcare solutions for undernourished elderly like Mdm Lim was launched in August this year. By identifying and fixing the problem early, researchers expect the average length of an elderly person’s hospital stay to be cut down by 15 per cent, and hospital re-admission within three months to reduce by 5 per cent.
The three-year study, being conducted by Changi General Hospital and SingHealth Polyclinics in collaboration with healthcare firm Abbott, will investigate the effects of nutrition management on community-dwelling elderly in Singapore. The study will recruit 1,200 people aged 65 and above until May 2019 to investigate the role of nutrition in improving health outcomes, reducing hospital re-admission rate and length of stay among elderly with nutritional deficiencies.
REFERENCE CENTRE TO BE BUILT AT CGH
The study will be the first project conducted at the Nutritional Health for the Elderly Reference Centre within CGH’s Integrated Building. It aims to establish an Asia-centric reference database on elderly nutrition by using a predictive algorithm to identify elderly at risk of undernutrition in the community. This will help to increase nutrition literacy by 30 per cent and develop an oral nutrition supplement suited for Asians.
Associate Professor Ng Tze Pin, research director in the department of Psychological Medicine at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, said the involvement of SingHealth polyclinics in this new interventional study is significant.
“It means elderly nutrition is now being given due attention for the first time in government primary care polyclinics. I see an important role of primary care polyclinic doctors and nurses in screening for malnutrition using simple questionnaire tools,” said Prof Ng, who was among three researchers who published the first study documenting the high prevalence of undernutrition among Singapore’s old folk in 2007.
Malnutrition among the elderly has been on the radar of researchers, policy makers and clinical practitioners in North America, Europe and Japan for more than three decades, he said.
On the timing of the study, Dr Samuel Chew, senior consultant in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at CGH, pointed to the rapidly ageing Singapore population, where one in four will be above 65 by 2030.
Singapore’s population is ageing so rapidly that in less than ten years, it would become a “super-aged” nation, where one in five is 65 years of age or older. (File Photo: Xabryna Kek)
THERE’S A NEED FOR STUDY: EXPERTS
Malnutrition, a risk for 30 per cent of community-dwelling people aged 55 years and older, is a serious health issue, said Prof Ng. “Numerous studies show that malnutrition leads to increased severity of disease and disability, length of hospitalisation stay and healthcare costs, poor quality of life and increased mortality,” Prof Ng said.
“It is a paradox of the present time that while we are relentlessly combating obesity and diabetes, undernutrition among the elderly has been under the radar for a long time. It is good that a new study now focuses attention again on this under-recognised and under-managed problem,” Prof Ng added.
Dr Chew said there is a pressing need for a change in paradigm from healthcare to health, and from investigations and treatments to prevention.
“Nutrition plays a key role in improving the quality of life of this particular vulnerable cohort of our population by enabling functional optimisation and independent living for as long as possible,” he said.
A study focusing on Asia is also timely, as current data and evidence on the importance of nutrition in improving the health of elderly people come from Western populations, said Dr Low Yen Ling, director of research and development at Abbott Nutrition Asia-Pacific Centre. It will help develop solutions that are customised to the Asian context, she said.
“By prioritising nutrition care in the hospitals and ensuring that people are well-nourished, we remove a barrier to successfully managing chronic conditions while lowering the financial burden on individuals and the healthcare system at large,” she added.
WHY THE ELDERLY MAY NOT BE EATING RIGHT
Undernutrition is not an inevitable side effect of ageing, but many changes associated with the process of ageing can cause poor nutrition, said Dr Chew. For example, ageing is frequently associated with decreases in taste acuity and smell, deteriorating dental health, and decreases in physical activity, which may all affect nutrient intake, he said.
Ms Eleanor Yap, who has been working with the elderly for more than 10 years and manages an e-magazine for seniors, said that the issue is not as straightforward as it might seem. She gave an example of an older adult who may be eating less due to depression, having suffered grief, failing health, lack of mobility and other factors. If an older adult is living alone, he or she may not be able to afford to full meals every day, she said.
Dr Low said that unlike in less developed countries where malnutrition is mainly due to monetary constraints, causes in developed nations are mainly related to underlying disease, hospitalisation, or inability to eat properly due to factors such as poor appetite, swallowing difficulty, depression and social isolation.
“Yet often it is left undiagnosed or untreated. However, we know that with screening, early identification and intervention, it is a largely preventable and treatable condition,” she said.
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS AND WHAT SHOULD FAMILIES DO?
The experts urged families to look out for unexpected weight loss of 5 to 10 per cent over six months, loose clothing or jewellery and new-found difficulty in getting up from a sitting position, unsteadiness of walking gait, and recurrent falls.
Other common symptoms of undernutrition include tiredness, fatigue, or apathy, longer healing times for wounds, loss of fat, reduced muscle mass and reduced tissue mass.
Good nutrition and a balanced diet, which include adequate calorie and protein to help maintain body weight and a healthy Body Mass Index, therefore reducing risk of muscle loss and strength, are important, said Dr Chew. Suitable foods are carbohydrate foods like brown rice, noodles, bread, potatoes, oats and other wholegrain cereals, protein foods like fish, chicken, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, tofu and beans, he said.
(File photo: MCI)
However, if there is any problem with eating adequately, a fortified drink or oral nutrition supplement may be necessary, Dr Chew added.
Research shows that eating meals with others enhances dietary variety and nutrient intake. Meals eaten in groups are up to 46 per cent larger than meals eaten alone, and that the more people there are at the meal, the greater the intake, he said.
Dr Low said that most people who are malnourished do not even realise it as it can be invisible to the eye, and it often goes undiagnosed.
“Routine screening and early identification is critical to identify and implement nutrition interventions in order to prevent or treat malnutrition so people can live healthier lives and carry on doing the things they love,” she said.
SINGAPORE: Every week, we observe major cyberattacks against organisations of all sizes, from banks, healthcare organisations to even schools.
Just in October, Yahoo announced the most shocking revelation about its August 2013 breach – that saw all three billion of Yahoo’s user accounts exposed.
When such an attack occurs, who’s to blame? There’s no denying that cyber attackers should be held responsible.
However, within each organisation, there is an excess of finger-pointing within the c-suite. Case in point, BAE Systems recently reported that 50 per cent of IT decision makers would blame their c-suite bosses in the event of a breach, and business leaders expect their IT department to take full responsibility for such incidents.
Blame games can continue – the root cause is that both business and security teams are not aligned. They struggle to speak the same language and connect security incidents to business context to assess the business risk fast enough to make the right decisions.
This is what we call a “gap of grief” situation, where IT professionals are interested in understanding how a breach happens and how it can be prevented in future, whereas business leaders care about the incident’s overall impact to the organisation. As a result of this disconnect, organisations are unable to detect and respond to the highest priority threats to the business fast enough to contain the damage.
Against the backdrop of an evolving cybersecurity threat landscape, how can organisations close this gap of grief and manage cyber risk to protect what matters most? Here are the three steps to help bridge this gap.
BUSINESS AND IT NEED TO WORK MORE CLOSELY TOGETHER
First, business and security teams need to come together under a business-driven security approach. Security incidents are both an IT and a business problem. In fact, the cost of security failure is growing exponentially, with cybercrime expecting to cost businesses over US$2.1 trillion globally by 2018.
To create a business-driven security strategy, both teams need to align on their strategies and priorities order to determine which business systems and assets are most critical, and where they are most vulnerable to attacks. This will help assess the risk to the business in the event of a cyber breach, and prioritise resources to remediate the situation appropriately.
Risk and value are difficult to justify in security and most IT professionals are poor at communicating both to the business leaders.
Many CEOs are baffled by the prospect of investments for a breach that has yet or may never occur because of inadequate explanation of the potentially catastrophic business risks involved. They need to understand the degree of impact on business continuity, intellectual property and reputation in an event of a security incident, among other things.
This is why IT professionals need to engage with the boardroom by using relatable business language, not technical jargon, to convince the board of the value of cybersecurity investments.
Risk and value are difficult to justify in security but these must be communicated to the business leaders. (Photo: AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas)
Likewise, business leaders must ensure that their IT departments fully understand the objectives of their business to have a clear sense of the organisation’s security posture as well as their security infrastructure needs and requirements.
After all, it has been proven time and time again that a siloed approach to security does not work. For a business-driven security strategy to succeed, security needs to be driven by the business, not just IT.
EYES OVER EVERYTHING
Second, the security team needs to have visibility of the enterprise at all times, across business processes, networks, devices, people and transactions.
With mobile technology, cloud computing and the Internet of Things creating new openings for cyber threats, organisations are at greater risk than ever. Yet, organisations today do not always see an attack coming, when in reality there is one every 39 seconds.
About half of IT executives surveyed also shared that keeping up with new threats and understanding the full scope of attack were key challenges when it comes to threat detection. Many organisations simply cannot accurately identify their highest risks and react with better detection and response to minimise the impact of a security incident without full visibility of the IT infrastructure.
Having comprehensive visibility is therefore necessary for businesses to assess risks and take appropriate action against advanced attacks. Only then, there will be less likelihood of a damaging cyberattack.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE PLANNING AHEAD
Third, organisations need to have a response plan that allows security teams to detect and respond to the real and high priority threats.
The impact of cyberattacks typically amplify if left undetected.
Yet, 90 per cent of organisations are unsatisfied with their response time when it comes to tackling cybersecurity attacks; 74 per cent have inadequate systems to quickly recover from an attack; and only 11 per cent say they can investigate threats quickly.
Organisations need to plan ahead, identify gaps in understanding cyber and business risks, as well as have visibility between various internal functions.
While these gaps exist, issues like securing sufficient investment in cybersecurity will continue to be a challenge for several organisations looking to beef up their cybersecurity defenses with advanced technologies.
“Even the most diligent cybersecurity efforts will not address all cyber risks that enterprises face,” said US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, who intends to make cyber security one of the top enforcement issues during his tenure. (Photo: AFP/Chip Somodevilla)
Organisations should take a phased approach to address the gaps, but they need to start now. They need to first prioritise their assets, know their vulnerabilities and the impact to their business in order to build a defence strategy that can streamline cybersecurity operations and compliance.
Most importantly, organisations should ensure their approach is holistic, not just by looking at its technology and processes, but also the people involved – most often the weakest link in the chain. Educating and building a security culture amongst employees is probably the best defence against cyberattacks.
As we sit on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution, a business-driven security approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to cybersecurity will help organisations mitigate cyberattacks that have become bolder than ever.
Budiman Tsjin is senior technical consultant, Asia at RSA.
