Japan’s Olympic medalist Ai Fukuhara and fellow table tennis player Chiang Hung-chieh held their second wedding ceremony at Tokyo Disney Resort on Sunday (February 5).
Fukuhara and Chiang were welcomed with a warm round of applause as they entered the ceremony venue.
Disneyland’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse also danced with them, along with other characters including Donald Duck and Chipmunks Chip ‘n’ Dale.
“Good evening everyone, I’m Hung-chieh. Thank you for coming tonight. It’s a short time…(laughter), thank you,” Chiang said at the wedding ceremony, as the audience giggled at his verbal fumble in Japanese.
Fukuhara, 27, began playing table tennis at the age of three and gained fame as a child prodigy in Japan, but her popularity extends far beyond her own country. Her fluency in Mandarin and participation in China’s Super League have won her numerous supporters there and in other parts of East Asia, where she is often referred to as the “Japanese Doll”.
Fukuhara competed in her first Olympics in 2004 when she was 15 years old. At the Beijing Games in 2008, she carried the flag for the Japanese delegation and in London four years later was a member of the team who won their first silver in table tennis.
Doctors in Chennai, India, faced one of their biggest challenges when they operated on a patient and removed a live cockroach from her skull.
According to The New Indian Express, a 42-year old woman was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday after she felt “strange” sensations around her nose and eyes. Before she experienced the symptoms, she recalled that an insect crept into her nostril, making its way inside her head. She tried to blow her nose to free the cockroach but it successfully climbed up her nose.
The results of her nasal endoscopy displayed the menacing cockroach sitting on her skull between her eyes for 12 hours.
“This is the first such case I have seen in my three decades of practice,” Dr. Shankar of the Stanley Medical College Hospital told the news site.
The woman said that before she approached the doctors for help, she suffered from burning sensations and inexplicable pains.
“I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect. There was a tingling, crawling sensation. Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes. I spent the entire night in discomfort, sitting up and waiting for dawn to go to Stanley hospital after getting the reference of a doctor from my employer,” she told local news sites.
Times of India reported that the bug clung to the tissues even if it was vacuumed with a suction apparatus.
A moving tribute by the “brothers” of Jackie Chan has lit up social media over the past week, providing a glimpse into the special brand of camaraderie that the Hong Kong action star shares with those who have worked with him over the years.
Chan, 62, who in November last year was awarded with an honorary Oscar, had paid tribute to the members of his Jackie Chan Stunt Team for their loyalty and devotion to a dangerous craft.
“After 56 years in the film industry, making more than 200 films, after so many bones, finally,” said Chan, who is known for his daredevil stunts, in his acceptance speech.
Last month, it was the turn of his fellow stuntmen – some of whom had started working with him since the 1970s – to return the favour with a tribute video.
In an episode of the Chinese variety show The Negotiator, which aired on Jan 20, Chan was seen moved to tears by the comments of his grateful comrades.
Many remembered warmly the acts of kindness Chan had rendered them, including buying a car and forking out money for the downpayment of a house – with one saying: “I hope he lives a hundred years, that way he can take care of all the brothers a hundred years.”
After watching the video, Chan praised his stunt team for going through “thick and thin” with him, adding that his honorary Oscar should be shared among everyone.
His stunt team from generations past and present then surprised him with their presence on stage.
A 10-minute clip of the episode was shared by Facebook user Jared Wanfeng Ti on Jan 30, and has since received more than seven million views.
The Jackie Chan Stunt Team, also known as Jackie Chan’s Stuntmen Association, was first formed in 1976 when a group of stuntmen and martial artists started working regularly with Chan.
The team became an official organisation after the success of his 1983 film Project A.
This article was first published on Feb 05, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
Singapore Pools is back with their annual Hongbao Draw. This year, the draw’s Group 1 (jackpot) prize has shrunk slightly to $12 million from $13.9 million last year. Nonetheless, thousands of Singaporeans will be braving the long queues and possibly, torrential rain, in order to stand a miniscule chance of striking rich.
Before we get too excited about the Hongbao Draw, let’s first look at our chances of winning, and how much we can realistically expect to get if we do win.
Before we start, we like to remind readers to exercise a Responsible Play mentality and to treat Toto (or any other form of gambling) as a vice that should only be indulged in occasionally.
Toto 101: What are my odds of winning?
Anyone who bets in Toto will know that the chances of winning are extremely low. To hit the top prize of $12 million in this year’s Hongbao Draw, your chances are about one in 14,000,000.
To provide a perspective of how poor these odds are, the chances of a person in the US getting strike by lightning is about 1 in 280,000. In other words, a person is about 50 times more likely to get struck by lightning than to win the top prize in Toto.
Aside from the top prize, there are other winning categories that appear lucrative as well. Assuming that Group 1’s prize pool is $12,000,000. The total prize pool would be about $32,000,000 (12 million/38%).
Exhibit 1: Price group and winning odds
Source: Singapore Pools
If we were to sum up all the probabilities of winning, the chances of actually winning something in any of the groups is 1.9 per cent.
Exhibit 2: Prize structure and amounts
Source: Singapore Pools, Dollars and Sense
Net present value of a quick pick bet
We will need to make a few assumptions for our analysis in the next part of the article. Here are our assumptions:
1. The winner buys only one $1 quick pick,
2. There is only one winner in each group,
3. We ignore the additional 54 per cent of sales that will be added to the pool,
4. The prize pool is $32,000,000,
5. Discount rate of 0 – because between now and the Hongbao draw is only a couple of weeks
If we multiply the probability of winning by the prize money and sum up the total probable winnings, we will have a present value of $77.16.
Exhibit 3: Present value of a $1 quick pick
Source: Singapore Pools, Dollars and Sense
After subtracting the $1 used to buy the quick pick, we will have the net present value (NPV) of $76.16.
Hold on, are my chances really that good?
Before you get too excited over the high NPV that a Toto ticket buys you, consider the following.
For the Prize Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, prize amount will be split in the event that there are multiple winners for each group. In other words, the NPV of $76.16 is only relevant if there is one winner for each of the top four categories.
At this point, it’s a little tricky to calculate the expected value because there is no way to know for certain how many winners there would be in each category. To help us estimate this, we took the average number of winners for each group from the past two hongbao draws
Source: Singapore Pools, Dollars and Sense
Exhibit 4: Expected value of a $1 quick pick (based on estimated number of winners)
Source: Singapore Pools, Dollars and Sense
* Based on estimated number of winners from Hongbao draw in the last two years
The expected value has significantly reduced to $0.795. If we subtract the $1 used to buy the quick pick, our expected value will now be – $0.205.
Based on a quick observation that we made from past Toto draws, it’s also worth highlighting that the actual amount won by players during the Hongbao Draw isn’t necessarily higher than the regular Toto draw.
In fact, for some of the categories, a regular Toto draw is likely to pay a higher prize amount than the Hongbao draw based on the fact that less players participate in the regular draw, and hence, the prize pool has lesser winners, compared to the Hongbao draw.
Source: Singapore Pools, Dollars and Sense
Toto gives us an illusion of increased wealth
Similar to many other lottery draws such as the Powerball in the U.S, Toto gives us the illusion of increased wealth due to what appears to be high prize money for the odds given.
Yet, like many other lottery draws around the world, the good odds (as seen in Exhibit 3) only counts if you are the only player in the lottery, or if the prize amount shown is given to each winning player, rather than to be split among all winners.
Ironically, the attractiveness of a bigger prize pool for a lottery draw is also what makes it less enticing. A bigger prize pool tends to attract more players, which in turn increases the odds of more winners, and hence, a smaller payout for each winning player.
On a lighter note, the participation in Toto betting should be one of leisure and a topic with friends and family during this festive period. However, if you are thinking of getting rich just because of this Hongbao draw, don’t put too much hope into it as you would for any other regular Toto draws.
SINGAPORE – From June, presidential hopefuls may start applying for the necessary certificate of eligibility and community certificate in order to contest in the coming Presidential Election (PE).
The Presidential Elections Act states that the application period for a certificate of eligibility starts three months before the end of the incumbent President’s term. Dr Tony Tan’s term of office ends on Aug 31. Speaking in Parliament during the second reading of the amendments to the Act on Monday (Feb 6), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing said that under the proposed changes, applicants will have up to five days – up from three days currently – after the writ of election is issued to submit their applications to the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC). This is to give prospective candidates more time to prepare their applications, he said.
Applicants will have to concurrently submit a community declaration to a newly-set up Community Committee to certify their ethnicity. Their application to contest in the PE can be rejected if they fail to submit an application with either the PEC or the Community Committee. Both committees will have at least 10 days after the writ is issued to assess the applications. Applicants will be informed of the outcome before Nomination Day.
The 16-member Community Committee will consist of a chairman and five members each from the Chinese, Malay, Indian or other minority communities, all of whom will be appointed by the Prime Minister on nomination of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights. The five members belonging to the different communities will make up the respective sub-committees.
An applicant has to first declare whether or not he belongs to one of the three major communities. Then, he would be issued a community certification if the respective sub-committee is satisfied that the applicants belongs to the particular community. Mr Chan noted that an “inclusion” approach will be adopted. “(It) should be to welcome and embrace individuals who identify themselves with a particular community. This would apply, for example, in cases where declarants are of mixed-race parentage and have significant links with the communities of both parents,” he said.
The arrangement is similar to the approach under the Parliamentary Elections Act to determine whether a potential candidate contesting in a Group Representation Constituency belongs to the minority groups. “The method of certifying race through community committees has worked well for our GRC system; it should similarly serve us well in the Presidential Elections,” said Mr Chan.
In a reserved election, such as the coming Presidential Election, the committee will only accept declarations of applicants belonging to the community for which the election is reserved for. The declarations are also necessary in an open election because the hiatus-triggered model requires that the ethnicity of each President be documented, said Mr Chan. In an open election, a presidential hopeful can run for elections even if he does not receive a community certificate and meets the other eligibility criteria.
An Australian woman died in a tragic jet ski accident after a collision with another ski driven by her husband off Kata beach in Phuket yesterday afternoon (Feb 5), reported The Bangkok Post.
The couple were riding the rented jet skis near Koh Pu island off Kata when the incident happened. The woman was identified as Emily Jayne Collie, 20, and her partner as Tommy Keating, reported The Guardian.
Mr Keating told local sea rescue authorities that strong sunight reflected off the sea had made it impossible for him to see his wife’s jet ski, which could have led to the crash, according to ABC News.
But Thai police told the ABC they were still trying to establish why the jet skis crashed.
Collie, a university student, was brought back to shore for first aid and sent to Vachira Phuket Hospital after she was found to have no pulse.
Facebook by Mr Keating to his wife.Photo: Facebook
A spokesman for Karon fire and rescue department told the media there would be an autopsy to determine how she died, reported The Guardian.
Senior police officer on the island, Patiwat Yodkwan told AFP: “People on the beach tried to rescue her and send her to hospital.”
He added that Mr Keating was not seriously injured in the accident.
Jet-ski accidents became common in Phuket when it became a popular destination in the past two decades.
Singaporeans have been among those who have been injured or lost their lives in jet ski accidents in the last decade or so.
In 2010, Singaporean Loh Ying Jie, 20, died after a jet ski driven by a friend collided into him off Patong Beach. Loh was in a group of five friends who had gone to Phuket to celebrate the completion of their national service. He ended up in a coma and died about two weeks later without waking up.
In January last year, a 16-year-old Finnish tourist was injured in a jet ski accident with his father on Kata Beach.
A month before that, in December 2015, it was reported that a teenage son of actress Angelina Jolie injured his leg while jet-skiing in Phuket.
That month, two Chinese friends each broke a leg after crashing their jet-skis into each other off Patong beach, reported Phuket Gazette.
Despite calls to ban jet-skiing in Phuket, the sport still continues to be available to tourists today.
HONG KONG – Scores of China social media postings about a well-connected billionaire who went missing from a Hong Kong hotel have been deleted, pointing to what appears to be heightened sensitivity in Beijing over the case of Xiao Jianhua.
Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of Xiao, one of China’s richest men who has close ties to some of its leaders and their relatives. He was last seen at Hong Kong’s Four Seasons hotel in late January, with some media saying he was abducted and taken to the mainland.
The booksellers’ case raised concern about interference by Beijing in Hong Kong and the erosion of its freedoms, guaranteed under a 1997 deal that returned the former British colony to Chinese rule.
Authorities in Beijing have declined to comment on Xiao’s case.
Hong Kong’s government has also not commented. The city’s police say they are investigating and have approached Chinese authorities to ascertain his “situation in mainland China”.
Xiao’s disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives.
After his disappearance, a statement from him appeared on his company’s verified WeChat account saying he had not been abducted and had not been taken to mainland China.
The statement added he was “currently abroad being medically treated”. Hong Kong police say Xiao crossed the border to mainland China.
When news of Xiao’s disappearance in Hong Kong began breaking early last week, searches on Chinese search engines and social media for him generated many results, mostly links to reports related to statements he had issued via his company, Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing.
But those posts and most reports related to Xiao have disappeared, with search results only bringing up reports about him from several weeks earlier.
DELETED POSTS
According to Freewechat.com, which tracks censored or deleted posts on China’s biggest social network, WeChat, more than 40 articles with the keyword Xiao Jianhua had been censored since Jan. 30.
A similar number of reports with the word “Mingtianxi”, which refers to Tomorrow Group and its subsidiaries, were also deleted.
Tencent Holdings Ltd, which operates WeChat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Sina, which runs China’s Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, told Reuters it censors and deletes posts according to its code of conduct.
But the spokesman declined to comment on any deleted posts related to Xiao and his business ties.
More social media posts purportedly detailing Xiao’s business links with high-profile companies and senior leaders were also deleted over the weekend.
The Chinese government routinely censors the internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability.
China’s internet regulator did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Shares in firms directly or indirectly controlled by Tomorrow Group slumped on Friday, with Baotou Huazi Industry and Xishui Strong Year Co Ltd Inner Mongolia both down the maximum 10 per cent.
Shares of Baotou Huazi were down 2.6 per cent on Monday, while Xishui Strong Year was down nearly 5 per cent.
Xiao was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China’s equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of US$5.97 billion (S$8.4 billion).
If Kyra Poh had wings, her grandfather would be the proverbial wind beneath them.
For Sunny Teo, 70, was an inspiration to his granddaughter each time she stepped into the wind tunnel to perform her indoor skydiving routines at the Windoor Wind Games in Spain.
Although he had been expected to join her and his flight tickets had been booked, Teo could not make the trip to Girona in Spain because he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic and liver cancer just a few weeks earlier on Jan 13.
Instead, he followed the teenager’s performances on the Internet.
Kyra, 14, a third-year School of the Arts student, said: “I thought about him before I went into the tunnel. He’s also fighting (against cancer), which is such a tough thing to do, and he doesn’t even think there’s anything wrong with him.
“I just wanted to fly for him and make him proud, because he really wanted me to go on to compete and to see me do my best.”
Indeed, Kyra made Teo proud when she bagged two golds and a silver at the Feb 3-4 competition.
The annual meet, now into its fourth edition, featured almost 200 fliers from over 18 countries competing across eight categories.
In the solo freestyle event which featured 10 competitors, Kyra scored 361.217 points after three rounds, finishing ahead of Czech Jakub Harrer (349.033) and Maja Kuczynska of Poland (340.751).
Competing in the new solo speed event for the first time, Kyra clocked a total of 237.620sec over eight rounds to beat 10 other competitors. Cesar Rico of Spain (243.547) was second while Jamie Arnold of Britain (257.164) was third.
She added a silver to her tally when she teamed up with Britons Joshua O’Donoghue and Luke Warren and American Ben Roane in the four-way speed event.
Right after Kyra’s competition ended at about 4am Singapore time yesterday, she spoke to Teo through FaceTime. Kyra said: “He told me that it was worth the two sleepless nights.”
In a WhatsApp message, Teo told ST: “I was disappointed that I could not be there but what could I do? My life was hanging by a thread.
“But the excitement Kyra produced during the competition kept me awake throughout the night, and just to see Kyra exceed my expectations made me really pleased.”
Kyra’s graceful and smooth display of twists and flips look effortless. But she had to overcome a lot of challenges.
She revealed that it was painful to stretch until she could perform a leg split, a move she mastered only last June: “I’m not a naturally flexible person. I had to do a lot of stretching exercises, which were painful.”
During the competition, she also had to cope with the short transition times while juggling appearances in the three categories.
Kyra said: “In speed competition, it’s not about how you look but how fast you go.
“But in freestyle, I’ve got to calm down quickly and be more graceful with the music.
“And then in the four-way event, I had to be careful because the 14-foot tunnel can get squeezy and one wrong move would make us smash into each other. So it’s exciting but quite hectic.”
As a fitting reward for the high-flier, Kyra went skydiving yesterday.
Before her latest success, she also won a gold medal at the indoor skydiving World Cup last October.
Last August, she had won the Australian Championship Freestyle Open title.
But medals are secondary to Kyra’s family.
Her mother Carolyn said: “For us, it’s not so much about whether she is a brilliant flier or not, but that she’s a nice girl and when people look at her, they are inspired. That’s more important.”
chiazya@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on February 6, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
SINGAPORE: If contested, the next Presidential Election, which has been reserved for Malay candidates, will be held in September rather than in August, which is when voting typically takes place.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing announced this in Parliament during the second reading of the Presidential Elections (Amendment) Bill. The date revision does not require changes to the law. The Government is announcing changes early for transparency and so that prospective candidates can be aware of the changes.
In his speech, Mr Chan provided the reason for the shift in timing. He said voting for a new President has typically been held in the last week of August, to ensure the process falls within the term of the sitting President, which ends on Aug 31.
In 2011 for example, the Writ of Election was issued in the first week of August. Mr Chan said campaigning began shortly after National Day, and coincided with the month-long National Day celebrations. The revised timing would ensure the election is not held during the celebrations.
For the upcoming election, Mr Chan said the Government will issue a Writ in the later part of August, before President Tony Tan Keng Yam’s term expires. The shift of the election from August to September will also “reset the clock” so that future elections will take place outside the National Day period.
Mr Chan said the Constitution allows for an acting President to assume office from the end of the incumbent President’s term until a new President assumes office.
“If a new President is not elected by the time President Tony Tan’s term expires on Aug 31 … the Constitution provides for the Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers or, if he is unavailable, the Speaker, to be the acting President. The acting President cannot exercise the functions of the President indefinitely,” he said.
Mr Chan said current laws allow for changes to the timing of the polls to be made in time for this year’s Presidential Election.
The shift in timing will also cater to the longer time period required to assess prospective candidates as part of legislative changes.
Under proposed changes to the Act, the deadline for prospective candidates to apply for a certificate of eligibility (COE) will be extended to five days after the Writ is issued. This is up from the current three days. This will give candidates more time to prepare their applications.
Another change being proposed is that Nomination Day be held at least 10 days after the day the Writ is issued, up from the current five days.
SINGAPORE – The coming Presidential Election (PE) will be held in September, should the office be contested by more than one candidate, as the Government announced on Monday (Feb 6) that it is moving the campaigning period of future PEs out of the month of August, to avoid clashing with National Day celebrations.
Traditionally, the full six-year terms of Singapore’s Elected Presidents expire in end-August. This means that this year, an Acting President will assume the office after Dr Tony Tan’s term expires on Aug 31, until his successor is elected.
The period during which the Acting President shall exercise the functions of the office should not exceed one month, from Sept 1 to the date of assumption of office by the new Elected President.
The Constitution provides for the Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) – a position currently held by Mr J Y Pillay – to be the Acting President. If the CPA chairman is unavailable, the Speaker of Parliament is next in line.
Speaking at the start of the debate on the Presidential Elections Bill, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing said the Government had sought the advice of the Attorney-General’s Chambers, which confirmed that the timing of the PE this year can be adjusted under current laws.
Noting that the Government will have to amend the Constitution if it wishes to extend Dr Tan’s term, Mr Chan said: “Given the slightly longer time required for the new process and to avoid holding Presidential Election campaigns during the National Day celebrations, we will adjust the timing of the polls for the forthcoming elections… this resets the clock, so that, in future, Presidential Elections campaigning will take place outside of the National Day period, assuming Presidents serve their full six-year terms.”
Last November, changes to the Elected Presidency scheme were passed into law, including instituting a mechanism that reserves an election for a particular ethnicity that has not had an elected representative for five consecutive terms. The upcoming presidential race due in August will be reserved for the Malay community.
In the previous PE held in 2011, the writ of election was issued in the first week of August, and campaigning started after National Day and carried on throughout the month. Various groups came out to publicly endorse the candidates. One of them, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, disclosed that he had declined invitations by some political parties to attend their National Day celebrations as he felt it was “inappropriate” for him to do so as a presidential hopeful.
Concerns that the keenly-contested 2011 PE was politicised were voiced during the public hearings conducted by the Constitutional Committee tasked with reviewing the Elected Presidency scheme.
NO MORE DESIGNATED RALLY SITES
Among other things, the committee had said there should be a clear distinction in campaign methods for PEs and General Elections. It noted that unlike in Parliamentary elections, candidates running for President have no policy agenda to advance. There is little need for the vigorous contest of ideas that takes place during a Parliamentary election, they noted.
Agreeing with this, the Government will no longer designate sites for candidates to hold rallies. “Campaign methods for PEs must not inflame emotions and must be in keeping with the decorum and dignity of the office of the President, given the important unifying and custodial roles of the President,” Mr Chan said. He added that rallies, “by their nature and format, may be divisive and not congruent with the unifying role of the Elected Presidency” .
Candidates may still hold rallies if they wish to, but they have to apply to police for a permit and the application will be assessed based on public order considerations.
To encourage the use of platforms and channels that “reach out to voters at a national level”, the Government will increase the amount of television airtime for candidates and it will study different options to achieve this. Details will be announced later. Candidates can continue to use social media platforms to reach voters and can also hold indoor private sessions to engage specific groups of voters, said Mr Chan.
