SINGAPORE — Free-to-air (FTA) television has expanded its reach among audiences, reinforcing its position as the most widely accessed medium.

The latest Nielsen Singapore Media Index, which was released yesterday, showed that, on a weekly basis, an average of 85.5 per cent of local viewers tuned in to FTA television, up 0.9 percentage point from last year.

In comparison, 83.1 per cent of the population use the Internet each week.

The FTA channels are Channel NewsAsia, Channel 8, Channel 5, Channel U, Okto, Suria and Vasantham. Except for Okto, all the channels saw an increase in daily viewership.

Channel U, for example, saw its daily viewership rise to 1.05 million, up from 716,000 last year, while Channel NewsAsia’s daily viewership jumped from 606,000 to 791,000 over the same period.

Channel 8 remains the highest-watched television channel, with a daily reach of 43 per cent of the population, or about 1.8 million.

Said Mr Chang Long Jong, deputy CEO of Mediacorp, which owns the FTA channels and this newspaper: “Even in the digital age, most Singaporeans prefer to consume news and entertainment through free-to-air TV. Channel NewsAsia’s reach, for example, grew significantly while Channel 8 remains the most watched channel.

“Across Mediacorp, we will continue to focus on creating content that is engaging, relatable and in tune with the times, and delivering it to our audiences in all the ways they choose to consume it.”

SINGAPORE — With advances in medicine and technology promising to enable earlier detection of diseases and make prediction of diseases possible, how can doctors make good use of it to improve care for their patients?

A conference and expo next August, organised by doctors for fellow doctors and the public, will seek to address this question and more.

The Singapore Medical Week and FutureMed 2017 conference will take place on the week of Aug 24 next year, announced the Singapore Medical Association on Thursday (Nov 3).

American biomedical and innovation expert Ogan Gurel, who will be the keynote speaker of FutureMed 2017. said that instead of diagnosis and treatment of diseases, a doctor’s true value is in prognosis, or communicating to the patient what an illness means for one’s life, family and the activities one is able to do.

“Does the patient really care if it’s Stage 2b small cell lung cancer? … Ultimately what they care about is what this means for my life,” he added.

If better and more sensitive diagnostic tools are able to take away some of the burden of disease diagnosis from doctors, they would allow the doctors to devote more energy to caring and communicating with the patient, said Associate Professor Nigel Tan, organising chairman of Singapore Medical Week and FutureMed 2017.

Next year’s event will also feature talks for the public, as there is a need to increase medical literacy among the community, said Dr Wong Tien Hua, president of the SMA, which represents the majority of doctors here.

Technology will enable some health-monitoring tools to be used by patients themselves, but patients will need to take more ownership of their healthcare and assume more responsibility for their health, he said. For instance, it is useful for patients to know the medicines they take, what blood pressure levels are considered normal, as well as any drug allergies they have.
The Singapore Medical Week will include the SMA’s annual medical convention, said Dr Wong. 
In future, medication could come in a single pill custom-designed for individuals, and blood sugar could be read through sensors embedded in contact lenses that monitor sugar levels in one’s tears. And the health of blood vessels could be monitored via 3D cardiac imaging instead of cholesterol tests, he said.
“The question really is a matter of how we can bring together new scientific discoveries, advancements in technology and the development of new medical products, and to integrate these various components of healthcare,” he said.

SINGAPORE – Days after catching sight of his business associate at the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) premises earlier this year, former BSI banker Yeo Jiawei started to call and text him to no avail.

Undeterred, Yeo hurried over to Mr Samuel Goh’s residence the same morning to find out more about the investigations, the district court heard on Thursday (Nov 4).

Giving his account of that March meeting on the witness stand, Mr Goh said that Yeo quizzed him on the CAD interview, and suggested they kept in touch through burner phones, which are cheap, disposable prepaid phones.

Yeo, 33, even offered to buy him a prepaid SIM card, but Mr Goh declined, choosing to visit a construction site near his house to buy over a spare phone from a foreign worker.

Mr Goh, who was formerly with NTUC Income, was testifying on the fourth day of Yeo’s trial for tampering with witnesses central to investigations on an international money-laundering operation, believed to be tied to the scandal-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investment fund.

Yeo, who was a wealth planner with BSI between 2009 and 2014, has been accused of cheating the Swiss bank by taking an illicit commission from its transaction with Hong Kong-based fund manager Bridge Partners.

1MDB subsidiary Brazen Sky had parked US$2.3 billion (S$3.2 billion) in the bank. Sometime in 2012, BSI approached Bridge Partners — they were introduced by Mr Goh — to manage these funds.

Mr Goh set up shell company Bridge Global Managers (BGM) to receive commission for the referral, and channeled these monies to two other shell companies — Bridgerock Investment and GTB Investment — owned by Yeo and his ex-supervisor Kevin Swampillai respectively.

Mr Goh, 41, told the court that he was kept in the dark about the identities of the companies’ owners initially, and was merely told that the companies belonged to people “who were connected and important”.

Yeo later offered him half of the commission received by Bridgerock, which Mr Goh accepted.

“Subsequently, when I found out (about the actual owners of the shell companies), it did arouse my suspicion a bit and when I inquired further with Yeo, he said that his boss, Mr Swampillai, knows about it… so that allayed my suspicion a bit,” said Mr Goh.

“I did not think that anything was wrong, but I did suspect that they were earning extra income outside their employment with the bank.”

But when the CAD started looking into the matter, Yeo allegedly told Mr Goh and Mr Swampillai to lie to investigators that the commission was, in fact, an investment made by BGM.

Both Mr Goh and Mr Swampillai, who had testified earlier, had given similar accounts on the lengths that Yeo went to maintain secrecy, and the lie that he wanted them to tell.

“On March 19, Yeo tried to contact me several times on my usual mobile phone. I did not pick it up because I was given instructions not to contact him. He also sent me a text message,” said Mr Goh.

Yeo eventually showed up at his place.

“He said that there was a big understanding between himself and the CAD. That’s why I was caught up,” said Mr Goh, adding that Yeo instructed him to get a spare SIM card and delete his call logs from then on.

Defence lawyers acting for Yeo countered that it was Mr Goh who came up with these suggestions.

A week later, the two men met up with Mr Swampillai at the Swiss Club, in a meeting that Yeo apparently arranged.

“I was reluctant to be there because I was not supposed to be meeting or speaking with them,” said Mr Goh.

It was during this meeting that Yeo apparently came up with the story about the commission being a BGM investment.

“In the car ride back, Yeo still tried to assure me that this meeting didn’t take place, because I think he could see that I was quite uncomfortable,” said Mr Goh.

“After that meeting… I felt that it was only right that I tell the truth, and not cover up with the investment story,” he added.

The trial continues on Monday.

SINGAPORE: The three-storey warehouse building in Sungei Kadut that caught fire on Wednesday (Nov 2) has been ordered to close by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA).

Inspections showed that the fire at the warehouse along 65 Sungei Kadut Loop had caused the metal roof at the single-storey part of the building to collapse, said BCA in a news release on Thursday.

The structure at the three-storey part of the building is in a stable condition, “with localised damage to the second storey slab and concrete spallings on the floor slaps of the building”, the authority said, adding that the adjacent buildings were not affected by the fire.

“In the interest of public safety, BCA has directed the building owner to close the affected building and to engage a professional engineer (PE) to carry out a detailed investigation and recommend permanent rectification works,” said BCA.

“The affected building will be closed until detailed investigations by the PE are completed and the necessary rectification works have been carried out.”

It took 80 firefighers, seven water jets and three hours to put out the fire at 5am on Wednesday morning. Seven people were rescued from an office building adjoining the warehouse. None of them were injured.

SINGAPORE: The curtain opened on Thursday (Nov 3) on a little-known but perhaps essential figure in the ongoing trial of ex-BSI wealth planner Yeo Jiawei, who has been accused of tampering with key witnesses in Singapore’s 1MDB probe. 

It was ex-NTUC Income insurance broker Samuel Goh Sze-Wei who introduced Swiss bank BSI to fund manager Bridge Partners International Management. They inked a deal with 1MDB-owned Brazen Sky to invest US$2.3 billion on its behalf. 

Testifying on day four of Yeo’s trial on Thursday, Mr Goh, now unemployed, said he received millions in “referral fees” – of which Yeo said Mr Goh could keep just US$150,000. He would have to hand the rest of the money to “connected and important” people – the ones who really “brought the deal together”. 

“I accepted the structure as one that was normal in the course of business,” Mr Goh said.

He set up shell company Bridge Global Managers to receive the kickback, before passing it on to Bridgerock Investment and GTB Investment. Little did he know these companies were owned by Yeo and his then-boss, BSI’s former director of wealth management services Mr Kevin Michael Swampillai.

When Yeo eventually told Mr Goh the men owned these companies, “it did rouse my suspicion a bit”, Mr Goh testified. “When I inquired further with (Yeo), he said his boss, Mr Swampillai, knows about it and he was quite calm and collected about it … so that allayed my suspicions.”

Yeo then offered to split his share of the kickback equally with Mr Goh, raising his stake from US$150,000 to more than US$500,000 per year.

The arrangement lasted about two years before Brazen Sky redeemed its funds in 2015. When it became clear sometime in 2014 that the deal would end, Yeo told Mr Goh to destroy referral fee agreements and other documents linking them to the illicit transactions, Mr Goh testified.

In March 2016, Mr Goh was questioned by the CAD, who showed him certain documents relating to the illicit transactions. He said officers told him not to communicate with Yeo any longer.

He said he stopped answering Yeo’s calls, but Yeo seemingly became uneasy and showed up unannounced at Mr Goh’s house. He urged Mr Goh to purchase a secondary phone so they could maintain communications and work out a cover story to tell the CAD, Mr Goh said.

He bought a throwaway phone from a foreign construction worker, so the phone would not be traced back to him, Mr Goh said, describing the “ping” system he said was Yeo’s idea. The men would give each other a missed call each day, a signal they had not been picked up again by the CAD.

Mr Goh also talked about a meeting on Mar 27 at the Swiss Club, at which Mr Swampillai was also present. Echoing Mr Swampillai’s testimony, Mr Goh said Yeo urged them to lie to police, destroy evidence and communicate via untraceable phones in case they were being monitored by the CAD.

Defence lawyer Mr Philip Fong rubbished Mr Goh’s evidence that he mostly acted on Yeo’s instructions in relation to carrying out the illicit transactions and destroying incriminating documents.

Mr Fong also accused Mr Goh of receiving referral fees from illicit transactions involving private bank Amicorp. Mr Goh, who has not been charged in connection with the case, conceded he had, but that it was Yeo who asked him to sign those referral fee agreements.

Yeo is also accused of asking an Amicorp Group employee to destroy his laptop, in case it contained evidence of his illicit dealings with the bank. He also allegedly told the employee, Mr Jose Renato Carvalho Pinto, to tell a colleague to feign ignorance about Yeo’s dealings if he was questioned by the CAD.

More will be revealed about Yeo’s dealings with Amicorp when the trial continues on Monday. Three more prosecution witnesses, including an Amicorp employee, are expected to testify, before the case turns to the defence.

Yeo is expected to testify next week.

SINGAPORE — Mark your calendars, star gazers: The full moon on Nov 14 will be the closest to date in the 21st century, making it an “extra-super moon”, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The last time the supermoon was this close was almost 70 years ago in Jan 26, 1948. The next time the phenomenon will occur is on Nov 25, 2034, said NASA.

The upcoming supermoon can be viewed at its biggest at 9.52pm, Singapore time.

A supermoon refers “broadly to a full moon that is closer to Earth than average”, said NASA. This occurs when the closest part of the moon’s orbit (perigee) lines up with the Earth and sun (syzygy). As such, the moon will appear “as much as 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter”.

Dr Tan Ei-Leen, Deputy Director, Physical Sciences, Science Centre Singapore (SCS) said: “The supermoon can be viewed from anywhere in Singapore that gives you a good view of the sky — definitely don’t need dark skies to view something as bright as the moon, so long as there is no cloud cover.”

There are no viewing sessions planned on Nov 14 at the SCS, but regular Friday evening stargazing sessions will still take place on Nov 4, 11 and 18, with the moon visible through their telescopes on Nov 4 and Nov 11.

Nov 14’s supermoon is one of three this year — an earlier instance was on Oct 16 and another supermoon will be on Dec 14.

Setting #supermoon 54 time lapse photos: https://t.co/SczSn2Wnfy pic.twitter.com/tZx5bFkISb

— Sue Ganz-Schmitt (@PlanetKBooks) October 19, 2016

From tonight’s #fullmoon in #Seattle : Super Moon? What #supermoon …? pic.twitter.com/IgAGcomAst

— Tim Durkan (@timdurkan) July 13, 2014

SINGAPORE: Mobile coverage along the Circle Line (CCL) has been suspended temporarily a Land Transport Authority (LTA) spokesperson said on Thursday (Nov 3).

“Due to ongoing tests, commuters travelling along the CCL will experience temporary suspension of telco signals when travelling in tunnels,” LTA posted on its Twitter account.

“On instructions from the authorities, mobile network equipment along the CCL will be suspended until 10pm tonight. During this period, you will not be able to make calls, send messages, or access the Internet,” M1 said on its Facebook page at 8.25pm. It later said the suspension of access would be extended till 10.30pm.

StarHub issued a similar statement on Facebook, saying: “We have been instructed to turn off mobile services in the Circle Line.”

Singtel said on Facebook that Circle Line stations from Harbourfront to Bayfront would be affected until 10.30pm. 

Operator SMRT had earlier said that due to intermittent signal interference, there could be delays in train service. “For safety, CCL trains are manned this evening. We are sorry,” it said.

Signalling issues caused disruption and multiple delays on the Circle Line on Wednesday morning. The incident was similar to disruptions in September, but the cause of the repeated signal interference has yet to be determined. LTA and SMRT have said they commenced feasibility studies to strengthen the existing signalling communications network. The options being explored include placing an electromagnetic shield on the train to minimise the impact of interfering signals, and changing the signal system frequency.