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M1 Apple iPhone 7 Prices & Price Plans
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Despite efforts to promote a car-lite Singapore, nearly two-thirds of young people polled in a Sunday Times survey aspire to own one. Less than a quarter know how to cycle and, among those who do, only a handful would cycle to work or school.
In a door-to-door survey commissioned by The Sunday Times and done by Nexus Link, 501 citizens and permanent residents who do not own a car, and aged from 18 to 35, were polled.
Nearly all did not see the car as a status symbol. Instead, most said a car was a convenient mode of transport.
A fifth said it allowed them to get to out-of-the-way places.
The third-most popular reason cited for wanting to own a car was family needs, such as ferrying elderly folk or young children.
Aspiring car owners, who tended to be young single males who live in private homes, and have a driving licence, expressed a wish to own a car within five years.
“There appears to be some urgency to fulfil the dream,” said Nexus Link chief methodologist Jack Loo.
Still, new car driving licences issued have dipped about 5 per cent from 74,063 in 2011 to 70,458 last year, said the Traffic Police.
The survey findings come amid a push by the authorities to shift people from cars to public transport, cycling and walking.
Nearly 60 per cent of all respondents said they lived within 10 minutes’ walk to a train station, and more than 90 per cent lived within 10 minutes’ walk from a bus stop.
While accessibility to public transport does not seem to dissuade car ownership, inaccessibility brings on the desire for a car.
Slightly more than half of respondents said they would buy a car if a bus stop was not within a 10-minute walk from their home. Likewise, more than half said they would buy a car if a train station was not within a 10-minute walk from their home.
Nanyang Business School Adjunct Associate Professor Zafar Momin said Singapore would not be able to cater to such aspirations under present conditions.
“The privately-owned car population on the road could increase by 35 per cent to 50 per cent even if a quarter to a third of the young people who aspire to own a car ultimately purchased one,” he said.
In the survey, only five people said they commuted to work by bike.
The most common reason cited by respondents for not considering the bicycle as the primary mode of transport was the view that bicycles were not suitable for long distances.
Other top reasons included safety concerns and difficulty in ferrying other family members.
Still, several of the respondents believed that better cycling infrastructure and facilities – the Government is building 700km of cycling paths by 2030 – could help people make the switch in future.
Those who did not aspire to own a car cited an accessible public transport system. Another reason was how cars were environmentally unfriendly.
Most did not see the high cost of cars as a problem.
Entrepreneur Zhan Hui, 29, said he does not plan to buy a car now as “public transport is so convenient. I’ll take a cab if I am in a rush”.
Another respondent, Ms Jessica Ho, 31, said safety was the main reason she chose four wheels over two. “Sometimes, I look at cyclists on the road, and it can be quite dangerous, the way they are overtaken by drivers,” she said, adding that she prefers to use the car even for short trips to the supermarket.
This article was first published on Sept 11, 2016.
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DHAKA – At least 25 people have been killed and 70 injured, many critically, in a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a Bangladeshi packaging factory, officials said yesterday as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.
Around 100 people were working when flames tore through the four-storey building in the industrial town of Tongi, just north of the capital Dhaka.
Dr Parvez Mia, who works at the Tongi government hospital, said the death toll was now 25, up from 22 which was previously reported. At least 70 people were injured.
The fire started in the boiler room at the Tampaco Foils factory, which supplies foreign and domestic brands.
Police inspector Aminul Islam said: “We still have not controlled the blaze and we fear some workers are still trapped in the factory.”
Dr Mia said seriously injured victims had been sent to hospitals in Dhaka. “Several of them are in a very critical condition,” he added.
Factory electrician Mohammad Rokon, 35, escaped with minor injuries. “I was working inside the office room when I heard an explosion and felt a tremor. Then suddenly, the ceiling started to fall on me,” he told the media from his hospital bed. “I almost became unconscious. But I forced myself to go out with the help of my cellphone flashlight.”
Machine operator Rubel Hossain was two minutes away from entering the factory when the blast occurred. “I heard a huge explosion and saw smoke and fire coming out of the factory,” he said.
“I am simultaneously feeling lucky and heartbroken,” he said, tears streaming down his face as he helped to rush the many injured to hospital, his T-shirt stained with blood.
The tragedy struck as families were preparing to celebrate the major Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.
Ms Khaleda Begum, the sister of a factory worker killed in the accident, said: “My brother Delwar Hossain told us last night he would take us to our home district of Sherpur. Now, he is going to be buried there. Eid is ruined for our family.”
Chemicals may have been stored on the ground floor of the factory, which would help explain how the blaze that began at 6am managed to spread so fast, said Mr Tahmidul Islam of Bangladesh’s industrial police unit.
SINGAPORE – There were 14 new cases of Zika in Singapore as of noon on Saturday (Sept 10), the Health Ministry said.
A potential new cluster was found at Jalan Raya/ Circuit Road area, involving one previously reported case and a new case from Saturday.
Seven of the new cases were found in the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive/Kallang Way/Paya Lebar Way cluster.
One is linked to the Bishan Street 12 cluster and one case to the Bedok North Avenue 3 cluster.
Another four cases have no known links to existing clusters. This brings the total number of locally transmitted cases of Zika to 318.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) is continuing with vector control operations and outreach efforts in the cluster areas, including: Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive/ Paya Lebar Way/ Kallang Way/ Circuit Road/ Geylang East Central/ Geylang East Avenue 1; Bedok North Avenue 2/ Bedok North Avenue 3/ Bedok North Street 3; Joo Seng Road; Bishan Street 12; Elite Terrace and Ubi Crescent.
As of Friday , a total of 194 breeding habitats had been found and destroyed in the cluster areas, of which 117 were in homes, and 77 in common areas or other premises.
Information on Zika and details on current clusters can be found at www.nea.gov.sg/zika and www.nea.gov.sg/zika-clusters.
NEA will also be carrying out vector control operations and outreach efforts at Jalan Raya/Circuit Road.
Meanwhile, Taiwan detected its seventh imported case of Zika, and the infected patient is a Singaporean woman who lives in Aljunied Crescent.
The 20-year-old and her friends were travelling in Japan from Aug 26 to Sept 3, said a press release from Taiwan’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC) on Saturday.
Her symptoms, which included a rash, joint pain, headache and conjunctivitis, appeared on Sept 1, the CDC said.
When she entered Taiwan on Sept 3, she still showed the symptoms and was warded in hospital from Sept 4 to 5.
After testing, she was found to have Zika, and it is likely she contracted the virus in Singapore, the Taiwan authority said, adding that she will be isolated till Sept 12.
This article was first published on Sep 10, 2016.
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Three-year-old Yoyo has a special friend in his home this summer. Isabell Rohde, 18, from Spangenberg, a small town in central Germany, is spending six months as an au pair with Yoyo’s family in southwest China’s Chongqing.
Like many European peers, the young woman decided to take a gap year to experience some foreign culture before going to college.
“I was looking for an opportunity to experience a different culture after finishing high school,” Rohde tells China Daily.
“It’s my first time abroad.”
At Yoyo’s home, her main duty is to take care of the boy, play with him and teach him some English. She will also take some Chinese language courses every week and travel with the host family.
The au pair programme originated in Europe after World War II to promote cultural exchanges among young Europeans.
Au Pair, a French term, means “at par” or “equal to”, and indicates that the au pair is on par with other members of the family, rather than a traditional domestic help or nanny.
Au pairs live with their host families and look after the children. In return, they get an allowance and opportunities to study a foreign language.
Due to visa restrictions and limited demand, the au pair programme was not introduced in China until the early 2000s.
At first, it was Chinese au pairs going out, mainly to the United States, as some American parents started to realise the importance of learning Chinese.
In 2006, Yu Hongbin, from Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, was the first Chinese au pair to land in the United States, according to the New York Times.
In China, the demand for au pairs has started to grow in recent years as some affluent and ambitious Chinese parents want their children to get a hands-on feel when learning a foreign tongue.
In 2014, a Chinese movie, When a Peking Family Meets Au Pair, drew public attention to this concept.
Based on the experiences of a Chinese host family, the movie is about how a traditional Chinese family gets along with a Colombian au pair called Natalie.
Yoyo’s father Pu Yongjian, an economics professor at Chongqing University, learnt about the au pair programme this year through an English teacher whose friend is running an au pair agency in Chongqing.
“My son likes English very much, so I want to have an English-speaking au pair to help him practice the language at home,” says Pu.
But at first, the agency told him it might take a while to find an au pair who wants to come to Chongqing, a lesser-known Chinese city in the underdeveloped western region.
Typically, foreign au pairs want to live in Beijing and Shanghai.
“Bai Mei (the Chinese name Pu gave to Rohde, which means white plum blossom) is an exception,” says Pu.
“She wanted to go to the ‘backward’ part of China.”
My academic and professional background also attracted the German student who plans to pursue an economics degree in college when she returns home, the professor says.
Explaining how au pairs and families are matched, Ma Senhu, the general manager of the Chongqing Holiday Cultural and Tourism Exchange Center, which helped Pu find the German au pair, says: “Our clientele comprises well-educated professionals with international exposure, such as professors, lawyers and entrepreneurs.”
There are about 10 agencies who are involved in the au pair programme in China and about 700 foreign au pairs came to the country last year, says Ma.
“Thanks to the country’s fast growth, an increasing number of young foreigners are applying for positions in China,” he says.
The agency has matched 15 Chongqing families with au pairs this year.
“The selection process is mutual,” says Ma, adding that the two sides communicate directly via email and video chats to see if they click.
“Almost no foreign au pair can speak Chinese, so Chinese parents need some foreign language skills,” he says.
Meanwhile, though an increasing number of Chinese parents are buying into the programme, many have concerns about the system.
She Ke, the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine and a mother of two young children, says: “I cannot imagine having a foreigner living in my home.
“It can lead to lot of cultural and lifestyle conflicts. For instance, do I have to prepare Western food for the au pair every day?”
Zhuang Yilin, a senior manager at a multinational company in Shanghai and also a mother of two, has been thinking about having an au pair for some time.
“It is not easy to find a trustworthy one,” she says.
“I want an au pair with a good personality and a positive attitude. I have heard some negative feedback about au pairs in China, so I am being very cautious.”
Language experts also say that it is not necessary to have an au pair for kids at very young age.
Liu Jian, Chief Academic Officer of Best Learning, an English language training centre, says: “While having a native speaker at home is obviously the best way to pick up a foreign tongue, if the child is only three years old, the au pair is just a babysitter and cannot teach the child a lot. I think the proper age (for a child to have an au pair) is around 10.”
VENICE – Philippine film “The Woman Who Left”, a revenge tale shot in black and white by director Lav Diaz, won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
“I want to dedicate this film to the Filipino people and their struggle, and humanity’s struggle,” Diaz said as he received the award.
Holding his Lion aloft, the man behind Melancholia (2008) and Century of Birthing (2011) thanked the jury, lead this year by British director Sam Mendes, who said the 20 films in competition had proved to be of “a wonderful, astonishing variety”.
In “The Woman Who Left”, a story about the absurdity of human existence, a wrongly convicted schoolteacher plots retribution against the ex-boyfriend who framed her, disguising herself in a bid to get close to her prey.
Released in the late 1990s after decades behind bars, Horacia (Charo Santos-Cancio) discovers her loved ones are either dead or gone, and the ex-boyfriend, now a wealthy underworld boss, becomes the target of her simmering rage.
At nearly four hours long, Diaz’s film – nominally inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s 1872 short story “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” – plays with the theme of moral accountability within a narrative coloured by kidnappings, transgenderism and poverty.
Best actor went to Argentina’s Oscar Martinez for his portrayal of a cynical Nobel Prize-winning author who returns to his village for the first time in 40 years in the comedy on art and fame, “The Distinguished Citizen”.
US actress Emma Stone received the best actress prize for her depiction of a struggling thespian who falls head over heels in love with a jazz pianist – played by Ryan Gosling – in US musical “La La Land”.
“I wish I could be there to make sure it’s not an elaborate prank,” quipped Stone in a video message, saying she could “think of no better place in the world than Venice to premier ‘La La Land’, we had a wonderful time”.
Fashionista-turned-director Tom Ford was awarded the Silver Lion grand jury prize for “Nocturnal Animals”, a romantic thriller about former lovers starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, with a violent revenge tale told as a story within a story.
An emotional Ford addressed the audience in Italian, saying he had spent “some of my best years in Italy” and it was his “biggest dream to return to Venice” after premiering his first film here, “A Single Man”, in 2009.
The Silver Lion for best director was divided this year between Mexico’s Amat Escalante for “The Untamed”, about the sex life of a tentacled extraterrestrial creature, and Russia’s Andrei Konchalovsky for Holocaust drama “Paradise”.
“Jackie”, a bio-drama which stars Natalie Portman as the grieving widow of US President John F. Kennedy, meanwhile took best screenplay, with Chilean director Pablo Larrain saying the triumph was Portman’s, calling her “the only woman who could have played this role”.
Ana Lily Amirpour – dubbed “the new Tarantino” by fans – scooped the special jury prize for her second film “Bad Batch”, a cannibal love story with Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves about a young girl who ends up on the menu in a futuristic United States.
But there was no recognition for Terrence Malick’s “Voyage of Time”, which wowed Venice audiences with its portrayal of the life and death of the universe through stunning special effects and real-life images taken from earth’s most sophisticated satellites.
TORONTO – Scottish actor Ewan McGregor admitted to being “very nervous” about making his directorial debut with the movie adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “American Pastoral”.
The film, which premiered Friday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, also sees McGregor in the lead role of the hard-working man in late 1960s America whose family begins to fall apart after his daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) becomes politically radicalised.
McGregor, 45, said he had spent years waiting for the right directorial opportunity to emerge but felt pressure in interpreting Roth’s work on the big screen.
“I was very nervous,” said the star of “Trainspotting” at a news conference on Saturday. “I think it’s a massive responsibility to take on – a responsibility to the producers, a responsibility to Philip Roth, a responsibility to everybody who had read that novel and who liked that novel,” he added.
He also wanted to make sure the film “represented me in some way.”
McGregor said Roth has seen the film and reacted positively to the adaptation of his 1997 masterwork, voted one of Time magazine’s 100 greatest novels.
“It was very important to me that Philip liked the book,” he said.
“Last week, when (producer) Tom (Rosenberg) phoned me to tell me that he had heard from Philip and that Philip very much liked the film and felt that we had captured his novel, it was a huge relief. I hadn’t realised how much I had been carrying the fear of maybe the fact that he wouldn’t like it.”
Critics were not so kind. Variety called the debut “as flat and strangled as Philip Roth’s novel is furious and expansive.”
McGregor is soon to be seen in the second “Trainspotting” movie as well as the third season of the television series “Fargo”. And he has hopes to direct again soon.
“I’ll certainly be keeping my eye open for something. Something will find me, I guess. The right story will come along. It’s an enormous commitment,” he said.
Jennifer Connelly, who plays McGregor’s wife in the film, called her director’s debut a “wonderful experience.”
“He clearly appreciates acting and actors and made a lot of space and I think we all felt very supported and eager to collaborate and explore together and I had a great time,” she said.
“American Pastoral” is slated for release in US theatres on Oct. 28.
RIO DE JANEIRO – When Paralympians break a prosthetic leg or damage a wheelchair in Rio, they know just where to go.
“It really looks a bit like a hospital for prosthetics,” said Peruvian Paralympian Jose Luis Casas in the waiting area of a workshop set up in a large hangar in Athletes’ Village.
The workshop is run by Ottobock, a German firm that has been the official repairer at the Paralympics since the 2004 Games.
A dozen wheelchairs were lined up during a visit this week, waiting to be given care. Casas, a former soldier whose left leg has been amputated, had come to get his carbon running blade looked after.
Workers in the company colors of green shirts and grey trousers attended to their patients. The sound of drills whirring filled the air.
Casas, a 200m runner, was impressed. “I didn’t know this place before. It’s superb,” he told AFP.
Ottobock, the world’s biggest prosthetics company, shipped over a formidable amount of material for the Games: 300 plastic feet, 70 carbon blades, thousands of screws and other hardware – 18 tons in all, with 77 technicians from about 30 countries to do the work.
The service is free of charge and the technicians will operate on any brand of gear, either repairing or sometimes replacing the piece.
More than 80 per cent of repairs involve wheelchairs and about 15 per cent prosthetics.
“We get a lot of wheelchairs after the rugby and basket, games which are the most violent. But we also get wheelchairs for everyday purposes, which are the most used,” said company spokeswoman Merle Florstedt.
Italian para-fencer and amputee Alberto Andrea Pellegrini came looking for protection to avoid cuts on his damaged leg during competitions.
“There’s always something I need and every Paralympics I come here,” said Pellegrini, who has competed in four Games and has nine medals.
There’s a waiting time of about 30 to 45 minutes, US technician Derek Johnson said.
First the athletes are checked out and then given an estimate on how long it will take. The repair shop does its best to be quick.
“They rely on us,” Johnson said.
There are games and tables in the waiting area to help pass the time. Other athletes whip out their mobile phones to record the day their prosthetic leg or wheelchair went in for an operation.
Just a few days into the Rio Paralympics, Ottobrock says it has already done 1,200 repairs. Around 200 a day is typical.
Johnson said that building things is his passion. “What’s best of all is making things that help people,” he added.
It’s not all about surgery for Paralympic gear. The Games are also an opportunity for makers of prosthetics and other equipment to fight for market share and publicity.
“Of course there is competition” during the Games, said Ottobock spokesman Rudiger Herzog.
The market leader’s main rival, Icelandic company Ossur, was famous for building Oscar Pistorius’s running blades in London 2012 and has sponsored about 20 international athletes in Team Ossur.
Among them is Frenchwoman Marie-Amelie Le Fur, who won gold in the longjump on Friday and is also taking part in the 100m, 200m and 400m races.
The global prosthetics industry is a niche affair worth slightly more than a billion dollars, Ossur said, and within that the sporting prosthetics are tiny. Ottobock produces some 150,000 prosthetics a year, but only 800 purely for sport.
However, the Paralympic spirit is catching on as the Games go more mainstream and the technology makes the sports more exciting to watch and play. And gradually, the barriers between high performance and regular equipment are blurring.
“Our research and development team is learning a lot about the biomechanics of athletes which can perhaps be transferred back to products for other amputees,” said Edda Geirsdottir, a spokeswoman for Ossur.
Local telcos Singtel and M1 have released their prices for Apple’s latest smartphones.
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MANCHESTER, United Kingdom – Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho singled out some of his players for stinging criticism following their 2-1 loss to derby rivals Manchester City.
The United manager hauled off Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard at half-time and said it was only because he did not want to “destroy them” that he did not substitute them earlier.
But he saved his most trenchant remarks for centre-backs Daley Blind and, in particular, Eric Bailly, saying some players had shown signs they did not possess the requisite big-game temperament.
“We had problems with poor performances,” Mourinho told reporters at Old Trafford on Saturday.
“We lost the ball very, very easy. Even our central defenders, that were really top class until today, they lost easy balls.
“Back-passes, first-station passes, from Bailly to (Marouane) Fellaini, from Blind to (Paul) Pogba.
“We lost the ball in these kinds of positions. So it was not (just) Mickey (Mkhitaryan) and Jesse, it was much more than Mickey and Jesse.” Pep Guardiola’s City took a deserved 15th-minute lead when Kevin De Bruyne beat Blind to Kelechi Iheanacho’s flick-on before steering a shot past David de Gea.
The same pair combined to double City’s lead, Iheanacho tapping in after De Bruyne’s low shot came back off the post.
An error from City’s debutant goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, who flapped at a deep free-kick from Wayne Rooney, allowed Zlatan Ibrahimovic to pull a goal back.
But although United improved following the half-time introductions of 18-year-old Marcus Rashford and Ander Herrera, they could not find an equaliser.
“What I told them at half-time was that for some of you, it looks like you are trying to do what I told you not to do,” said Mourinho.
“I told Bailly 20 times, never play a first-station ball. Never. Because this is where they want to press. Never do that. He did it 20 times during the game.
“I think really some of the boys, they felt the dimension of the game. Everything around the game – the derby, the big game, Man United-Man City, the focus, the attention – some of the guys felt it.
“It has nothing to do with inexperience or age because you have the kid (Rashford) then in the second half and the kid looks like he was playing in the Under-18s against Salford City.
“So it’s about the individual and every individual reacts to the dimension of the occasion in different ways. It’s difficult to predict.
“It only gets easier when you know the players very, very well. So probably in the next big game in the Premier League, I know who can accept the dimension of the game, which is very important.” Mourinho blamed referee Mark Clattenburg for not awarding a penalty after a rash challenge on Rooney by Bravo.
Guardiola said he had not seen the incident, but revealed that Aleksandar Kolarov had lost a tooth during the game.
The left-back appeared to be struck in the face by Fellaini at one point, but Guardiola said he did not know what had happened.
The match had been billed as a showdown between Mourinho and Guardiola, who fought a ferocious running battle during their time as coaches of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
The pair embraced before the match and Guardiola said he hoped future contests between the teams would not be discussed in terms of their personal relationship.
“I don’t know if he respects me, but I respect him a lot,” said the former Bayern Munich coach.
“We are fathers. I am a father, he’s a father, so I didn’t come here to see about the rivalry. He wants to win, I want to win.
“I beat him, he beats me. In the future I beat him, he beats me. It’s simple like that. We are adult people. When we see each other, sometimes we don’t agree about our opinions.
“Hopefully next time we play against United, people start to forget.”
