The recommendations cover four main themes: Making public transport inclusive for all; providing more information to commuters; the design of the public transport system; and deepening the human touch on public transport.
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PTC releases first report on ways to improve Singapore's public transport
Box Office: 'Jason Bourne' scores with $80 million debut, 'Bad Moms' hits big
LOS ANGELES – Audiences turned out in force to see Matt Damon in “Jason Bourne,” pushing the spy sequel to a sterling $60 million (S$80 million) debut.
The film marked the actor’s return to the action franchise after a nine-year hiatus, during which he repeatedly hinted that he might be done with his most popular role. He and director Paul Greengrass argued that 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” had brought the character full circle by filling in him on the shadowy bureaucratic maneuvers that transformed him into a killing machine. What was left?
Be it creative spark or big paydays, the pair were somehow lured back to the series. That’s good news for Universal, which ran the risk of losing a Tiffany franchise without Damon’s involvement. In the interim, the studio had made an ill-conceived attempt at cinematic universe building with “The Bourne Legacy,” introducing Jeremy Renner as another amnesic a**-kicker dubbed Aaron Cross. The crowds didn’t exactly flock to see this sub-Bourne, and the film grossed about $150 million less than “The Bourne Ultimatum” globally.
As a sign of Damon’s appeal, audience surveys reveal that the actor’s presence above-the-title was the second most frequently cited reason that people turned up for “Jason Bourne.” “It’s no secret that people were anticipating a reunion of (Damon and Greengrass),” said Nick Carpou, Universal’s domestic distribution chief, adding “Putting the team back together made smart business sense.” “Jason Bourne” marks the series’ second highest opening, behind “The Bourne Ultimatum’s” $69.3 million debut.
When adjusted for inflation, however, it trails all but “The Bourne Legacy’s” opening weekends. Universal spent $120 million to make the latest instalment and released it in 4,026 theatres. “It proves that this is a franchise that’s still viable and that it can continue if they want to keep making them,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. “‘Jason Bourne’ is the perfect title for this film, because that’s who everyone wanted to see return.” Aaron Cross…not so much.
Even with Bourne’s resurgence commanding most of the attention, the weekend’s other major new wide release managed to score a respectable debut. STX Entertainment’s “Bad Moms” opened to a healthy $23.4 million and a third place finish. That’s a strong return on the film’s $20 million production budget.
It also gives STX Entertainment a much needed win after its other summer release, the Civil War drama “Free State of Jones”collapsed at multiplexes.
“Bad Moms” originally was set up at Paramount Pictures and was intended to star Leslie Mann with the actress’ husband and frequent collaborator Judd Apatow producing. But Mann dropped out, as did Apatow, and the project migrated to STX. It stars Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn as women who reject the pressure to be perfect parents, and instead indulge in hard partying and a more relaxed, Chablis-fueled approach to child-rearing. “It is a terrific movie that has a lot of heart and a lot of laughs and it plays great across the board,” said Kevin Grayson, STX’s domestic distribution chief.
Grayson believes the film will continue to draw crowds in the coming weeks, because there are no other raunchy comedies with female leads on deck. That could help the picture withstand”Suicide Squad’s” opening next weekend. The comic book movie is tracking to open to as much as $125 million, establishing a new record for an August launch.
STX is the brainchild of Robert Simonds, the producer of”Cheaper by the Dozen” and “The Pink Panther” films.
Armed with backing from the likes of TPG, Hony Capital and Huayi Brothers, the studio has ambitions to spend as much as $1.1 billion annually on producing, marketing and self-distributing its films by 2017. So far, its early efforts have been mixed. It scored with low-budget horror films such as “The Gift” and “The Boy,”but lost money on the thriller “The Secret in Their Eyes” and the point-of-view action film “Hardcore Henry.”
Among newcomers, Lionsgate fielded “Nerve,” a $20 million thriller about a digital truth or dare-style game that takes a deadly turn. The film stars Dave Franco and Emma Roberts. It opened Wednesday in order to get a jumpstart on the competition, earning $15 million over its first five days and $9 million over the weekend.
“We felt the best approach was to let the movie do the heavy lifting and let word of mouth carry it,” said David Spitz, co-president of domestic theatrical distribution at Lionsgate.”If you read all the comments whether it’s on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, the response is amazing. The audience loves the film. ” In holdover news, Paramount’s “Star Trek Beyond” slipped roughly 60 per cent in its second weekend to gross $24 million and nab second place. That brings the sci-fi sequel’s domestic haul to $105.7 million. With a hefty $185 million budget, the film needs to resonate overseas if it wants to make a profit, because, as it stands, that kind of a result doesn’t justify sequels or guarantee profits.
Illumination and Universal’s “The Secret Life of Pets”continues to be one of the biggest hits of the summer. The animated offering took fourth place with $18.2 million. The look at what pets do when their owners are at work has earned $296.2 million and seems destined to inspire more installments in the furry friend saga. After shattering records in 2015, Universal got off to a more modest start this year, with films like “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” and “Warcraft” failing to catch fire. However, the studio has bounced back in recent weeks, revived by the success of “The Secret Life of Pets” and “Jason Bourne.” “Lights Out,” a horror film from New Line, rounded out the top five, picking up $10.8 million to bring its total to $42.8 million after two weeks.
On the art house front, Summit and Roadside Attractions opened “Indignation to $89,072, for a $22,268 per-screen average. The drama about a precocious college student who clashes with the conservative head of his college marks the directorial debut of former Focus chief James Schamus.
This summer has been a mixed bag from a box office perspective. The industry has been in a funk as high-profile films such as “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” “The Legend of Tarzan,” and “The BFG” have flopped. However, this weekend’s receipts are an improvement on the year ago period when”Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” led the box office. Sales are up roughly 30 per cent thanks to the one-two punch of “Jason Bourne”and “Bad Moms.” “We’re starting to chip away at the summer deficit,” said Dergarabedian. “Maybe with ‘Suicide Squad’ opening, we’ll see the end to all this volatility.”
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Harvard a capella group performs with students with autism for charity
SINGAPORE – One choir hails from an Ivy League university, has a history that goes back 70 years and is in Singapore as part of its two-month world tour. The other, just four years old, is made up of students with autism from a special education school.
But both share a love for music. Harvard University’s all-male a capella group Din & Tonics has performed with the Pathlight Youth Choir from Pathlight School the past week, drawing the attention of the public in MRT trains, MRT stations and shopping malls.
A video of the performances has been shared on Facebook more than 7,700 times since last Wednesday (July 27), including once by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The performances culminated in a concert on Saturday (July 30) at A Very Special Walk, an event to raise funds for services for adults with autism. More than $600,000 was raised, surpassing the target of $500,000.
The two music groups’ partnership began in 2012. Singaporean Huang Kaiyang, who has a brother who used to study at Pathlight, was then a member of the Harvard group. So while Din & Tonics usually tours the world every two years to raise funds for its operations, it decided to support the autism cause on the Singapore leg of its tour.
Even though Mr Huang graduated two years ago, the Harvard group decided to continue its collaboration with Pathlight this year.
Mr Matthew Barber, 21, who also performed with Pathlight in 2014, said: “The Dins have had fulfilling experiences performing with Pathlight in the past. Singing for charity is very meaningful, especially for a cause we have a connection with.”
While there are no Singaporeans in the group now, one member, Mr James Baskerville, 20, has a sister with a developmental disability and a Singaporean mother. He agreed that the collaboration with Pathlight was a meaningful one.
Mr Will Jaroszewicz, 20, said: “You could see the Pathlight kids all loved being on stage. It serves as a great reminder to us, that performing for others is something special and we should appreciate the opportunities we have.”
At Saturday’s performance at Enabling Village in Lengkok Bahru, 10 members of the Harvard group – dressed in black tailcoats and lime green socks – stood among about 20 Pathlight School students. They sang Stand By Me and Bare Necessities, the popular song from the Disney film The Jungle Book.
Ms Nur Azimah Rahmat, 17, from the Pathlight Youth Choir, said: “I felt a bit nervous performing with these overseas celebrities, but I tried to hide the nervousness as I wanted to make sure that we perform well. I felt joyous and the atmosphere was really great.”
Minister for Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin, and Mr Lee’s wife Ho Ching were among more than 2,000 people at the event organised by the Autism Resource Centre (ARC), which set up Pathlight, and the Autism Association Singapore (AAS). Ms Ho Ching is adviser to ARC and patron to AAS.
Central Singapore District mayor Denise Phua, who is also president of ARC and a board member of AAS, said: “Children with autism grow up to become adults with autism. The need to stand by them and ensure that they continue to develop and learn does not go away when formal schooling is over.
This article was first published on August 1, 2016.
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Delifrance: NDP Coupon Deals till 30 Sep 2016
Delifrance NDP Coupon Deals till 30 Sep 2016. Print & present to redeem
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PM Lee celebrates National Day with Singaporeans in US
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday celebrated an early National Day with more than 500 Singaporeans and their friends based in the US.
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Utilities bill redesigned to help Singaporeans conserve water, electricity
The new layout allows consumers to view utility usage at a glance, compare the average consumption of neighbours living in similar housing types or streets as well as the national average, and learn how they could be more efficient in their consumption.
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Philippine crime war packs decaying jails
Manila – Mario Dimaculangan shares a toilet with 130 other inmates in one of the Philippines’ most overcrowded jails, and conditions are getting worse as police wage an unprecedented war on crime.
Security forces have killed hundreds of people and detained thousands more in just one month as they have followed the orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has said the top priority at the start of his six-year term is to eliminate drugs in society.
Those detained appear doomed for lengthy stints in an underfunded and overwhelmed penal system, like in the Quezon City Jail where Dimaculangan has wallowed for 14 years while his trial over murder and robbery charges have dragged on.
“Many go crazy. They cannot think straight. It’s so crowded. Just the slightest of movements and you bump into something or someone,” Dimaculangan told AFP in one of the jail’s packed hallways that reeked of sweat.
Worsening conditions in one of Philippine’s most crowded jails
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There are 3,800 inmates at the jail, which was built six decades ago to house 800, and they engage in a relentless contest for space.
Men take turns to sleep on the cracked cement floor of an open-air basketball court, the steps of staircases, underneath beds and hammocks made out of old blankets. Even then, bodies are packed like sardines in a can, with inmates unable to fully stretch out.
When it rains, the conditions are even worse as inmates cannot sleep on the basketball court, which is surrounded by the cells in decaying concrete buildings up to four storeys high.
The cash-strapped national government has a daily budget of just 50 pesos (S$3.60) for food and five pesos for medicine per inmate, although with the bulk buying of supplies, Quezon City Jail detainees have a sustainable diet of soup, vegetables and meat.
Pails of water are used to flush the scarce toilets, with the stench compounded by the rotting garbage in a nearby canal.
The jail’s management does what it can to make life bearable, such as running dance competitions and other rehabilitation activities.
Inmates also say there have been improvements in recent years, particularly with the food and more rehabilitation programmes.
But Raymund Narag, a criminal justice scholar at the Southern Illinois University in the United States, said such conditions were unthinkable in Western nations.
“If this happened in America, there would be a riot every day. Courts would declare these jails unfit for human habitation,” Narag told AFP.
The Philippine penal system is the third most congested in the world, according to the University of London’s Institute for Criminal Policy Research.
Jails nationwide have nearly five times more inmates than they were built for, according to government data.
And the situation is set to get much worse, very quickly.
Under Duterte’s crime war, police have reported arresting more than 4,300 people for drug-related crimes since he took office on June 30.
Duterte has repeatedly urged his law enforcers to do more, calling on them to triple their efforts to eradicate the drug menace that he says is threatening to turn the Philippines into a narco-state.
The population of Quezon City Jail, which houses inmates in a northern district of the Philippine capital who are on trial but not yet convicted, has grown by 300 since Duterte won May elections.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre told AFP government was preparing locations for new prisons while courts have been ordered to prioritise the expected deluge of drug cases.
But Duterte has said little about far-reaching reforms needed to fix the systemic problem of overcrowding.
“If there are no new jails, no budget increases, no additional courts and prosecutors, the system will explode. That will be a humanitarian crisis,” said Narag, the scholar who speaks from harrowing personal experience.
Narag, 41, was locked up in Quezon City Jail in 1995 as a 20-year-old after being accused of killing a student from a rival college fraternity.
It took seven years for a court to acquit him, which is about the average length of a trial in the Philippines and one of the main drivers of the overcrowding problem.
Dimaculangan is the longest-serving inmate in Quezon City Jail, after being charged with killing a politician’s relative in 2001. Dimaculangan is a pseudonym, because his real name cannot be used for legal reasons.
He insists he has a “clear conscience” but cannot get a chance to prove his innocence in court, averaging just one trial hearing a year in a chaotic judicial system notorious for its lack of judges, publicly funded lawyers and court rooms.
Dimaculangan said his spirits used to rise when he was informed of a date for a court hearing, but he had been disappointed too many times with cancellations or postponements.
“Now when they say I have a hearing, I don’t care anymore,” he said.
With no hopes of freedom, Dimaculangan said he had turned to his Catholic faith and values.
“My purpose is to help my fellow detainees,” he said.
“God did not send me here because I am a thief. There are many thieves out there but how come they are not in jail?”
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PM Lee lauds people-to-people ties between Singapore and US
WASHINGTON, DC – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has lauded the deep people-to-people ties between Singapore and the United States, adding that these links have served as the foundation for strong bilateral relations.
“The fact that there are so many…
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Ruby Lin and Wallace Huo wed in Bali
BALI – Beautiful people, check. Vows of eternal love, check. Kisses and tears, check.
Taiwanese television stars Ruby Lin and Wallace Huo got married at Bulgari Resort Bali on Sunday (July 31) and the wedding, by the account of Apple Daily, went according to script.
As the couple exchanged vows in a ceremony overlooking the Indian Ocean, the groom said with a shy laugh: “I’ve known you for so long. Being friends with you was, to me, a very lucky thing. Becoming husband and wife is, to me, a more fortunate thing.”
Ruby Lin and Wallace Huo tie the knot
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“There will be a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of tests. I hope we can, hand in hand, work together to face the future together. I love you.”
The bride, who wore a Zuhair Murad wedding dress, thanked her husband for his “goodness” and “tolerance”. “Starting today, we’re a family,” she said.
Choking up, she assured him: “When you’re out and you’re tired, exhausted, don’t forget, I’ll always be at home waiting for you. Forever. I love you.”
Huo, 36, and Lin, 40, then held hands and kissed. They were said to have been friends for 10 years, before they got together at her birthday party in January this year.
Actress Vicki Zhao made a surprise appearance at the ceremony, said the report. It was a rare reunion for Zhao, Lin and Fan Bingbing, who all acted in the 1990s hit My Fair Princess.
Among the other stars who flew in for the wedding weekend were Shu Qi, Hu Ge, Zhou Xun, Nicky Wu and his wife, Liu Shishi.
This article was first published on July 31, 2016.
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PM Lee saddened to hear of former president S R Nathan's 'grave condition'
SINGAPORE – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he was saddened to hear about former president S R Nathan’s “grave condition”.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (July 31) evening, Mr Lee said he was on his way to Washington DC for his official visit to the United States when he received news of Mr Nathan’s stroke.
“Have been in touch with his family,” Mr Lee wrote. “We have him in our thoughts and prayers.”
Mr Nathan, 92, is in critical condition after suffering a stroke on Sunday morning, said the Prime Minister’s Office in a statement. He is warded in the Intensive Care Unit at the Singapore General Hospital.
Along with his Facebook post, Mr Lee shared a photo of an antique Littleleaf Japanese Maple tree at the Singapore embassy in Washington, which Mr Nathan planted when he served as ambassador from 1990 to 1996.
Handpicked by Mr Nathan, the tree had been planted as a sapling when the embassy moved into a new chancery building.
His stint as ambassador was among many contributions in a long career, Mr Lee noted.
“He made many good friends for Singapore, and planted many seeds, including this beautiful antique Littleleaf Japanese Maple at our Washington DC embassy,” he wrote.
Mr Lee is currently on an official visit to the US, where he will be hosted to a state dinner by US President Barack Obama on Tuesday (US time).
This article was first published on July 31, 2016.
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