SINGAPORE – The water search operation for the missing man in Tuesday’s (July 12) boat fire near the mouth of the Singapore River was called off at 2am on Wednesday.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it will continue to dispatch its resources…
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Marina Bay boat fire: Search for missing boatman called off
Temasek subsidiary to invest in MMA promoter ONE Championship
The investment, led by Temasek subsidiary Heliconia Capital, is said to be an eight-figure sum.
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5th desalination plant to boost Singapore's water security
Singapore will build a fifth desalination plant on Jurong Island to enhance its resilience against the effects of climate change.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli announced this yesterday during the closing session of the Water Leaders’ Summit held during the Singapore International Water Week.
The new plant will have the capacity to produce 30 million gallons of water per day, he added.
As climate change will bring about calamities, such as prolonged droughts, governments must look at weather-independent and weather-resilient sources, Mr Masagos said.
National water agency PUB is also exploring the feasibility of co-locating the desalination plant next to an existing power plant, he added.
This could help to supply energy needed to run the desalination plant.
Singapore currently imports half its water supply from Malaysia, but by 2060, desalination and Newater are expected to meet up to 85 per cent of its needs.
The Linggiu reservoir in Malaysia helps the Republic to draw water from the Johor River but recent dry weather has caused levels in the facility to drop steadily.
There are currently two desalination plants which can produce 100 million gallons of water a day.
This can meet almost 25 per cent of current demand.
A third plant in Tuas is expected to be built by next year.
The fourth, to be completed in 2019, will have facilities to treat freshwater from Marina Reservoir.
It will add about 30 million gallons of water a day to Singapore’s supply.
kcarolyn@sph.com.sg
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Wednesday, July 13, 2016 – 08:36
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Gisele Bundchen to participate in Rio opening ceremony
RIO DE JANEIRO – Ex-supermodel Gisele Bundchen will strut her stuff in her native Brazil next month, this time swapping the catwalk for the stadium hosting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio.
Bundchen, who retired from modeling last year, will walk through a “futuristic gateway” at Maracana Stadium during the August 5 ceremony marking the start of the first Games hosted in South America, according to Extra newspaper.
Extra said the theme of the ceremony would be “the future.”
Rio 2016 organizers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bundchen, now 35, who was once the highest paid model in the world, also participated in the prize ceremony for the 2014 World Cup final that pitted Argentina against Germany, in Maracana Stadium as well.
Extra said another highlight of the Olympics ceremony would be a performance by veteran samba singer Elza Soares, 79.
Soares, the widow of football player Garrincha, is expected to sing about Rio’s favelas.
Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, two living legends of the South American giant’s music, are also expected to participate in the ceremony.
They will be joined by funk singer Anitta.
“It’s very exciting to work for such a great event,” O Globo newspaper quoted her as saying.
And in this capital of the Carnival festival, the 12 leading school percussion bands will have the crowd bouncing to the music in the huge arena.
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Train defects did not pose safety risks, says Khaw
The hairline cracks found on the 26 China-made trains did not pose a safety concern, hence the issue was not made public when the defects were first discovered in 2013, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday.
The defects, which required the trains to be sent back progressively to the manufacturer in Qingdao to have their car-bodies replaced, also did not impact reliability or capacity, he added during a press briefing.
This issue, first brought to light by Hong Kong media FactWire last week, is a “seemingly routine matter” that had been “misspun” by “mischievous hands”, said Mr Khaw.
The trains are manufactured by Chinese-Japanese consortium Kawasaki-Sifang and used on the North South-East West Line (NSEWL).
While the trains – which each required around four months to be rectified – were sent back to China one at a time, this did not affect service operations.
This is because there is a “buffer” of trains, said Mr Khaw, meaning that currently only 124 of the 140 trains available on the NSEWL are needed to meet commuter demand.
To date, five of the 26 trains manufactured by Kawasaki-Sifang have been rectified.
The Land Transport Authority expects all 26 trains to be rectified by 2019.
The hairline cracks, which were discovered in July 2013, were found on the surface of the car-body bolster – the aluminium alloy structure under the train carriage.
About 85 per cent of the hairline cracks are shorter than 20cm and did not pose a safety risk. This was ascertained through tests conducted by LTA, Kawasaki-Sifang and an independent consultant from Germany, TUV.
Tests found that the bolsters could still withstand loads of three times greater than normal usage, and this is an acceptable safety margin, said the LTA.
Under the rectification works, the bolsters used will be cast in Japan rather than China.
adrianl@sph.com.sg
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See also:
– Our trains in Singapore are safe, says firm behind China-made MRT trains
– 5 out of 26 China-made MRT car-body replacements completed, rest to be finished by 2019
– HK operator to query company behind faulty SMRT trains
– Letter: Train cracks a telltale sign of inferior materials used
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Beijing furious as tribunal rejects South China Sea claims
BEIJING: Beijing furiously rejected an international tribunal ruling on Tuesday (Jul 12) that rendered its claims in the South China Sea invalid and dealt a devastating diplomatic blow to its ambitions in the resource-rich region.
China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the strategically vital waters, despite rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbours, most notably the Philippines.
But on Tuesday a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague – the Permanent Court of Arbitration – ruled that China has no historic rights to the area.
Manila – which had lodged the suit against Beijing – welcomed the decision, as China, having boycotted the proceedings, said it “neither accepts nor recognises” the ruling.
“The award is null and void and has no binding force,” China’s foreign ministry said on its website, reiterating its territorial claims.
President Xi Jinping said the islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times and Beijing will not accept any action based on the decision, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The Asian giant’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Wu Ken was meanwhile quoted by Xinhua as saying “today is ‘black Tuesday for The Hague” and that “the ruling “dishonours international law”.
China’s claims, which include waters approaching neighbouring countries, are based on a vaguely defined “nine-dash-line” found on a 1940s Chinese map.
The row has embroiled the United States, which has deployed aircraft carriers and a host of other vessels to assert freedom of navigation in the waters – through which one-third of the global oil trade passes.
China says that its fishermen have visited the area for centuries, but the PCA tribunal said that under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing had no exclusive control of it.
Any historic rights were “extinguished” when it signed up to UNCLOS, it said, and there was “no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’,” it said.
Crucially, it ruled that none of the Spratlys, a chain of outcrops in the south of the sea, were “islands” under the meaning of UNCLOS, and thus whoever had sovereignty over them – an issue it did not address – was not entitled to 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of their own.
Some sea areas were therefore definitely in the Philippines’ EEZ, it said, as they were “not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China”.
China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its EEZ and the artificial islands Beijing has been furiously building in recent years – reshaping the area in an effort to bolster its claim – have inflicted severe environmental damage, it added.
‘BRANDED AS AN OUTLAW’
The damning decision was “as unfavourable to China as it can be”, said Yanmei Xie, China analyst for the International Crisis Group.
The award by the five-member panel – chaired by a Ghanaian – “overwhelmingly favours the Philippines – a huge win,” said M. Taylor Fravel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
China has consistently said the tribunal does not have jurisdiction on the issue and Xinhua reported the ruling under the headline: “Law-abusing tribunal issues ill-founded award”.
In Washington, the State Department said the ruling was an “important contribution” to resolving regional disputes and should be seen as “final and legally binding”.
China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has been seeking a greater role on the global diplomatic stage, and will not want to be seen as a violator of international law.
But how the decision could be enforced remains open to question, Richard Heydarian, a political analyst at De La Salle University in Manila, told AFP.
Xinhua cited Foreign Minister Wang Yi as saying China would remain committed to peaceful settlement of disputes through consultation and negotiation.
‘TOUGH REACTION’
Beijing has held naval drills between the Paracels and the southern Chinese island of Hainan in recent days, while US Pacific Command said on Twitter that the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan had launched flight operations to support “security, stability” in the South China Sea.
Bonnie Glaser of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies told AFP: “I expect a very tough reaction from China since it has lost on almost every point.”
China could choose to withdraw from UNCLOS, or begin building on Scarborough Shoal, which it seized from the Philippines in 2012 – which Washington would view as a provocation.
Beijing could also declare an air defence identification zone over the South China Sea, claiming the right to interrogate aircraft passing through the airspace, or try to remove a ship grounded by Manila on Second Thomas Shoal for use as a base.
The Philippines, which had lodged the suit in 2013, welcomed the “milestone decision”, and foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay said: “We call on all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety.”
Nationalist demonstrations are not rare in China, sometimes apparently with the tacit backing of authorities, and the Philippine embassy in Beijing has warned its citizens to beware of personal “threats”.
Chinese police sealed off the street where the mission stands.
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Wednesday, July 13, 2016 – 08:17
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StanChart robbery suspect had a 'piercing look'
A SINGAPOREAN was getting ready for a day out in Bangkok at the Boxpackers Hostel just before noon on Sunday when a hostel worker opened the door of the room and gestured for her to leave quietly.
About 12 plainclothes police officers stood at the doorway with guns drawn, the 23-year-old civil servant, who declined to be named, told The Straits Times yesterday.
She later found out that the officers were there to arrest a fellow tourist staying in her 12-bed dormitory room.
He turned out to be the man who allegedly robbed the Standard Chartered Bank in Holland Village of $30,000 last Thursday.
The man, who had slept just two beds away from her on an upper bunk, had fled to Bangkok shortly after the robbery and arrived at 5pm Thailand time (6pm Singapore time) that day. He checked into the hostel along Petchburi Road in the Ratchthewi District.
Yesterday, he was identified by the Thai media as 26-year-old Canadian David James Roach.
The Singaporean, who was in Bangkok for a holiday with a friend until yesterday, said she first noticed something amiss earlier during breakfast on Sunday, when some 20 police officers arrived outside the hostel on motorcycles.
They remained in the vicinity even after she returned to her mixed dorm on the fourth storey.
She was standing by the lockers in the room when the police appeared at about 11.45am.
They were led by a hostel staff member who gestured for her to leave the room quietly.
Bank robbery at Holland Village Standard Chartered Bank
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The Straits Times, Twitter
She recalled: “I was scared to see them holding guns and went down very quickly. Some of the officers were wearing vests that said ‘tourist police’.
“One even cocked his gun.”
She said the suspect was skinny, about 1.8m, wore spectacles and sported a crew cut.
The civil servant said she had noticed him at breakfast a day earlier on Saturday because he had “a piercing look”.
“He was quiet and his eyes were quite intense. He was calm and slowly eating his breakfast,” she said.
He was always on his own and “never once talked or smiled” during his stay and “seemed to be in his own world”, she added.
She had an inkling that the police presence was linked to the Singapore robbery only when a police officer told her later that they wanted to
“catch thief” who “steal from Singapore”.
Some 45 minutes after the police officers stormed the hostel, she saw the suspect being led down a narrow staircase calmly, without handcuffs.
She said: “A police officer was holding each of his wrists. He gave me the same piercing look and then he was taken away.”
nghuiwen@sph.com.sg
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Wednesday, July 13, 2016 – 07:53
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StanChart robbery suspect had a 'piercing look', said S'porean tourist who witnessed arrest at Bangkok hostel
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What did StanChart robbery suspect's note read?
He had told hostel staff during check-in that he was going to check out on Saturday.
But for unknown reasons, David James Roach did not do so, and stayed on.
On Sunday, Thailand police moved into the Boxpackers Hostel…
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Kurt Tay removes confidence-boosting c-cup implants after 3 years
He was so desperate to remove his C-cup breast implants that he worked two jobs and slept just three hours a night to raise the $7,000 needed for the procedure.
In April 2013, Mr Kurt Tay, then a 27-year-old security guard,…
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Kim K on the cover of Forbes magazine
Kim Kardashian, whose mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood has made US$45 million (S$60 million), graces the cover…
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