SINGAPORE – A 30-year-old construction worker died on Thursday (June 30) after he was hit by falling equipment at a PUB worksite in Marina South.
He had been working at the bottom of a shaft in the ground when equipment hoisted by a crane dislodged from the…
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Construction worker dies after being hit by falling equipment at PUB worksite
Go-Ahead ups basic salaries of bus captains to S$1,950 a month
SINGAPORE – The Republic’s fourth bus operator Go-Ahead Singapore has raised the minimum basic starting pay of its local bus captains by about 4.6 per cent.
The move comes on the back of pay hikes announced over the past two months by other operators,…
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Swimming: Adrian sets up Rio repeat bid as Phelps, Lochte showdown looms
OMAHA, United States – Nathan Adrian stormed home to win the 100 metre freestyle at the US Olympic swimming trials punching his ticket to Rio where he’ll go for a second straight gold.
Adrian clocked 47.72sec, improving on the 47.91 he produced in the semi-finals. Only Cameron McEvoy of Australia (47.04) has gone faster in 2016.
The 27-year-old Adrian was just one veteran in the spotlight Thursday as superstar Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte lined up a tantalizing 200m individual medley clash with semi-final victories.
Phelps comfortably won the first semi in 1:57.61. Lochte followed with a 1:56.71 that makes him the second-fastest in the world this year.
“It’s going to be good,” Phelps predicted of Friday’s final. “You’ll have an exciting race.” Phelps will be gunning to add the 200m medley to a Rio slate that already includes the 200m butterfly.
Lochte, meanwhile, will be in search of a first individual Rio berth as he and Phelps add another chapter to a rivalry more than a decade old.
“It’s one of the greatest rivalries in sports,” said Lochte, who owns the world record and 2015 world title in the 200 IM, but has settled for two silvers and a bronze in behind gold medalist Phelps in three Olympics.
Adrian, who beat Australian James Magnussen to the 100m free gold in London by one one-hundredth of a second, hadn’t cracked 48 seconds since 2013.
Now that he’s done it twice in as many days, he’s looking forward to taking on another Aussie challenger in McEvoy.
“I just look forward to racing him,” Adrian said. “There is nothing more fun than getting the best guys in the world together in the same pool and just seeing what happens.” Caeleb Dressel, a double freestyle sprint gold medalist at the NCAA collegiate championships, seized second in 48.23, booking an individual berth in Rio as he edged another collegiate standout, Ryan Held, who settled for third in 48.26.
Held nabbed a trip to Rio as part of the relay pool, as did fourth-placed Anthony Ervin – who earned a third Olympic appearance 16 years after he won gold in the 50m free in 2000.
Josh Prenot poured it on in the back half to win the 200m breaststroke in 2:07.17 – becoming the second-fastest performer all-time behind Japan’s Akihiro Yamaguchi – who holds the current world record of 2:07.01.
Prenot, who missed out on a Rio berth in the 100m breaststroke with a third place finish behind Cordes and Cody Miller, was fourth at the halfway mark as Cordes set a blistering pace.
Cordes was still leading at the final turn, with Prenot in second and both under world record pace and it was Prenot who powered home for the win with Cordes second in 2:08.00.
“That is by far the most perfectly I’ve ever put it together,” said Prenot. “So I’m just going to be working on putting another good race together in Rio.” World championships silver medalist Cammile Adams won the 200m butterfly to line up another Olympic shot in the event in which she finished fifth in London.
Adams, rattled by a disqualification that was overturned on video review in the heats, clocked 2:06.80 with Hali Flickinger second in 2:07.50.
Elsewhere in the semi-finals, Abbey Weitzeil led the times in the women’s 100m free in 53.57sec.
Katie Ledecky, winner of the 200m and 400m free already this week and a virtual certainty to punch her ticket to Rio in the 800m free, made the final in the less familiar sprint with the seventh-fastest time, while Missy Franklin failed to advance.
Franklin finished 11th-fastest. She’ll have a chance to qualify in a second individual event, after punching her ticket with a runner-up finish in the 200m free, in the 200m backstroke.
“That speed just doesn’t feel like it’s quite there this meet,” said Franklin, who also came up short in the 100m backstroke. “No idea why.”
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840,000 HDB households to receive GST U-Save vouchers in July
Eligible Singaporean households will each receive a GST Voucher-Utilities-Save rebate of up to S$65, depending on their flat type, says the Ministry of Finance.
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Toggle's 'Fashion Police' gaffe: Mean comments were scripted, host says
The video runs just about two minutes and was meant to promote a new segment in Toggle’s web series Double Trouble.
What happened next spelled big trouble for Toggle, MediaCorp’s online TV service, the creators of the video, and its host, social media personality Saffron Sharpe.
Soon after the video was posted on Toggle’s Facebook page on Monday afternoon, a storm of criticism erupted online over its content.
Its sin was poking fun at the fashion sense of innocent bystanders on Orchard Road, with Sharpe’s tongue seemingly living up to her name with her snarky appraisals of her “fashion victims”. (See report above.)
Not surprisingly, Sharpe, who was a finalist in The New Paper New Face contest in 2013, took the brunt of the online onslaught. One Twitter user called her “a prime example of ‘beauty without brains'”.
Another said: “Saffron Sharpe looks so beautiful until she starts talking.”
Facebooker Denyse Lee said of the video: “It comes across as mean-spirited and negative. Let people wear whatever they want… Shaming them for their outfit choices doesn’t reflect badly on them, it reflects badly on you.”
Samantha Ngau also went on Facebook to describe the footage as “really lazy show content” that is “judgmental and materialistic.”
Toggle apologised on Facebook for the “offensive” video soon after it was taken down early on Wednesday. (See report, top.)
Sharpe, 19, told The New Paper over the phone that she had felt uncomfortable doing the video and that some of the comments were not hers, but had been scripted on the spot by video director Belinda Ang.
HESITANT
“Personally, when they told me about the idea, I felt a bit hesitant at first because I knew it wouldn’t really sit well with the public,” she said.
“But considering the fact that I was already on set, and my friend who got me the job was there, and Belinda seemed really excited about the shoot, I didn’t really want to go against it.
“It was awkward to just walk off and say, ‘I can’t do this’, so I just went along with it.”
Referring to the online criticism, Sharpe said she was surprised to see vitriol like “You’re disgusting” and “You should die”.
She said: “I was quite taken aback and some of the statements were quite hurtful. But I put myself out there on social media, so I do expect these (negative comments) to come.”
Describing the incident as a learning experience, Sharpe added: “I’m taking it as a learning step for me rather than worrying about my career because these things can change in time.
“I just have to learn from my mistakes and be more responsible for my actions.”
Sharpe, who has 66,800 followers on Instagram, got the gig through a friend who used to work for Miss Ang’s company, thinkBIG Communications.
She said she was initially told that she was going to do a sound system-related video, but when she turned up for the shoot, Miss Ang told her that she was going to do a “fashion police” video instead.
“I felt quite uncomfortable criticising random people on the streets, so I clarified with Belinda and she told me that it wasn’t going to be an issue as these people’s faces were going to be covered with the faces of Mark Lee and Kumar.”
In the video, the faces of the “fashion victims” were covered with face masks of Lee and Kumar, the comedian hosts of Double Trouble, to give them a veneer of anonymity.
Sharpe said that Miss Ang would prompt her on who to target and what to say.
“There was this uncle who wore a minion outfit, Belinda was like, ‘It would be funny to comment about it because minions are trending’.
“I like minions and I didn’t really want to comment about a random uncle walking on the street, so I was pushed into this uncomfortable situation,” she said.
SUGGESTION
“Belinda would suggest to me, ‘Why don’t you talk about this person’s outfit, it looks quite comical’, and if what I said wasn’t good enough, they would push me to be more cynical and mean, so it would come off as more entertaining.”
Last evening, soon after TNP e-mailed Miss Ang questions about the video and Sharpe’s comments about her, this post appeared on her Facebook account: “All I can say is, doesn’t pay to be nice, helpful and supportive.
“People resort to blatant lies and accusations when they are in a panic. BUT #BeNiceAnyway. Act, don’t react.”
A spokesman for thinkBIG Communications later told TNP in a statement: “The “fashion police” video was a promo clip for an episode of Double Trouble on Toggle, which Saffron was a guest on.
“All parties involved in the production were briefed of the creative direction of the video prior to and on the set itself.”
The subjects filmed were censored to protect their identities as the intent of the video was never personal but to start a conversation on street fashion, positioned as a tongue-in-cheek fashion policing. We would not have proceeded with filming if at any point anyone was uncomfortable with it.”
SOME OF SHARPE’S COMMENTS
“Floral print mix tribal print equals disaster. Please just stick to one.”
“Chinese New Year was in February, let’s move on, guys.”
“What?! No matter how hot it is, right, never wear a visor out. Fashion disaster… no.”
TOGGLE SAYS SORRY ON FACEBOOK
Uh… that skirt probably will be found in Mean Girls, but that was about 10 years ago. Terrible.”
The “fashion police” video was posted on Toggle’s Facebook page at around 4pm on Monday.
It sparked a flurry of online criticism that the video was mean and offensive in poking fun at passers-by on Orchard Road.
By early Wednesday morning, Toggle had removed the video.
Not long after, at 1.41am, it posted an apology on its Facebook page.
A spokesman for Toggle told The New Paper yesterday: “Because of the reaction to the video, we pulled it.”
“The fashion police video was a standalone promotional clip for episode 14 (of Toggle web series Double Trouble) involving Saffron Sharpe.
“There is actually no “fashion police” segment on the show, and Saffron Sharpe is not the host.
“Episode 14 of the series covers fashion, and Saffron Sharpe was the guest on that episode and discussed fashion in a brief three-way conversation with the hosts.”
Toggle said in its Facebook apology: “We never meant to cause hurt or insult. The “policing” was part of a publicity campaign for an upcoming programme, done in the same tongue-in-cheek, irreverent way we might critique celebrity fashion.
“It wasn’t intended as a serious judgment of the way any of us dress. That said, again, we really should have known better and have of course pulled the video.”
Double Trouble is touted as an unconventional web series about all things Singaporean, where comedy and truth collide. It is hosted by local comedians Mark Lee and Kumar.
This article was first published on July 01, 2016.
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Promised work, Myanmar women instead forced to marry in China
HLAING THAR YAR, Myanmar – Enticed by work in China, hundreds of poor young Myanmar women are instead being duped into marriage, and left to scramble to get back across remote borders before they are forced into life with husbands they have never met.
In April Kyi Pyar Soe, 22, vanished from her community of squatters, who live in tents and flimsy bamboo lean-tos an hour outside of Yangon, the largest city in impoverished Myanmar.
“She didn’t say anything. She left after she argued with her younger sister. Her mother told her off and she left,” her father Mya Soe told AFP from the family’s shelter in Hlaing Thar Yar township.
He could not have known that his daughter was on her way to China, enticed along with another woman by job offers as maids paying $210 (S$283) a month – several times more than what they could make at home.
Gifted a free journey by brokers to the shady Myanmar border town of Muse, in eastern Shan State, the pair were able to cross legally.
But once on Chinese soil, the deal swiftly unravelled.
“They were taken to a Chinese woman’s house and the woman brought some Chinese men to have a look at them,” a police officer, from Kyi Par Soe’s township told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“She told them that they have to marry a Chinese man.” Demand for Myanmar brides is high in China, where a one-child policy has led to a massive gender imbalance.
Myanmar has drawn international praise in recent years for democratic reforms that have loosened the military’s repressive grip and paved the way for the human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi to lead an elected government.
But the fledgling democracy faced a diplomatic setback Thursday when the United States branded it one of the world’s worst centres for human trafficking.
The government has failed to meet the minimum standards for combating people smuggling, the US State Department ruled in an annual trafficking report that downgraded the country to the lowest “Tier 3”.
“Burmese women are transported to China and subjected to sex trafficking and domestic servitude through forced marriages to Chinese men,” the report said, adding there is reason to believe that government officials “are occasionally complicit in this form of trafficking”.
More than 3,000 people were trafficked to China between 2006 and 2016, according to official figures.
“Two thousand of them are women… four hundred are children who are under 18-years-old,” said Police Major Ye Win Aung, of the Yangon-based Anti-Trafficking Task Force.
“They were offered job opportunities in China but instead they were sold to be wives of Chinese men when they arrive on the other side,” he added, saying some 800 cases have been recorded so far.
Non-governmental organisations say the real figure is likely to be much larger, especially once northernmost Kachin State is included where poverty and war drive thousands across the border.
Neighbouring Thailand is also an immediate draw for millions of Myanmar people seeking work on its construction sites, in restaurants and factories.
But migrants are prone to exploitation there too, especially if they lack work permits.
In the end, Kyi Pyar Soe and the other woman were lucky.
The pair met an old Myanmar woman in the Chinese town who helped them back across the border before they could be married off to the strangers.
They are now in a government-run woman’s refuge in Yangon where they are receiving job training – vital to prevent Kyi Par Soe, who never went to school, from repeating her journey.
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Kris Wu won't suffer Edison Chen's fate
While a movie star’s sex scandal can hardly excite someone who’s never viewed such public personalities as role models, the ensuing discourse is fascinating because it provides a perfect window into the changing social mores in an era when nothing seems constant.
Kris Wu (Wu Yifan) is a 26-year-old entertainer. He sings and acts in movies. But like his dozen peers collectively known as “little fresh meat”, a Chinese term for heart-throbs, he is known mostly for his swooning good looks.
On the Twitter-like Sina micro blog, his fan base is 18 million strong.
Much of this multitude has been going through hell for the past two weeks. The torment came in the form of an accusation from a young woman – let’s call her G. (Her online handle is a mix of the letter G and two Chinese words.) She hinted that Wu had dumped her.
Public feedback might shed light on the Chinese view of premarital sex. Some argued that a highly polished idol like Wu would never stoop so low and do something like that.
But many others said it was quite normal for a young man of single status to engage in it.
Wu’s die-hard fans tend to belong to the former camp and others, some prominent women included, were the forgiving and understanding type.
By this point, the public had assumed that G was Wu’s girl for a night, a euphemism for the Chinese coinage that is decidedly more abrasive.
(The Chinese language does not seem to have an equivalent for “groupie”.)
Many viewed G as an ambitious social climber who wanted to take advantage of a one-night stand. G’s accusation – actually less an accusation than a hint of her relationship with him – came with some evidence, such as snippets of a recording, but it was instantly dismissed by Wu’s agency as “pure fabrication”.
As if to rebuff the public assumption that she was just a groupie, G started releasing a stream of material, including hundreds of snapshots of her supposed WeChat conversations with Wu.
Both Chinese emigrants to Canada, G and Wu met in Vancouver. According to her, he initiated the affair in January and they had some wonderful times together, cuddling in Canadian hotels for weeks at a time, away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi.
Kris Wu accused by woman of leading her on
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Months later, she discovered that he was cheating on her, and he simply stopped responding to her calls or messages except that, after her first exposure, he “threatened her to shut up”.
G said she issued her first semi-public plea (it did not name names) to get him to give her an explanation.
The surprise was that a dozen other women came forward, saying they had similar experiences with him. Some backed them up with photos of Wu sleeping next to them.
According to Zhuo Wei, China’s most famous – or infamous – paparazzo who had an exclusive interview with her, G has more and stronger evidence up her sleeve.
Zhuo didn’t say what she was after – an apology or some form of compensation from Wu. She said only that she wanted the public to know “what kind of person he really is”.
OK, Wu could be a latter-day Don Juan who had a five-month affair but failed to commit. Is he in the habit of unceremoniously ending a relationship – or was it just a fling?
That is assuming everything G said was true.
By the time this article goes to print, Wu or his agency has not made any public response.
Had this happened 20 or 30 years ago, Wu’s reputation would have been dragged through the mud.
A public figure, especially one in showbiz, was by default someone on a pedestal.
In the late 1980s, the early days of China’s opening up, Chi Zhiqiang, a frequent male lead in romantic comedies of the day, was thrown into jail for essentially the same thing.
He tried to stage a comeback by singing “songs of regret” after his release.
Wu is lucky as we are living in a more tolerant time.
He should also thank Edison Chen for absorbing the first shock. When Chen’s sex photos were exposed by a hacker in 2008, it effectively ended his entertainment career even though many belatedly realised he was the victim in that case.
Edison Chen and his rumoured flings
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After G released her second wave of evidence, public responses became even more fractured. The number of those with unwavering trust in him dwindled.
Support for her grew.
It helped that she showed lots of tentativeness when Wu was hot on her and also that her family turned out to be quite wealthy, thus making her exposure less likely an act of extortion, at least in public minds.
All this was expected. But I found it ironic that some women said the revelation actually had the opposite effect.
Their attraction for Wu did not take off until they read his WeChat dialogue with G, in which he showed lots of “sweetness”.
Well, isn’t that the prerequisite for being a Don Juan?
Lord Byron got away with much worse behaviour.
Perhaps I should not call it a growing consensus but it seems more and more people are taking the line that it was OK for Wu to “have dated” this young woman, whether she’s a fan and whether he was serious.
Morality aside, both Wu and G could justify what they did.
He could have dated her and found her unsuitable for whatever reason.
She was on a tightrope fearing she would fall off his radar of affection any time.
On a cynical note, he could be using her as a quick fix for libido and she could have been saving every little bit of evidence for the consequences.
If there is a lesson to be learnt, it would be her own conclusion: “I don’t believe in fairy tales any more.”
The dream machine churns out fairy tales, and that includes the prettily decked-out heart-throbs with their dreamy eyes, but the machine itself is anything but a fairy tale.
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Toddler badly burnt by hot oil: Mother says family has spent over $10,000 on surgery
It was not a happy Ramadan last year for Madam Mashitah Abdullah, who had to face a neverending stream of questions from people about the misfortune that befell her son, Aafaa Zuhayr Muhammad Al-Khair.
Aafaa, 2, was badly hurt in an accident in June last year when he was scalded by hot oil after he had accidentally tipped over a hot frying pan in the kitchen. The then-15-month-old toddler suffered second degreee burns when the sizzling oil splashed on his face and trickled down his body and arms.
This year however, Madam Mashitah is much more thankful after seeing the progress made by her only child. Although large scars are still visible on his face, she and her husband, Mr Muhammad Al-Khair, are confident that Aafaa will make a full recovery.
“After the incident, I never imagined that I would receive messages of encouragement from other mothers around the world, including Iceland, whose children had undergone even worse ordeals than my son,” she told Berita Harian.
Ms Farzana Abdul Razak, a former stewardess who suffered severe burns in the SQ006 incident, also assured her that her son would recover in time, Berita Harian reported.
Other than the scars, Aafaa has also been traumatised by the accident in other ways. According to Madam Mashitah, he is more subdued and will sometimes suddenly burst into tears because of the itchiness caused by his scars.
“There are times when he seems afraid when we want to bring him out of the house. Perhaps he thinks we might bring him to the hospital again,” she said.
Mother thankful for support shown to son who was badly burnt
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Berita Harian, Muhammad Al-Khair Salahuddin
Since the accident, Aafaa has been through a number of operations in South Korea. Madam Mashitah said that she found out about Hangangsoo Hospital while watching a programme on Korean TV channel KBS World.
She recalled facing a number of challenges when she first visited the hospital. The doctors and nurses did not speak or understand English, and even though there was an interpreter, many of the explanations were still unclear.
“But my mother’s instinct told me that Aafaa should undergo surgery at the hospital,” she said. To her relief, he soon began to show improvements.
So far the costs of the operations have come up to more than $10,000, and this is before factoring in costs of flights and accommodation in South Korea, Berita Harian reported.
Madam Mashitah now takes care of Aafaa full-time. She quit her previous job as a marketing manager, and is now selling Magic Jelly, a product containing aloe vera that she rubs on her son’s face a couple of times a day.
But what has taken her most by surprise is how she has become a source of support to other mothers whose children have also been badly burnt.
She revealed that she once received a message on Facebook from a woman in India, who was seeking her advice. The woman’s child had also been burnt after toppling over a rice cooker.
“The most important lesson I have learnt from this incident is that as a mother, we must strengthen our resolve and be brave, especially when our children have to undergo surgery. If we are scared, then they become scared as well, which hinders their recovery,” she shared with Berita Harian.
At Hari Raya this year, Madam Mashitah plans to visit her family and relatives at night or when it rains, because exposure to the sun can exacerbate the itchiness felt by Aafaa from his scars.
“I am just thankful to everyone, including those whom I do not personally know, who have showed concern for my son and prayed for his quick recovery,” she added while shedding a tear.
seanyap@sph.com.sg
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Dolce Tokyo by MOF 1-for-1 All Main Courses at 313 Somerset from 1 – 31 Jul 2016
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Dolce Tokyo by MOF 1-for-1 All Main Courses at 313 Somerset from 1 – 31 Jul 2016
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Go-Ahead Singapore raises starting pay for bus captains
The UK-based bus operator will raise the minimum basic monthly starting pay to S$1,950, up from S$1,865, which is better than the terms offered by Tower Transit.
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