A review of public car park charges for both short-term and season parking is currently being conducted by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Housing and Development Board. The last islandwide review of public car park charges was done in 2002.
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Public car park rates set to rise for first time in 14 years
NTUC to give discounts for healthier FairPrice household items
This is part of an initiative to encourage healthy eating choices among Singaporeans.
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Students notch up work experience before university
Fresh out of junior college at the end of last year, Ms Poh Yong Han, 19 spent three months interning at the Ministry of Home Affairs, working on security outreach programmes and independent research on Singapore’s political history.
Now, she has started work at a social enterprise start-up, all while volunteering, travelling and learning Korean.
She is one of many students seeking a taste of working life while waiting for their university terms to open.
In Singapore, terms open in August and, abroad, mostly between late August and October.
More than half the 100 students from pre-university institutions that The Straits Times contacted are now in part-time or temporary jobs, and more than a third of them are interning.
Internships taken on by students range from those in statutory boards to small design firms, while almost all part-time and temporary jobs are in either the food and beverage (F&B) sector or tuition industry.
Internships focus mainly on learning skills related to professional industries, while part-time and temporary jobs are usually in more general areas such as F&B.
Four of the eight organisations offering internships contacted said they saw no change in the number of internship requests in the past two years, while the other four reported an increase.
Ms Vivien Chan, editor of Youth.SG, a lifestyle and news website, said: “We have definitely seen more pre-university students applying for our internships. More students do not want to waste their holidays, and are coming here for the work experience.
“There are even a few students here who are taking gap years, and this is something we did not have five years ago,” she added.
Ms Por Hui Fang, 19, an intern at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said: “I am working as a project assistant to get a feel of the work in this particular industry and know what to expect after university.”
Like her, almost three-quarters of those on internships said they wanted to learn more about the specific industries.
Ms Elysia Lim, 19, who taught English and literature at a secondary school, said: “I derive joy from sharing my knowledge with others. “On top of that I’ve learnt how to manage a class, handle unplanned circumstances and also improved my content mastery.”
The most common motivation among those working was money. They earn $6.50 to $9 an hour.
“I am using the money earned to pay for my driving lessons and travels,” said Ms Audrey Choo, 19, who has worked as a cashier, cook and waitress.
Of those polled, only six said they are taking a gap year before going to university.
Ms Ang Kia Yee, 20, who could have gone to university last year, took a break and will study English literature and creative writing in Britain this October.
She has interned at local theatre companies, directed theatre productions and organised arts camps for secondary and junior college students.
She said: “I wanted to understand whether theatre is something I want to do in the future. I felt like I needed to understand the reality of writing and directing as a profession.
“I think the gap year is also a good break from school. It gave me a more hands-on experience. Some may think that taking a gap year may adversely affect chances for university applications, while some think that only people with poor A-level results take gap years.”
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royannen@sph.com.sg
xsun@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on June 23, 2016.
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Stealth warship docks at VivoCity
Stealth warship docks at VivoCity
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Singapore is fifth-best city for female entrepreneurs: Study
Singapore is the only Asian city in the top five, ranked behind New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, London and Stockholm, according to Dell’s Women Entrepreneur Cities Index.
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Consumer prices fall for 19th straight month in May
Singapore’s consumer prices fell 1.6 per cent last month, following a 0.5 per cent decline in April and a 1 per cent fall in March.
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Consumer prices fall for 19th consecutive month
SINGAPORE – Consumer prices fell for the 19th consecutive month in May, due to an ongoing decline in private road transport and accommodation costs.
The All-Items Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell 1.6 per cent year-on-year last month, extending from the…
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Here I Am: Actress Oon Shu An's powerful exploration of identity is a hit on social media
Local actress Oon Shu An examines identity and how perceptions of who we are change depending on location, and whose perspective we are viewed from, in a new video.
The video has been viewed more than 43,000 times and shared over 1,200 times since she posted it on her Facebook page on Wednesday night (June 22).
Conceptualised by Oon and written by Joel Tan, the clip is four-and-a-half minutes long.
In it, Oon performs a monologue, against the backdrop of a video screen projecting images of different places.
The performance dwells on themes of national and ethnic identity, and how perceptions of ourselves and others can change, depending on where we are.
In the video, she talks about wanting to escape an increasingly crowded Singapore and going abroad, but after traversing the globe, from the US to China, Thailand and India, she returns to Singapore, realising that identities are fluid and change depending on whose perspective we are viewed from.
In Singapore, we may see ourselves as Singaporean, but when we travel abroad, to the US, for example, we are seen through American eyes not as Singaporean or Chinese, but simply Asian.
“Here, I am the Asian girl who speaks good English,” Oon says in the video, lumped with other Asian stereotypes such as being good at mathematics and having a Tiger mum.
At the end of the video, she “returns” to Singapore, with the realisation that whether Singaporean or foreigner, everyone is essentially the same.
“On the trains, I look up and see faces I suddenly recognise. Travellers, far from home. Homes we only understand in caricatures, pictures in tourist brochures. Trying to make a bed in this place, but all we can see is bodies taking space.”
“We are all foreign,” she declares.
“So what decides who should stay or who should go?” she then asks.
The video has so far received positive reactions from netizens, with over 1,100 likes on Facebook.
“Love this so much. As a first gen local whose identity is still stuck between my very “PRC” mother and the new batch of “foreign influx”, this really touched me,” commented Facebook user Zhou Jiajun.
Fellow actress Sandra Riley Tang, who is also part of local band The Sam Willows, gushed about the video in a Facebook comment, saying: “I LOVE THIS. I LOVE YOU.”
“The message is so relevant in the current political climate,” tweeted Twitter user Yukett.
The video is just… oonshuan’s video https://t.co/6SI2rNVx5Y
— Mirza (@mirza0529) June 22, 2016
@oonshuan @YouTube what a beautiful video! I love it. I’ll be spending the rest of my evening thinking about this
— F (@Feetrree) June 22, 2016
Oon, 29, starred in local TV series Mata Mata, and played a concubine in Netflix historical epic Marco Polo, among other roles. She is also an accomplished theatre actress, and staged a one-woman show Unicorn Moment in 2014.
xiuhuil@sph.com.sg
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Novena underpasses to be demolished
Two underpasses in the Novena area will be demolished to make way for construction work on the upcoming North-South Corridor, which is expected to begin next year.
One of the linkways connects the Velocity@Novena Square shopping mall and Revenue House, which houses government agencies such as the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Land Authority, while the other links Novena MRT station to Goldhill Centre in Thomson Road.
Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao reported yesterday that the two underpasses would be demolished.
A spokesman for the Land Transport Authority (LTA) confirmed that the underpasses would be temporarily affected by construction work.
“LTA is studying various options to reconstruct the underpasses as part of the upcoming project,” he said, adding that LTA was still in the “preliminary stage” of the study and would provide more details when available.
Nanyang Technological University transport consultant Gopinath Menon said he did not believe the demolition of the two linkways would badly affect pedestrians.
“They still have the option of above-ground pedestrian crossings,” he said.
Mr Gopinath added that the future linkways could connect all the buildings in the area, similar to how City Hall MRT station is linked to the Esplanade and Suntec City by a series of underground retail spaces.
Experts agreed the reconstruction of the underpasses would provide an opportunity to improve them.
Mr Chong Kee Sen, former president of the Institution of Engineers, Singapore, said the underpass leading to Revenue House, currently accessible only by a staircase on the Novena Square side, was not very friendly to the elderly or the disabled.
“We can take advantage of the situation to make the underpasses more user-friendly,” said Mr Chong.
Mr Lim Peng Hong, former president of the Association of Consulting Engineers Singapore, said the cut-and-cover method used to build underground expressways here made the demolition of the underpasses inevitable.
He also said features such as ramps could make the future underpass more accessible to bicycles, strollers and wheelchairs.
“There’s no reason to rebuild the underpasses exactly the same,” said Mr Lim.
Businesses in the area, however, worry that the demolition of the underpasses would mean less human traffic in the interim.
“Taking this route is a habit for some and is how we get our customers,” said 27-year-old Michael Boh, who works in an electronics store in the basement of Square 2 mall.
Patrons of the shopping malls said the closure of the linkways would inconvenience them.
“I would be less inclined to visit the area because it would definitely be more inconvenient,” said 20-year-old student Rebecca Lim, who shops at United Square and uses the underpass from the MRT to get there via Goldhill Plaza.
It was announced in January that the 21.5km-long North-South Corridor, originally slated as a vehicular expressway, would be Singapore’s first integrated transport corridor, featuring dedicated bus lanes as well as cycling and pedestrian paths.
Connecting towns in the north such as Woodlands and Sembawang to the city, the North-South Corridor is expected to be completed in 2026.
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This article was first published on June 23, 2016.
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Batam police foil plan to sell baby for $11,000 to Singapore buyer
Indonesian police have arrested three suspects over a plan to sell a three-month-old baby boy to a buyer in Singapore for almost $11,000.
Acting on a tip-off, police from the Riau Islands province raided a house in Batam last Wednesday and arrested three Indonesians – the baby’s father, a midwife and a broker.
Indonesian police identified them by their initials: BAH, aged 55; YA, 31; and EA, 47.
Police also seized a documented receipt confirming the transaction of a baby for US$8,000 (S$10,700).
“Investigations are ongoing but we have found strong evidence of baby-selling,” provincial police spokesman Hartono told reporters yesterday.
The boy’s parents, who are Chinese, were facing economic hardship, he said.
Superintendent Hartono would not disclose the buyer’s identity.
Anti-trafficking groups say the case is only the tip of the iceberg. Mr Syamsul Rumangkang, head of the non-governmental Anti-Trafficking Agency in Batam, said the baby-selling racket is an “immaculate network” involving many people.
Some of the transactions take place even before the babies are born, he said. “So the pregnant woman goes to Singapore and gives birth there. The buyer, usually from the middle class, has prepared everything,” he said.
Each baby can be sold for US$5,000 to US$10,000.
Trafficking of babies from Indonesia to other countries, including Singapore, is not new. A long-time human trafficker, a midwife and brokers were among seven women arrested in 2013 after police found a four-month-old baby, named Teddy Lukas, destined for Singapore at a house in Jakarta.
A Singaporean identified only as Mr Chow had bought Teddy and visited Jakarta to check his health before handing a down payment of $500 to the broker.
aarlina@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on June 23, 2016.
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