In the fight against Covid-19, Singapore enacted a chain of circuit breaker measures which has affected companies, employees and freelancers.
To help protect and benefit the local media industry, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has launched a new $8 million Public Service Content (PSC) Fund, along with a series of other initiatives, which will catalyse more projects for local media companies and professionals in the coming months.
S Iswaran, Minister for Communications and Information, said: “The Government will continue to support our media companies and professionals as they weather this trying period so that they can continue to create content that inspires, uplifts and binds us as one united people.
“Media companies can look forward to more project opportunities and reduced operating costs, while media professionals and freelancers can benefit from subsidised training fees to sharpen their craft during this downtime. Working together, we will overcome this period of uncertainty and emerge stronger as one.”
SINGAPORE: A coordinated approach to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia is necessary, but it would be unprecedented and require transparency from countries involved, experts have said.
On Tuesday (Apr 14), ASEAN leaders and the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea held a virtual summit on COVID-19 where they pledged to boost cooperation to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus and mitigate the pandemic’s devastating economic fallout.
“If this can be achieved, it will be unprecedented, but equally what we are facing with COVID-19 is unprecedented,” said Professor Teo Yik Ying, dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (NUS).
At the ASEAN summit, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong proposed three ways to coordinate the region’s response: To share each country’s information, strategies and experiences; to collaborate to keep trading routes and supply lines open, and to have some agreement on how to impose trade and travel restrictions as well as on relaxing them when the time comes.
In a declaration after the summit, ASEAN leaders emphasised a “whole-of-ASEAN community approach” to the virus outbreak and called on member states to help each other.
This includes keeping trade routes open to protect food supplies and medical equipment, the development of a post-pandemic recovery plan and a proposed COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund.
Ms Hoang Thi Ha, lead researcher for political and security affairs at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said that such calls for ASEAN unity and action in COVID-19 response have grown louder in the past week.
The Special ASEAN Summit injected “much-needed political impetus” for more coordination among the member states in handling the disruptions from COVID-19, she said.
“The momentum is there but the impact on the ground remains to be seen, subject to the follow-through of the summit’s discussions at both national and regional levels.”
Infectious diseases expert Annelies Wilder-Smith said ASEAN countries could be the first to coordinate in such ways.
“I believe that ASEAN will be the first to coordinate and then Europe and other parts of the world could learn from ASEAN,” said the visiting professor at Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.
“There is now also a movement within Europe to step up a coordinated response within the continent. Many European countries are at different phases of the outbreak … but Europe is moving in the right direction.”
BILLIONS IN LOCKDOWN
FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a protective masks walks during the imposition of large-scale social restrictions by the government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 11, 2020. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
The global coronavirus epidemic started in China’s Wuhan late last year but has since spread to nearly every country in the world. The number of people who have died from the virus has exceeded 125,000 as the cumulative number of cases nears 2 million and continues to climb.
In the first phase of the outbreak, China had the majority of the cases but the disease epicentre moved to Europe, and now the United States, which heads the virus league table with more than 600,000 infections.
The 10 countries in ASEAN have reported more than 22,000 cases, with the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia each having more than 5,000 cases. Singapore had initial success containing the virus, but now has more than 3,000 cases in a second wave of infections.
Thailand has reported about 2,600 cases while Vietnam has 265, with official numbers in Laos and Myanmar even lower. There are fears that the spread may be undetected in areas where healthcare facilities are poor.
Billions of people are in some form of lockdown around the world although some territories are starting to ease restrictions as the number of cases fall.
Spain, Italy and India are taking or planning steps to relax restrictions while the European Union is poised to suggest a coordinated “road map” for member states to exit lockdown measures.
A cook makes food that will be distributed among migrant labourers and homeless people by Indian Red Cross Society volunteers, during a nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Faridabad, India, April 14, 2020. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Such lifting of restrictions would help buoy mothballed economies but have to be balanced with measures to avoid another wave of infections.
Prof Teo said that as the pandemic comes under control, there should be coordinated easing of travel restrictions. Countries that are in a similar, contained phase of the outbreak may form a bloc allowing for a greater degree of unrestricted travel to resume.
“This will require very transparent sharing of data on the current disease situation in each country, and I see this as one of the hardest to achieve – especially if the incentive to deceive is fundamentally economic,” he said.
This is easier said than done, said political scientist Chong Ja Ian, who had a sceptical view of ASEAN nations’ ability to collaborate.
“A big challenge with international groupings and governments, as we have seen with COVID-19, is that they have multiple competing incentives,” said Associate Professor Chong of NUS.
“Political leaders may not wish to be as forthcoming about information as they should because of partisan, personal, economic or other considerations.”
He cited “long-standing challenges” that ASEAN faces even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited its response to issues from transboundary haze to cross-border crime and territorial disputes.
“Not addressing these fundamental challenges may consign any ASEAN initiative on COVID-19 to an on-paper solution,” he said.
POOL RESOURCES, SYNC LIFTING OF LOCKDOWNS
Elaborating on the need to coordinate essential supplies and personal protective equipment, Prof Teo said that there may be a need to consider pooling a fraction of the national resources from every ASEAN country. These resources can then be redistributed to enable countries to mount effective responses to the pandemic.
Ms Jessica Wau, Assistant Director (ASEAN) at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs said that countries can arrange to source for raw material together for the joint production of essential goods.
“This is a win-win approach that will make goods such as masks and test kits more readily available for equitable sharing,” she said.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha attends a special summit via video conference with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discuss the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation at the Government House in Bangkok
While the scale of collaboration would be unprecedented, this is not the first time ASEAN has had to move as one, said Dr Lim Wee Kiat, associate director of the Centre for Management Practice at Singapore Management University.
There have been past successes such as the establishment of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) in the wake of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
Such structures can be activated or expanded, for example, essential medical supplies and equipment can be parked under the AHA Centre, said Dr Lim, an organisation and disaster sociologist.
Mr Hoang raised a similar point, adding that the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve should be activated.
“Due to the urgency of the problem, flexibility and diplomacy must be exercised to overcome the many bureaucratic layers embedded in these mechanisms for quick action on the ground,” she said.
Whatever the difficulties, countries may come to realise that they will need to handle the COVID-19 situation for the next few years and that it would be “disadvantageous” to mount a unilateral response, said Prof Teo, adding that he has seen some global coordination emerging as well as some economic collaborations coming online.
“The above measures, in my opinion, are the only way that collectively, the world can have a chance to contain COVID-19 before a viable and safe vaccine becomes widely available; the only way for national economies to regain some level of normalcy,” he said.
First, he was tearing plastic sheets off cordoned-off tables.
Then he hit a cleaning supervisor’s arm for calling the cops on him.
An elderly man was filmed on April 13 tampering with the seat covers at Chinatown Complex Food Centre before getting into a heated exchange with police officers who arrived at the scene.
The police told AsiaOne that they received a call for assistance for a dispute that evening between an 82-year-old man and a female cleaning supervisor.
She was trying to stop him from tearing the plastic sheets used to cordon off seats as part of the government’s elevated safe distancing measures.
As the officers spoke to him, the woman approached the group and got into an argument with the elderly man.
He became agitated and hit her arm.
The police managed to calm him down and explained that the area had been cordoned off for public safety.
The man then told them that he had removed the plastic sheets because “they’re an obstruction”.
It’s an unlikely pairing, but it’s genuine alright — a Singapore-based YouTuber from Japan and a Singapore-based migrant worker from Bangladesh are best of buds.
Born in Osaka and raised in the United States, the popular vlogger who goes by the name of Ghib Ojisan has spent his days here documenting the little-known suburbs of the country that normcore tourists wouldn’t visit. Like Sengkang, Yishun, and Sembawang Hit Spring Park, for example.
SINGAPORE – Singapore’s revised voter rolls have been certified and are open for public inspection, the Elections Department (ELD) said in a media statement on Wednesday (April 15)
There are a total of 2,653,942 electors, and eligible voters can check their particulars in the Registers of Electors electronically – through the Elections Department website and the SingPass Mobile app.
This is about 59,000 more people than the 2,594,740 electors when the registers were last revised in April 2019.
Singaporeans whose names were removed from the registers for failing to vote at a previous election can apply to have their names restored, the ELD added.
They are encouraged to apply early, as applications will close with the issue of the writ of election.
SINGAPORE: The registers of electors were certified on Wednesday (Apr 15) and are available for public inspection.
There are a total of 2,653,942 electors in the registers, the Elections Department (ELD) said in a press release.
In 2015, when the last General Election was held, there were 2,460,484 electors in the registers.
Singapore citizens may check their particulars in the registers electronically at Voter Services on the ELD website, or at “Profile” under “Registers of Electors” on the SingPass Mobile app.
Those whose names were removed from the registers for failing to vote at a past election may still apply to have their names restored to the registers via Voter Services on the ELD website, so that they can vote at future elections.
“They are encouraged to apply early as, under the law, we will not be able to restore their names during the period from the date the Writ for an election is issued until after Nomination Day if the election is not contested, or until after Polling Day if a poll is to be taken,” ELD said.
Overseas Singaporeans who have lived in Singapore for an aggregate of at least 30 days during the three year period between Mar 1, 2017 and Feb 29, 2020 may also apply to register as overseas electors to vote at one of the designated overseas polling stations.
Eligible overseas Singaporeans are encouraged to register or re-register as soon as possible.
Addresses of Singapore overseas missions that serve as overseas registration centres. (Image: Elections Department)
