JAKARTA – Passengers on a Lion Air flight from Singapore were wrongly ferried to the domestic terminal upon arrival in the Jakarta and ended up bypassing immigration. As a result of the mix-up, some 16 passengers on that flight have yet to get their passports…
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Passengers on Singapore-Jakarta flight skip Indonesian immigration because of mix-up
The weird world of Eurovision
Every year, millions worldwide watch the annual Eurovision Song Contest. A unique event where countries come together to vote for who has the best original song, in theory. In some cases it has been a much more politically driven…
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Sinead O'Connor found safe after going missing in Chicago area
CHICAGO – Irish-born singer Sinead O’Connor turned up safe at an undisclosed location on Monday, hours after police in Illinois said she was missing, citing a concerned caller who told authorities she had failed to return from a bicycle ride.
The brief scare surrounding the well-being of the firebrand performer unfolded after a series of Facebook posts in recent days in which she agonized over her 12-year-old son, whom she said had been left in the custody of child welfare authorities in Ireland.
O’Connor, 49, who has acknowledged a history of bipolar disorder, made headlines six months ago when she said in a Facebook post that she had deliberately taken a drug overdose.
She was reported by local media on Monday to have been staying with friends in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette following a Chicago performance two months ago at a tribute concert for the late British pop star David Bowie.
Wilmette Police reported O’Connor missing on Monday morning amid a flurry of queries from social media followers on her behalf. She was said to have been last seen early Sunday on a bike ride, according to police.
Later on Monday police said O’Connor was found safe but declined to give further details.
O’Connor, long known as much for her shaved head and outspoken views on religion, sex, feminism and war as for her music, shot to fame in the 1990s with her chart-topping album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” and the hit single, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” written by Prince.
In the aftermath of Prince’s death on April 21, O’Connor accused comedian Arsenio Hall of having supplied Prince with drugs, an allegation that prompted a $5 million defamation suit against her earlier this month.
O’Connor gained perhaps her greatest measure of notoriety in 1992 by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a television appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
In several Facebook posts since Friday, she lamented a failed attempt to win the release of her second-youngest child, Shane, from Irish authorities in whose custody he was placed by his father and her eldest son after she sent the boy to stay with them due to an unspecified medical issue.
Despite the distraught tone of those posts, O’Connor seemed fine when she played the Bowie tribute at Chicago’s Metro concert hall in March, said Joe Shanahan, owner of the venue. He said her performance “brought the house down.”
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 09:45
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Top China official visit stirs anger in Hong Kong
Hong Kong – One of China’s most powerful officials lands in Hong Kong Tuesday in an attempt to build bridges in the divided city, but the trip has already stirred anger among opponents.
The three-day visit by Zhang Dejiang, who chairs China’s communist-controlled legislature, is the first by such a senior official in four years and comes as concerns grow in semi-autonomous Hong Kong that Beijing is tightening its grip.
While Zhang is ostensibly visiting to speak at an economic conference on Wednesday, the trip is widely seen as a bid to take the temperature in an increasingly febrile political climate which has fostered a fledgling independence movement, riling China.
As part of the trip, Zhang will meet with a group of veteran pro-democracy lawmakers Wednesday evening, a rare move observers say is designed to defuse frustrations.
“It is really time for him to meet with non-establishment legislators… to hear our analysis of how Hong Kong ended up where we are today, and what are the ways forward,” Civic Party lawmaker Alan Leong, who is part of the invited group, told AFP.
However, only four pro-democracy legislators will gather with Zhang and protest groups voiced anger they were being kept away from the venue where he will speak.
The harbourfront conference centre is barricaded off and demonstrators will be confined to designated areas out of sight.
“Zhang Dejiang is coming here to understand the situation in Hong Kong but now his eyesight will be completely blocked,” said Sham Tsz-kit of Civil Human Rights Front.
Paving stones in the area have been glued down to prevent protesters using them as missiles.
That comes after demonstrators dug up and threw bricks during running battles with police in February.
Zhang’s visit is expected to help Beijing gauge whether unpopular city leader Leung Chun-ying should stand for another term — his current stint ends in March 2017.
Like all Hong Kong leaders, Leung was chosen by a 1,200-member committee stacked with Beijing loyalists.
Mass rallies in 2014 for fully free leadership elections failed to win political reform.
Since then, young campaigners have become increasingly frustrated with intransigence in Hong Kong and Beijing, with some now saying they will not stop at violence to force change.
Pro-democracy legislator Emily Lau, one of the group to meet Zhang, said she would portray Leung as a divisive force.
“I’m going to tell him (Zhang) that Hong Kong is facing the most difficult situation since the handover,” she added.
Hong Kong is semi-autonomous since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997, with freedoms unseen on the mainland, but there are fears they are being stripped away.
Those concerns were exacerbated by the disappearance at the end of last year of five Hong Kong booksellers known for publishing salacious titles about China’s political leaders.
The five men resurfaced in the mainland and four are now under criminal investigation.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 09:37
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No more sashimi, thanks: raw fish sustained Malaysia castaways
Kuala Lumpur – Four people who survived 10 days adrift in the South China Sea subsisted on raw fish and water droplets as a series of rescue opportunities slipped agonisingly by, one of the survivors said Monday.
Spanish nationals David Hernandes Gasulla and Martha Miguel, Hong Kong citizen Tommy Lam Wai Yin, and Armilla Alihassan of Malaysia were on a May 2 island-hopping excursion off the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo when their ordeal began.
Lam, who runs a small resort, and his intern Armilla took the vacationing Spaniards on a tour of island caves and corals when sudden strong waves capsized their motorboat.
Although they flipped it back over, they lost their drinking water and torch lights, had no food, and their mobile phones were apparently ruined, Lam told AFP in a phone interview from Sabah’s capital Kota Kinabalu.
As the days wore on without rescue, they subsisted mainly on flying fish that landed in their boat, said Lam, 44.
“I will never eat sashimi for a long time,” he joked.
“It was very bad, but I enjoyed it because I was so hungry.”
For drinking water, they licked droplets condensing on the outside of a plastic bag of seawater left in the sun, which Miguel had seen in a movie.
But their ordeal could have ended on day one — Armilla’s phone was protected in a plastic bag, which they only discovered afterward.
“We don’t blame her. She was in shock,” Lam said.
Malaysia’s coast guard and navy launched a search-and-rescue operation but Lam said they were looking to the north, near the disputed Spratly Islands, while their stricken boat drifted nearer to Borneo.
The first few days were tense, as they angrily “blamed god, and everything under the sun and moon,” for their predicament, Lam said.
Later, they became philosophical, engaging in marathon discussions on mortality.
Many boats passed nearby but either failed to spot them or did not help, as the castaways desperately used the glass of their mobile phone screens to reflect sunlight as a signal to ships.
Once, Lam saw land in the distance and desperately jumped in to swim for it, but quickly returned when the Spaniards said they had spotted sharks.
Lam said he suspects that was a lie but it may have saved his life as he was too weak to make it to shore.
After 10 days, they were picked up by two Vietnamese fishing boats trawling illegally in Malaysian waters, who took “good care” of them, Lam said.
He got their contact details and plans to personally deliver to them a 50,000-ringgit ($12,413) reward his family had offered.
After a day on the trawlers, the bedraggled survivors were transferred to Malaysian coast guard vessels and brought Friday to Kota Kinabalu for medical attention. All were weak but in good condition.
“After I returned home, the first thing I did was eat — and I ate a lot,” said Lam, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday.
“This is my best birthday.”
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 09:30
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K-pop stars brush up on their Ps and Qs
Aspiring K-pop starlets are now being put through “character education” to equip them with basic etiquette and a working knowledge on subjects ranging from history to international politics.
K-pop production agencies have started offering this new aspect of training so their entertainers would behave appropriately, such as during interviews, and avoid cultural sensitivities when abroad.
The latest move places yet another load to the already rigorous regimen of Korean entertainers, who undergo years of dance and vocal training before they are marketed.
Acting classes also became essential after singers started appearing on television dramas and films. Foreign-language classes were added when the Korean Wave went global.
DSP Entertainment, which manages girl groups Kara and Rainbow, educates trainees on what it calls “character development and basic etiquette”.
“We teach our trainees how to greet people properly and how to address audiences and behave on TV shows,” said an official at the company.
At Starship Entertainment, home to K-pop groups Sistar and Monsta X, trainees “have to follow rules like not swearing, not slurring speech and greeting people with loud, clear voices”, said an official.
“Before each team debuts, we offer specialised courses on giving interviews, which includes speaking coherently and responding to unexpected questions,” he added.
JYP Entertainment – the K-pop powerhouse which represents groups like Twice, 2PM and Wonder Girls – has strict policies concerning schoolwork and “moral character”.
Some agencies even invite university professors to give lectures on topics that require a higher level of expertise.
They also send trainees to attend classes at the Korea Creative Content Agency’s Popular Culture and Arts Center. It began offering a “character education” programme for K-pop singers and actors last year.
It includes classes on historical issues and cultural sensitivities – which are increasingly important for K-pop celebrities to understand, said the centre’s director Jung Tae Sung.
“In Islamic countries, for example, it’s taboo to hug fans or come into physical contact with them,” added Mr Jung, noting that knowledge of diplomatic relations is also important for K-pop groups with members of different nationalities.
“K-pop stars are branching out into more countries than ever now. They’re representing Korea abroad,” he said.
This gap in training was highlighted by recent missteps by K-pop celebrities.
Last week, Seolhyun and Jimin of girl group AOA drew flak when they could not identify a picture of An Jung Geun, a famous Korean independence activist.
In January, fans in China were outraged when Twice’s Taiwanese member Tzuyu held up a Republic of China flag during a television show, as they felt the gesture was promoting the independence of Taiwan.
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PM Lee begins 4-day work visit to Russia today
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong begins a four-day working visit to the Russian Federation today.
He will then travel to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Thursday to attend the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit.
The trip is PM Lee’s first bilateral visit to Russia. The last such visit by a Singapore prime minister was by the late Lee Kuan Yew, who visited the then USSR in September 1990.
In a statement yesterday, the Prime Minister’s Office said that in Moscow, PM Lee will have a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) chairman Tigran Sargsyan and senior government officials. He will also meet leading Russian business executives and entrepreneurs, and members of the Singapore community in Moscow.
The EEC is the regulatory body of the Eurasian Economic Union, which groups Russia and the former Soviet states of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in a market of 180 million people, with a total gross domestic product of US$4.2 trillion (S$5.7 trillion).
Singapore and Russia agreed to negotiate a comprehensive free-trade agreement between Singapore and the Eurasian Economic Union in November, and this visit is expected to see the signing of an agreement to promote greater co-operation between Singapore and the EEC, as well as its five members.
PM Lee will then fly to Sochi on Thursday for the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit to mark the 20th anniversary of ASEAN-Russia relations. Leaders of the 10 ASEAN members will review the ASEAN-Russia co-operation.
PM Lee will also call on Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, which comes three months after United States President Barack Obama hosted ASEAN leaders to a Special Leaders’ Summit in Sunnylands, California.
During PM Lee’s absence, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean will be the Acting Prime Minister.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 09:18
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Singapore’s export slump deepens as non-oil shipments decline 7.9% in April
Non-oil domestic exports fell 7.9 per cent in April, following the 15.7 per cent contraction in the previous month, which was a three-year low.
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Elderly man dies after falling on his head in lift mishap in Pasir Ris
A 77-year-old man reportedly fell on his head while reversing out of a lift on his mobility scooter on Sunday morning and died 16 hours later.
The floor of the lift was allegedly 20cm above the ground when Lim Hang Chiang exited backwards on his scooter, Chinese newspaper Shin Min Daily News reported yesterday.
The incident happened at Block 247, Pasir Ris Street 21, at about 10.20am.
Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao said in a report yesterday that there were two other passengers in the lift when the accident happened.
One of them, who gave his name as Ashvin, said they were at the back of the lift when the door opened at the ground floor. Mr Lim reversed out and fell off his device.
“We were shocked and found out only when we stepped out that the lift was not level with the ground but you couldn’t tell from the inside,” said Mr Ashvin.
Mr Lim’s daughter-in-law, Wang Ying, a casino employee, told Shin Min that he had gone downstairs for breakfast when the incident happened.
“When I went downstairs, neighbours had helped him to one side and pulled the mobility scooter out.
“He said that the back of his head hurt but… it was not bleeding,” she added.
He was sent to Changi General Hospital, where doctors detected bleeding from his brain. He died at about 2.20am yesterday.
Mr Lim’s son, Lim Keng Swee, a 45-year-old safety assessor, told Shin Min that his father would have turned 78 this Friday. His father used a mobility scooter as he had had a stroke.
A resident in the area who gave her name as Ms Liang, a 47-year-old administrator, told Shin Min that she and her mother had seen the same malfunction in the lift twice before.
The most recent incident was within a month, and they had sent feedback to the town council.
A spokesman for Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council told My Paper yesterday that a lift rescue team was “immediately sent on-site to suspend lift operations until the cause of the incident could be established”.
The lift company, Fujitec, also deployed its technician.
She added that two town council officers accompanied Mr Lim and his family members to the hospital.
The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) met the town council and lift contractor on site yesterday morning.
The town council has been issued with a notice to suspend the lift operation and appoint an authorised examiner to conduct an investigation of the incident.
myp@sph.com.sg
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 07:58
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LTA probes sudden speed pickup in Hyundai taxis
The Land Transport Authority is investigating a phenomenon known as “sudden unintended acceleration” (SUA) in Hyundais which may have caused a spate of accidents involving taxis here.
The move arises from footage captured by car cameras showing Hyundai cabs operated by ComfortDelGro in dramatic crashes that suggest the drivers were not in control of their vehicles at the time.
In one video, a taxi reversed hard into a parked vehicle in a HDB carpark. It then moved forward, only to reverse again – this time mounting a kerb and crashing tail-first into a block of flats.
In another video, a cab reversed into another vehicle near a carpark gantry, and then bolted forward at a high speed and collided with more than one vehicle.
A cabby of 13 years claimed his Hyundai Sonata cab surged forward when he was in a taxi queue in Resorts World in March.
“My first instinct was to steer away,” said the relief driver who declined to be named. “The cab mounted two kerbs before it came to a stop. I believe I stepped on the brakes but it was not hard enough.”
In response to a query, the LTA said it was “looking into the reported cases of Hyundai vehicles having an unintended acceleration in reverse gear”. But a spokesman added that “it is premature to draw any conclusions at this point in time”.
Cases of SUA have been well documented, although not all can be proven to be mechanical in nature. Some are attributable to drivers stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake pedal, and in panic, depressing the accelerator further.
BusinessKorea, a news portal in Seoul, reported that 417 accidents between 2010 and 2014 were suspected to have been caused by SUA.
Cars from Hyundai and sister brand Kia accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the cases, it added.
In 2012, the South Korean authorities investigated the cases, leading Hyundai to say that it would introduce a “brake pedal throttle override” function in its cars.
However, it is unknown how many models have been equipped with this feature, which cuts off throttle when brakes are applied.
It admitted to Road & Track magazine that “with virtually all cars using electronic throttle control today, there remains the remote possibility for an unforeseen electronic throttle control malfunction, causing a vehicle to accelerate contrary to driver input”.
In 2014, an in-depth investigation by the Korean Broadcast System (Seoul’s equivalent of the BBC) found that a version of the Hyundai Sonata had a defective engine control unit which caused SUA.
Meanwhile, neither ComfortDelGro nor Hyundai distributor Komoco would comment on the purported cases of SUA in Singapore.
Hyundai is not alone in this. In 2014, Toyota settled a multi-billion-dollar suit involving SUA in its cars, which were deemed to have caused fatal crashes. Following that, Toyota also introduced a similar throttle override as Hyundai’s.
christan@sph.com.sg
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 07:43
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