Monday’s four-line rail breakdown brings into focus once again weaknesses in the network’s power system – weaknesses flagged just days before the latest incident by an expert panel, which called for urgent steps to be taken.

The breakdown – which affected as many as 100,000 people whose journeys were disrupted or delayed – was caused by a power trip at the Buona Vista power intake station.

The facility draws 66kV of electricity from the power grid and steps it down to 22kV before distributing it to substations in the rail network.

But why the trip occurred is still being investigated.

Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport chairman Sitoh Yih Pin said recommendations made by a panel of 13 power experts “should be looked into urgently”.

The panel was assembled four months ago to check the rail network’s power system following a spate of electrical glitches.

One of the panel’s recommendations was to “enable automatic switchover to (an) alternative 66kV power supply intake, in the event of a loss of primary 66kV intake”.

Associate professor Tseng King Jet of Nanyang Technological University’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering said: “Today, this switchover is done manually. You must call for permission, then someone must go down and do it. This takes time, at least half an hour. This is for safety.”

But Dr Tseng – who was part of the 13-member panel – said an automatic switchover can be done without compromising safety.

“To be fair, we need to be sure if the fault lies with the intake station,” he said. “In a power system, no two faults are exactly the same.”

Power-related breakdowns have been creeping up ever since the operators started adding trains to cope with rising demand.

Besides Monday’s multi-line incident and the disruption yesterday of nearly 30 minutes affecting south-bound train service on the North-South Line, major power-related incidents in recent months include a power trip which paralysed the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) during the evening peak period on July 7 last year.

SIM University Adjunct Associate Professor Park Byung Joon said: “The incidents seem to be occurring in a series. And they seem to be starting to affect multiple lines all at once. It is not a good sign.”

Dr Tseng noted SMRT’s power system is “very old… it was built in the 1980s”, and SMRT is “working hard” to upgrade the system. “This takes time because the upgrading is done on an operating system,” he said.

Meanwhile, Singapore Power has confirmed the power grid’s “supply to SMRT and other installations was in order on Monday evening”.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said it is working with SMRT to investigate the cause of Monday’s power faults.

Initial investigations showed that 22kV circuit breakers at the Buona Vista station tripped.

The Buona Vista power intake station supplies power to the western sector of the NSEWL and parts of the Circle Line. As the Bukit Panjang LRT system receives power from the same source through Choa Chu Kang on the NSEWL, it was similarly affected, said the LTA.

Checks showed that the circuit breaker trip was not due to a power dip, but a power fault within the western sector of the NSEWL.

This article was first published on April 27, 2016.
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3 siblings sue their 2 brothers and mum over ‘minority oppression’ Eight years ago, businessman Thio Keng Poon, founder of Malaysia Dairy Industries (MDI) – the company behind the Marigold and Vitagen brands – sued his wife and six children for ousting him from four family companies.

Now, three of his children are suing their two brothers and mother for alleged minority oppression.

In a case that opened in the High Court yesterday, the plaintiffs want their brothers and mother to buy them out of three family companies at a price to be determined by an independent valuer.

The plaintiffs, Wendy, 57, Michael, 54, and Serene, 54, are minority shareholders.

They allege that majority shareholders, Ernest, 58, and Patrick, 52, had abused their control of the companies and unfairly oppressed them.

They allege that the pair, with the support of their mother, Madam Kwik Poh Leng, 84, pursued a “personal vendetta” against their father using company resources.

The plaintiffs claim that this “persecution” extended to them when the defendants felt that they took their father’s side.

They allege that the two brothers raised their own remuneration but cut their siblings’ benefits; excluded them from management; and removed them as directors.

The trio had rejected an offer by Ernest and Patrick in 2012 to buy their stake at “undervalue” and these “unfair acts” were designed to compel the plaintiffs to sell their stake low, said their lawyer, Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo.

MDI was valued at $400 million using one methodology and $1.2 billion using an approach put forward by the plaintiffs, the court heard.

The eldest sibling, Vicki, 60, has sold her stake and is not involved in the dispute.

The two brothers, represented by Senior Counsel Ang Cheng Hock, have run the companies since the 1990s. They say there was never any expectation that the plaintiffs, who were issued shares in 2002, would be entitled to run the companies.

Madam Kwik, who is still married to Mr Thio, said through her lawyer, Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan, there was no reason for her to favour Ernest and Patrick and her only interest was the smooth and profitable running of the companies.

The companies – cash cow MDI, investment holding company Thio Holdings and United Realty – are nominal defendants. Represented by Mr Siraj Omar, they have a neutral stance.

This article was first published on April 27, 2016.
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A law professor has called for the elected presidency to be depoliticised by prohibiting government office-holders and MPs from endorsing any candidate.

Such a ban will ensure that the Office of the President remains politically neutral, Assistant Professor Jack Lee, 45, of the Singapore Management University told the Constitutional Commission hearing on the elected presidency yesterday.

Statements made by government office-holders may also have a “distorting effect” and influence how people vote, he added.

His call reiterates a point made by several others at the last two public hearings on the elected presidency.

They had argued that the president needs to be a unifying force and the election should not be divisive. Currently, there is no rule that forbids political parties or the Government from stating a preference for particular candidates during a presidential election.

Dr Lee said any statement that can be interpreted by the public as an endorsement should be disallowed, even if ministers and MPs speak in their personal capacity.

“It is very hard for the public to distinguish between someone speaking in his political capacity as a member of government, and in his personal capacity,” he said.

“It would be difficult; it would probably be better to say nothing at all during the (campaigning) period.”

The ban, however, does not have to extend to members of political parties who are not government office-holders or MPs, said Dr Lee.

But Justice Tay Yong Kwang, a commission member, noted: “The strange result (of the ban) is that we are practically, during the run-up to the presidential election, silencing a group of people who have the most to say about presidential elections.”

He added: “These are political leaders. If in your view this amounts to political endorsement, then there will be a great silence from the political side of things.”

Dr Lee also wants the work of the Presidential Elections Committee to be more transparent. It should, for instance, give detailed reasons to a candidate for his or her application for a certificate of eligibility being turned down.

“It is important that at least the candidates themselves know… why they have not qualified, otherwise it seems very non-transparent, and they have no idea why they are not seen to have sufficient financial ability to run,” he said.

This article was first published on April 27, 2016.
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Netflix could produce content in Singapore or by Singaporeans, if its chief content officer Ted Sarandos is true to his word that there is no market too small for its ambitions.

“If we’re making a show only for Singapore, then it might be considered small. But if we’re making something in Singapore for the world, it can be quite big,” he told The Straits Times yesterday.

Ramping up its library of original content, including non-American offerings, is one of the streaming giant’s main global expansion strategies.

Mr Sarandos, 51, points to the example of how Netflix has managed to capture Mexican audiences and beyond through its localised content.

Referring to its Mexican comedy-drama series Club de Cuervos (2015), the company’s first local language original production, he said: “About 80 per cent of the people watching that are in Mexico, but 20 per cent of the audience are people watching outside of Mexico. Just having that additional audience reach enables us to produce on a very big scale.”

This year alone, Netflix is spending US$5 billion (S$6.8 billion) on producing original content, compared to Discovery’s US$2 billion, according to reports.

Next month, it will debut comedy series Love Dynamite, starring stand-up comic Maria Bamford, and in September, Marvel’s latest series Luke Cage. On the feature film front, principal photography has just started on Okja, a new monster movie from acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon Ho.

Analysts say Netflix’s greatest challenge now, following its massive launch in 130 countries in January, is having to grow its subscriber base in the local regions.

Mr Sarandos is optimistic: ” In Japan, for example, we can know what they like to watch from their movie-going habits, but we won’t know what it’s like when they have a lot of choice on a platform like Netflix.

“Western content is not dominant in Japan, but I don’t think that’s something genetic about Japanese audiences – it’s mostly a function of what they had the opportunity to watch.

“But if you tell great stories and have great production values, I think people everywhere around the world will want to see that.”

This article was first published on April 27, 2016.
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SINGAPORE – It appears that the by-election for the Bukit Batok single-member constituency will be a straight fight between the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Murali Pillai, 48, and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Chee Soon Juan, 53.

When nominations closed at 12 noon, only Mr Murali and Dr Chee had filed their papers to contest the single seat, despite a number of other potential candidates who also showed up at the nomination centre at Keming Primary School.

On Wednesday (April 27) morning, Mr Murali and Dr Chee both met their supporters before walking to the school.

Mr Murali was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, as well as MPs from the neighbouring Jurong GRC.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, former PAP chairman Lim Boon Heng and former Aljunied GRC MP Cynthia Phua were also at the nomination centre to show their support.

Meanwhile, the SDP entourage included Dr Chee’s wife, Madam Huang Chih Mei, as well as Dr Paul Tambyah, who contested alongside Dr Chee in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC at last year’s General Election.

Bukit Batok by-election: Nomination day

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AsiaOne

A number of other faces were also spotted at he nomination centre. Private car driver Sherwin Eu, 32, was also at the nomination centre, but was later disqualified from standing after he could not find any assentors to support his nomination.

Former SDP member Kwan Yue Keng, 68, also appeared with a spare set of nomination forms, saying that he intended to contest the seat should Dr Chee be disqualified.

However, The Straits Times reported that Mr Kwan’s papers were not posted on the nomination board by the time nominations closed at 12 noon.

Mr Kwan, who is currently with the People’s Power Party (PPP), had contested in Bukit Batok in 1988 and 1991 against PAP’s Dr Ong Chit Chung, when the constituency was last a single seat.

Earlier, PPP’s secretary-general Goh Meng Seng said on Facebook that the party would not be standing in the by-election. He explained that the party had prepared a candidate as there had been fears that SDP had breached elections rules.

“Since it seems to us that SDP will get their nomination done without problem, we have stood down our candidate,” he wrote.

The Bukit Batok by-election was triggered by the resignation of incumbent PAP MP David Ong on March 12, after he admitted to a “personal indiscretion”. He was alleged to have had an extra-marital affair with a grassroots volunteer.

At last year’s General Election, Mr Ong won the seat in a three-cornered fight over SDP candidate Sadasivam Veriyah and independent Samir Salim Neji.

By-election battle for Bukit Batok SMC

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The Straits Times, The New Paper, Lianhe Zaoabao, Berita Harian

seanyap@sph.com.sg