SINGAPORE – A solar eclipse will take place on Wednesday (March 9), and thousands are expected to gather at various vantage points across the island to view it.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon crosses between the sun and the earth, forming a shadow on the earth’s surface.

Here are some things you should know about the eclipse.

When will the eclipse occur?

Wednesday’s solar eclipse will happen between approximately 7.20am and 9.30am. The peak of the solar eclipse will be at 8.23am, where a maximum of 87 per cent of the sun is expected to be obscured by the moon when viewed from Singapore.

Sunrise on that day will be at 7.12am.

Where can I view it?

The Astronomical Society of Singapore says one can get an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon from anywhere in Singapore, at a compass heading of 94 degrees in order to view the eclipse.

What are the other types of solar eclipses?

The solar eclipse on Wednesday will be a partial eclipse, which is the most common out of the three types of eclipses.

Total eclipses occur when the sun is completely covered by the moon when viewed from the earth’s surface, while partial eclipses occur when a portion of the sun is obscured by the moon.

The last type of solar eclipse, known as the annular eclipse, occurs when the sun and moon are completely in line with each other in relation to the viewer on earth, but the apparent size of the moon is smaller than the sun.

This forms a light around the moon from the viewer’s perspective, commonly known as the “ring of fire”.

How often do solar eclipses occur?

Solar eclipses occur once every 18 months according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), but they can be viewed only from a specific region on earth due to the small size of the shadow formed by the eclipse.

In Singapore, 146 eclipses have been or will be seen from the year 1700 to 2100. The last eclipse happened in January 2009, while the next solar eclipse, an annular one, will occur on Dec 26, 2019.

How can I view it?

Anyone keen on observing the solar eclipse is advised to do so with extreme caution.

Serious and permanent eye damage may occur as a result of looking at the sun without proper equipment. A pair of solar filters or glasses is needed for safe viewing.

The same rule applies to devices used to take photographs of the solar eclipse, as focused sunlight may potentially heat up and crack the optics of cameras.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of unsafe methods to view the eclipse:

1. Both polarised and non-polarised sunglasses

2. Solar film used in cars and household windows

3. Tinted glass, such as brown and green coloured beer bottles

4. Photographic negatives

5. X-ray film

6. CDs/DVDs

7. Photographic filters

8. Looking at the reflection of the eclipse through a bowl of water or a mirror

9. Welding glasses which do not block out ultraviolet and infared light

Are there events that I can attend to view it?

There are three public events that The Straits Times recommends.

1. The National University of Singapore (NUS) will play host to the Solar Eclipse 2016 @ NUS event, to be held over two days on March 8 and 9.

Members of the public can join in the activities for free, which will kick off with an astrophotography exhibition beginning at 2pm on Tuesday. It will be held at the Faculty of Science in NUS.

Following that, a series of public lectures related to the eclipse will start at 7pm, while an overnight stargazing session will begin concurrently in the lead up to the solar eclipse observation the next morning.

Live streaming of the total eclipse to be recorded by two NUS Physics Department students in Luwuk, Indonesia, will be shown at the event.

2. Over at the Science Centre Singapore, thousands are expected to turn up at an eclipse viewing event beginning at 7.30am on Wednesday.

A live stream of footage from the total eclipse viewed in Micronesia will be screened, courtesy of a team from San Francisco’s The Exploratorium that Science Centre Singapore has partnered with.

3. The Astronomical Society of Singapore will be organising a hosting event at Labrador Park, beginning from 7am on Wednesday. This will be held at the Red Beacon area, and members of the public will be able to view the solar eclipse safely through solar-filtered telescopes set up by the society.

kenggene@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 4, 2016.
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They earned big bucks – up to more than A$50,000 (S$51,250) – each month.

And they did it by allegedly using the now-defunct socio-political website The Real Singapore (TRS) to exploit racist and xenophobic fault lines through their articles, some of which were allegedly fabricated.

This attracted Internet users to their website and allowed them to cash in on advertising revenue.

Yesterday, Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan said in his opening statement that Yang Kaiheng, 27, and his wife, Ai Takagi, 23, were calculating and unscrupulous business owners who were motivated by commercial greed.

“(They) assessed that running a website that was nothing more than a cauldron of hostility and ill-will, and occasionally adding lies to the mix, would enable them to make substantial personal gains,” he said.

Yang and Takagi are each facing seven charges of sedition and one count of failing to produce documents to the authorities for investigations.

A publication is considered seditious if it has the tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of people here.

Yang claimed trial to the charges.

Takagi, however, indicated she would plead guilty and her case has been rescheduled for today.

DPP Kannan said TRS, which was shut down by the authorities in May last year, touted itself as a news portal that provided a platform for the voices of average Singaporeans.

In reality, the only voices on the website belonged to Takagi, an Australian national who had never resided, studied or worked here, and her husband, a disgruntled Singaporean who saw TRS as a means for financial gain, he said.

The prosecution’s case is that Yang and Takagi jointly ran TRS and had control of everything on the website.

Takagi is accused of having day-to-day control over content on TRS, including generating content, as well as editing and selecting those submitted by contributors.

Yang is said to have admitted to the authorities to being a writer and editor for TRS, and DPP Kannan said the prosecution will show he was inextricably involved.

Yang, however, had claimed his involvement with TRS was only for a month in 2012.

DPP Kannan said the prosecution will show that contributions from Singaporeans were doctored to sensationalise fault lines and create social divides.

The couple also resorted to outright and blatant fabrication in order to drive traffic to their website, DPP Kannan said.

One example was Takagi allegedly adopting a fictitious name, Farhan, to post an article that stated TRS’ objective was to instil fear in companies and make them think twice about hiring foreigners without considering the local workforce, he said.

“There was no concern about the credibility of the articles published,” DPP Kannan said.

“They were keenly motivated by the advertising revenue they were collecting and sought to have a high volume of Internet traffic flowing to the TRS website and the TRS Facebook page.”

And they were actually “wildly successful in their efforts to profit from the ill-will and hostility they were peddling”, he said.

The Real Singapore duo arrested for sedition

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The New Paper, The Straits Times

BANK ACCOUNTS

DPP Kannan pointed out that their bank accounts showed they earned A$20,000 to more than A$50,000 per month.

The couple had allegedly refused to submit their bank statements and TRS’ statements of accounts to the police.

The TRS website generated revenue through advertising using Google’s AdSense platform, while its mobile apps used Google’s AdMob platform.

The investigation officer obtained the documents only two months after the deadline, DPP Kannan added.

“These documents establish money as being the vulgar motive which underlay the commission of the sedition offences, and showed that the accused persons profited handsomely from their conduct,” said DPP Kannan.

Yang’s case will continue on Friday.

The 8 charges

Thaipusam incident

Yang Kaiheng and Ai Takagi allegedly published an article on The Real Singapore (TRS) website and put up a Facebook post that falsely claimed that a Filipino family caused an altercation between the police and participants of the February 2015 Thaipusam procession.

These made up the first and second charges.

Said Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan: “In portraying a Filipino family as the genesis of unrest during a sacred procession, the article and Facebook post promote ill-will and hostility by angering the Indian community against the Filipinos in Singapore who had supposedly interfered with a holy celebration.”

Racist article

For the third charge, the duo allegedly published an article on the TRS website stating why Singaporeans felt annoyed with Filipinos in Singapore.

Said DPP Kannan: “Read objectively, it portrays Singaporeans as being in a desperate fight for survival against Filipinos in Singapore.

“The comments about Filipinos in the article, which are not based on any facts, and the highly emotive language therein are calculated to inflame both Singaporeans and Filipinos in Singapore.”

Pitting Filipino and Indian nationals against Singaporeans

The accused allegedly published an article claiming a Filipino employee working in a company here had bribed a colleague, an Indian national, to delete traces of the Filipino’s misdeeds so that only Filipinos were hired by the company.

Said DPP Kannan of the fourth charge: “It directly pits Filipinos and Indian nationals against Singaporeans. The article portrays Singaporeans as being improperly sidelined through illegal tactics by the Filipinos and Indian nationals.”

Portraying women from China as homewreckers

The duo are accused of publishing an article that casts female Chinese nationals as homewreckers in the fifth charge.

Said DPP Kannan: “Read objectively and in its appropriate context, this article has a tendency to promote ill-will between Singaporeans in general and PRC nationals living in Singapore.”

Doctoring Stomp article to portray women from China as uncivilised

On Feb 18, 2014, citizen journalism website Stomp posted an article about a woman who pulled down her grandson’s pants and instructed him to urinate into a bottle while on an MRT train.

The accused allegedly copied the article, doctored it to include that the woman was a Chinese national and posted it on the TRS website.

Said DPP Kannan of the sixth charge: “This article casts people from the PRC as being uncivilised… The thrust of the article is that the presence of people from the PRC may lead to Singapore becoming more uncivilised.”

Article to ‘instil fear’

The accused allegedly published an article with an editor’s note, allegedly written by Takagi, who used the fictitious name “Farhan”.

In the note, Takagi allegedly said that TRS’ objective was to instil fear in companies and make them think twice about hiring foreigners.

Said DPP Kannan of the seventh charge: “In this provocative statement of intent, Takagi unequivocally professes that TRS’ agenda is to ‘instil fear’ in companies that hire foreigners.

“The article fosters xenophobia by asserting that average Singaporeans are unable to secure decent jobs because of foreigners.”

Failure to submit financial documents

Yang and Takagi are accused of refusing to produce statements of accounts and bank statements to the police in the eighth charge.

Said DPP Kannan: “These documents establish money as being the vulgar motive which underlay the commission of the sedition offences, and showed that the accused persons profited handsomely from their conduct.”

HE CLAIMS HE DID WORK AS A FAVOUR

Yang Kaiheng, who was allegedly involved with The Real Singapore (TRS) and charged with sedition, claimed he did everything as a favour to his wife, Ai Takagi, the court heard.

The duo got married last October.

Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan said in his opening statement that Yang, 27, also claimed his involvement with TRS lasted only a month in 2012.

After that, Yang claimed his involvement was fleeting and ad hoc, he added.

DPP Kannan said the prosecution will lead evidence to show Yang’s continued, sustained and intimate involvement in running every aspect of TRS.

CLEAR NAME

Defence counsel Remy Choo said in a statement to the press that his client will be claiming trial to clear his name.

He said: “This was also not an easy decision for Mr Yang to make: He wants nothing more than for his nightmare to end.

“Since Mr Yang was arrested, tragedy has befallen his family. His father lies paralysed and suffers from locked-in syndrome.”

Yang studied environmental science at the University of Queensland in Australia.

He left for his studies immediately after his operationally ready date in February 2010.

Takagi, 23, studied law at the same university.

The duo were arrested sometime in early February last year, reported The New Paper on Feb 18 last year.

They were charged in April.

In August, they opened two ramen stalls, named Takagi Ramen Shop, in two National University of Singapore foodcourts.

rloh@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 8, 2016.
Get The New Paper for more stories.

Two siblings wrote to the court for their father to be returned to them.

Miss Rosfizah Rosdi and Mr Mohd Fairos Rosdi addressed the letter to Justice Foo Chee Hock.

Their father, Rosdi Joenet, had killed his wife in November 2012, robbing the siblings of their mother.

Yesterday, Rosdi was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and was sentenced to nine years’ jail for killing Madam Faridah Senin, then 41.

Believing that she had been having an affair, he had viciously attacked her with a kitchen knife at around 5am on Nov 17, 2012, leaving 26 injuries on her body. Rosdi was arrested and held in remand from that day.

“In a day, we lost both parents and had to grow up quickly. I felt alone after losing both my parents,” wrote Miss Rosfizah, 19, in the letter that was shown to The New Paper by defence lawyer Abraham Vergis.

CLOSEST

Miss Rosfizah, one of three siblings, admitted in the letter that she was closest to her 51-year-old father who was a driver. They would play badminton and basketball on weekends.

Since waking up to the sound of their mother screaming and begging for her life that November morning, life for the siblings has changed.

Miss Rosfizah said: “We were shocked and devastated when we learnt of my mother’s passing… After the incident, our father kept apologising to us for what he had done.”

The family’s finances were drastically affected and the siblings lived on financial aid and subsidies.

“Even though our father acted against the law, he is still our father and we want him back in our lives. We want to be able to depend on our father again,” she added.

Yesterday, the defence argued for a six-year jail term for Rosdi.

Jealous man jailed 9 years for killing wife over ‘affair’

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian

The court heard that Rosdi’s relationship with his wife had soured and two weeks before the incident, the couple were sleeping in separate rooms. Mr Vergis said it was Rosdi’s paranoia, believing that his wife was having an affair and his feeling of hopelessness in salvaging the relationship, that drove him to violence.

But he had wanted to do something about his marriage and attempted to see a marriage counsellor.

In October 2012, Rosdi booked a November appointment for the couple to see a marriage counsellor. But Madam Faridah did not show up, said Mr Vergis.

A psychiatric report done in December 2012 revealed that Rosdi was suffering from a psychotic disorder known as Delusional Disorder.

Subsequent psychiatric assessments stated his risk of committing future violent acts to be low and that he would require one to two years’ treatment.

Mr Vergis said his client was no longer a threat as his delusion system only included his wife and in Rosdi’s own words, “it all ended with the death of my wife”.

The lawyer suggested a “hybrid approach” of discharging Rosdi into his home environment over time to continue with his treatment.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Wong Kok Meng, who had recommended a sentence of between eight and 10 years’ jail, disagreed.

He said: “It is submitted that where the offence is particularly serious or heinous, the principle of protection of the public must also be a primary consideration in the sentencing of mentally-disordered offenders.”

INJURIES

The court was reminded that Rosdi, armed with a kitchen knife with a 20cm-long blade, had inflicted no less than 26 injuries on his wife.

The DPP also stressed that to date, Rosdi has not received any treatment and that he still harbours delusional thoughts against his dead wife.

He added: “The symptoms of the Delusional Disorder are still active and unless he is treated, there is a risk the accused might re-offend by perpetuating violence against others .”

HE STABBED HIS WIFE TO DEATH

Their marriage was already rocky.

Rosdi Joenet had suspected his wife, Madam Faridah Senin, of cheating on him.

At about 5am on Nov 17, 2012, Rosdi, who slept in a separate room, had entered his wife’s master bedroom to discuss their marital disputes.

His attempt was greeted with angry words from Madam Faridah, who chased him out of the room.

Rosdi returned to the room shortly with a kitchen knife and locked the door behind him.

Screams were heard.

Madam Faridah’s mother, who was preparing breakfast, was first to rush to the locked room. She demanded that Rosdi unlock the door.

He had told his mother-in-law that he was in a discussion with his wife and would soon open the door.

Madam Faridah, a security officer, was then heard begging Rosdi not to kill her.

But he ignored her and stabbed her multiple times.

When Rosdi finally came out of the room about 19 minutes later, he told his mother-in-law he had killed his wife.

Rosdi’s three children, who were awoken by the screams, were told by their father that he had “reasons” for killing their mother.

MOTIONLESS

Madam Faridah was found lying motionless on the floor with blood on her T-shirt. The bloodied knife was beside her. Paramedics pronounced her dead at 5.38am.

An autopsy report stated the cause of death as stab injuries to a large vein carrying blood into the heart and stab injuries to an airway in the respiratory tract that channeled air into her right lung.

zaihan@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 8, 2016.
Get The New Paper for more stories.