SINGAPORE – Three cars and a taxi were involved in an accident in Jalan Bukit Merah on Tuesday (Dec 24).
There were no serious injuries but one of the car drivers, a 49-year-old man, was taken to Singapore General Hospital. He was conscious at the time, a police spokesman told The Straits Times.
Police were alerted to the accident which happened on Christmas Eve at Jalan Bukit Merah towards Queensway, at 9.44am.
Pictures of the aftermath of the accident sent to citizen journalism website Stomp show a black car rammed into the side of a silver vehicle.
The silver car and a black BMW car behind it are seen partially mounted on the curb while debris is seen on the road.
Police are investigating the case.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
Organisations and schools across Singapore are preparing to witness a rare and spectacular sight tomorrow that has been dubbed the “greatest astronomical event in Singapore”.
For the first time in two decades, a rare “ring of fire” known as an annular solar eclipse will be visible in the sky on Boxing Day.
The phenomenon occurs when the Moon covers the Sun’s centre, but is too far away from Earth to entirely blot out the Sun.
At National Junior College (NJC), 56 student volunteers attended a three-hour training session on Dec 16 to prepare to host an eclipse viewing session from 9am to 4pm tomorrow for nearly 700 people, including students from other schools and members of the public.
All the student volunteers are from the basketball club, and many at the training session were exposed to the world of astronomy for the first time.
When asked why she volunteered, Senior High 1 student Amanda Han, 17, said it was a good opportunity to learn more about how solar eclipses occur.
Not only that, she added, it would also be a very meaningful experience since the next annular solar eclipse would take place in 2063.
Despite the glut of sickening group chats and repulsive pervs spreading around explicit content on the platform, Telegram is actually a really useful messaging app if you value privacy and handy chatbots. Stickers too, of course.
Chatbots, you ask? Why, yes. Just look at the number of articles you can find when Googling for the best Telegram channels to subscribe to in Singapore — from shopping deals to part-time job offers.
The latest one that’ll you find worthwhile is none other than @rainkorkor, an automated Telegram bot that can fetch official weather data and let you know if it’s raining anywhere across the island.
SINGAPORE – Eight Singaporeans made the cut in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index released on Tuesday (Dec 24).
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. The index includes details about the total net worth, industry and nationality of each billionaire listed, including a net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page.
The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York. Reports on the world’s and Asia’s richest draw on these figures.
Here are the eight Singaporeans who made it to the index:
1. Goh Cheng Liang
Global rank: 142
Total net worth: US$10.7 billion
Age: 92
Mr Goh is the founder of Wuthelam Holdings, a closely held paint and coatings maker. The Singapore-based company’s joint venture with Japan’s Nippon Paint Holdings has over 23,000 employees, and operations in 17 countries, including China and India. It’s also the largest shareholder in Nippon Paint, Asia’s biggest paint maker.
SINGAPORE – The owner of a consultancy service firm was jailed for six months and fined around $741,000 for under reporting $1.28 million in trade income.
Ng Wee Kheng, owner of SME Grant Assist, pleaded guilty to two proceeded charges of making false entries in his tax return with the wilful intent to evade income tax, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) said in a statement on Monday (Dec 23).
This resulted in almost $250,000 in tax evaded from the years of assessment 2015 to 2016.
His company, SME Grant Assist, provides consultancy services for customers to make production and innovation credit claims.
“Businesses or individuals are encouraged to immediately disclose any past tax mistakes. Iras will treat such disclosures as mitigating factors when considering the action to be taken,” Iras said.
Those who wish to disclose past mistakes, reveal evaded taxes, or report malpractices related to tax evasion can send an e-mail to ifd@iras.gov.sg or write to Iras.
An affordable and hearty culinary spread that’s big on taste and flavours, for that indulgent – yet healthy – outing.
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PHOTO: Franchescar Lim, Shan
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Here’s a tasty and guilt-free menu, where meats and seafood are binchotan-grilled over kilned Japanese white oak that burns slower (sans charred flavour), and produces no flame and smoke. What’s really good at Vue is the tender Grilled Chicken Breast ($40) with sauteed Brussels sprouts and chicken jus crowned with slices of shaved black truffle.
Executive chef Sam Chin hand-picks the ingredients in every dish. He says: “We use chicken breast instead of chicken thigh because we want diners to enjoy their food without worrying about the calories.”
SINGAPORE – A woman cheated her employer of nearly $800,000 from 2014 to last year by submitting more than 700 false travel claims.
A district court heard that Tan Nyuk Hong used the money on soccer betting, personal expenses and paying her debtors. She had made no restitution.
Tan, 45, who has since been asked to go by software company Autodesk Asia, was sentenced on Monday (Dec 23) to four years’ jail, after pleading guilty to three counts of cheating involving more than $560,000.
Two other similar charges linked to the remaining amount were considered during sentencing.
The company employed her as a senior accounts payable analyst in 2011, a job that gave her access to its financial accounting software system.
Three years later, she found several claims were erroneously made under her name.
Tan started looking for such claims and found the “FB01” code had been used to process them. Court documents did not state what “FB01” meant.
As the system usually processed payments every Wednesday evening, she started submitting false claims for air fares, using the code.
SINGAPORE – A teenager allegedly trespassed into King Edward VII Hall at the National University of Singapore (NUS) multiple times and took at least nine laundry bags containing socks, exercise attire as well as male and female undergarments.
Goh An Soon, 19, who appeared in a district court last Thursday (Dec 19), currently faces one count each of criminal trespass, dishonest misappropriation of property, and theft.
The Straits Times understands that the Singaporean teenager was neither working nor studying at the university at the time.
Between Dec 19 last year and Feb 1 this year, Goh allegedly trespassed into the hall on eight separate occasions.
Within that time, he is said to have misappropriated the laundry bags four times.
He is also accused of stealing items worth $183 in total at the hall at around 5pm on Feb 1.
They included multiple socks, female undergarments, $80 in cash and bank cards.
Court documents did not reveal what he did with these items or how he got caught.
Two 14-year-old boys’ attempts to manually refill their lighters with cans of butane resulted in a flash fire and a trip to the hospital last Tuesday night (Dec 17).
The incident occurred at around 9pm at Blk 255, Kim Keat Ave in Toa Payoh.
According to sources, the boys were not residents of the block.
The two had allegedly been trying to open up two cans of butane when the liquid ignited, causing their clothes to catch fire. They immediately threw off their shirts and ran from the eighth floor to the sixth, calling for help.
In an interview with the Chinese evening daily, the domestic helper who stepped in recounted how she had been feeding her employer medicine when she heard hurried footsteps from outside.
As the 34-year-old looked out the door, she saw the two boys covered in burns running down the stairs, yelling for water.
SINGAPORE: For the past three months, Mdm Gerardyn Brittos has been hard at work preparing for a rare annular solar eclipse on Boxing Day.
The 46-year-old homemaker and her husband have been working with the Residential Committees to plan and organise a solar eclipse viewing for 300 people in Ang Mo Kio.
More recently, they have also been preparing 300 solar glasses by hand, to be distributed to the public on the day itself.
This involves ordering the paper glasses, folding each of them by hand, and testing each pair under sunlight to ensure that it is in good condition, said Mdm Brittos, who also runs local astronomy Facebook page Stargazing Singapore.
Mdm Brittos plans to give out 300 solar glasses to members of the public on the day itself. (Image: Facebook/Stargazing Singapore)
And that’s not all. Mdm Brittos will also be bringing her own eight-inch telescope – one of the bigger types – which will be attached to a DSLR camera. People will be able to see the solar eclipse from the camera’s screen on that day.
“Our aim (of organising this event) is for the heartlanders, who can’t afford to travel out (to see the eclipse),” said Mdm Brittos, who plans to hold the event at the Kebun Baru Spring Amphitheatre.
It is also the first time she is organising a solar eclipse viewing after founding Stargazing Singapore in 2014.
But her interest in astronomy dates back far longer than that. She recalled once, more than twenty years ago, when her colleague brought his telescope to their office and invited everyone to have a look through its lens.
Mdm Brittos gazed into the telescope, and for the first time with her own eyes, saw Jupiter.
“(At the time) I couldn’t believe I could actually see a planet in a telescope,” she said.
She added that she immediately took leave the next day to buy an entry level telescope from the Science Centre, priced at S$600.
Mdm Brittos will be bringing her own telescope for the public to view the eclipse as well. (Photo: Gerardyn Brittos)
Now, armed with more advanced equipment, Mdm Brittos hopes to share her interest in astronomy with the public.
“It’s really something rare, and it’s in the afternoon, so it would be good if people can come out and take a look … It would be a pity if people didn’t know about it,” she said.
ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE
While annular solar eclipses happen once every one to two years around the world, they are a “once in a lifetime” event in Singapore, said the Science Centre.
This is because there will only be three annular solar eclipses visible from Singapore in the 400 years between 1700 and 2100. During the same period, there will be 143 other partial solar eclipses visible from Singapore.
The next one will be a partial eclipse on Jun 21, 2020, while the next annular solar eclipse will be on Feb 28, 2063.
For the uninitiated, an eclipse occurs when an astronomical body such as the moon or a planet moves into the shadow of another such body.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there are three types of solar eclipses: a total solar eclipse, a partial solar eclipse and an annular solar eclipse.
What characterises the annular solar eclipse is the “ring of fire” around the moon when it moves into the Sun’s centre. This is because the moon is at its farthest point from Earth, too small to completely cover the Sun, which leaves the outer edges of the Sun visible.
“What makes them rare is the fact that they are only visible from within a narrow path across the Earth, making it difficult to get to a location to see one,” said a Science Centre spokesperson.
File photo of an annular solar eclipse in 2005. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons / sancho_panza)
This year, the moon will cover about 94 per cent of the Sun, which will make it as dark as twilight, added the spokesperson.
A timeline provided by the Science Centre indicated that the eclipse will happen in stages, starting with a partial eclipse at 11.27am, an annular eclipse at 1.22pm and the maximum eclipse at 1.24pm. Immediately after, the annular eclipse will end, with the partial eclipse ending almost two hours later at 3.18pm.
The Science Centre added that viewers in the northern part of Singapore will only get to see a partial solar eclipse, instead of the full annular solar eclipse.
Other than Singapore, residents in parts of Saudi Arabia, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Guam will be able to see the annular solar eclipse, said the Science Centre.
It also reminded viewers that protection is required to watch the solar eclipse, as the Sun could cause permanent damage to the eyes, such as blindness.
Some safe methods to view the solar eclipse include using ISO-certified safe solar glasses, pinhole projections or solar viewers to watch the eclipse.
The use of sunglasses, tinted glasses, photographic filters, or even looking at the reflection in a bowl of water or mirror is considered unsafe.
AVAILABLE LOCATIONS
For those interested in viewing the eclipse, there are several places to go.
From 11am on Dec 26, the Science Centre will have their Eclipse Viewing Event, with about 2,000 people expected to attend. There will be an admission fee, and solar glasses will be available for purchase at the Curiosity Shop.
Local astronomy groups will also be holding their own separate viewings, with most of them providing glasses and telescopes, at the following locations:
Kebun Baru Spring Amphitheatre (Stargazing Singapore)
Hong Lim Park (Astronomy SG)
Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park (Singapore Sidewalk Astronomy)
Marina Barrage Green Roof B (Celestial Portraits)
National University of Singapore (NUS) field (NUS Astronomical Society)
PAssion WaVe @ Jurong Lake Gardens (The Astronomical Society of Singapore)
