SINGAPORE: Food delivery riders affected by a footpath ban on e-scooters can get up to S$1000 in the form of a trade-in grant funded by the Government and food delivery companies, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced on Friday (Nov 8).
For riders who intend to stay on the job, the Government and three major food delivery companies – Grab, Deliveroo and Foodpanda – have set up a S$7 million e-scooter Trade-in Grant (eTG) for food delivery riders to switch to bicycles, power-assisted bicycles (PABs) or personal mobility aids (PMAs), the ministry said in a press release.
Under the scheme, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will match dollar-for-dollar the funding support of food delivery companies for delivery riders who trade in their e-scooters for LTA-approved devices.
Each rider can receive up to S$1,000 to trade in their e-scooter for a PAB or S$600 for a bicycle, MOT said. Riders who are eligible to use PMAs will also receive a grant of up to S$1000, the ministry added.
Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min speaks to food delivery riders about the recent rules banning e-scooters from footpaths. (Photo: Try Sutrisno Foo)
“The eTG scheme will be administered by the food delivery companies, which are also working with retailers to bulk purchase and bring down the costs of these devices,” MOT said.
To qualify for the grant, riders must be an existing e-scooter food delivery rider as at Nov 7, 2019, and they must surrender their devices at disposal points located at Grab, Deliveroo and Foodpanda.
Delivery riders who work for more than one company will only be eligible for one eTG grant.
Trade-ins start from Nov 15 and the eTG scheme will run till the end of the year, MOT said.
Apart from the trade-in scheme, there will also be job search support and career services for riders who intend to leave their jobs, MOT added, provided by NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) and Workforce Singapore together with the three major food delivery companies.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim looks through a petition with 119 signatures asking the government to regulate personal mobility devices instead of banning them. (Photo: Try Sutrisno Foo)
The Ministry of Social and Family Development’s ComCare schemes are also available to help riders with financial difficulties.
E-scooters were banned from footpaths in Singapore earlier this month after a string of accidents involving errant riders raised public concerns over safety.
SINGAPORE: A 47-year-old grandmother was among 94 people arrested this week for suspected drug offences in an islandwide operation conducted by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).
The woman, a suspected drug trafficker, had a baby and two other young children with her at the time of arrest on Monday (Nov 4), the police said.
She was babysitting a one-year-old girl, who was subsequently handed over to her mother, CNB said.
The other two children – a five-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy – are the suspect’s grandchildren.
They have since been referred to the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Child Protective Service after authorities failed to contact their mother.
Two packets of Ice were recovered during the arrest near Jurong West Street 91.
ARRESTS IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS
Separately, 93 other people were arrested in separate raids across areas such as Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Batok, Bukit Panjang and Pasir Ris this week.
In all, officers seized 314g of Ice, 81g of cannabis, 18g of heroin, 384g of ketamine, 498 Ecstasy tablets, 652 Erimin-5 tablets and 40g of new psychoactive substances during the operation.
In one case, two suspected traffickers were arrested around Jalan Rengkam in Hougang on the evening of Nov 6.
CNB said its officers saw a 38-year-old man – who was accompanied by a 39-year-old man – get into a black car and re-emerge with a blue plastic bag.
Shortly after, the black car left, and a team of officers tailed it.
The two men headed to another car parked around Hougang Street 31. They were arrested just as they got into the car, where a blue plastic bag containing about 119g of Ice was found.
One of the vehicles found to have contained drugs in CNB’s operation on Nov 6, 2019. (Photo: Central Narcotics Bureau)
The black car was later intercepted at the junction of Pasir Ris Drive 1 and Loyang Avenue. Two men, aged 27 and 29, were arrested. About 5g of Ice, 10 Ecstasy tablets and S$7,585 in cash were found in the car.
More drugs were found when officers raided the suspects’ flats, CNB said.
SINGAPORE: Three new schools for students who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will be set up over the next few years, with the first one accepting pupils in 2021, Second Minister for Education Indranee Rajah announced on Friday (Nov 8).
Acknowledging the growing demand for places in such schools Ms Indranee said the new schools will help to improve the accessibility of special education and ensure all children with moderate-to-severe special education needs will be able to receive a quality education.
Speaking at the ExtraOrdinary Celebration Concert on Friday, she said: “Even as we celebrate our progress, we must never stop trying to improve our system, so that our children can learn in educational settings that cater to their needs, and grow up in a society where everyone can thrive.”
The first school, operated by Metta Welfare Association, will provide about 25 places per cohort. This translates to about 300 places for students between 7 and 18 years old with moderate-to-severe special education needs with both ASD and intellectual disabilities.
The new school’s campus, which will be located in the east of Singapore, will be ready in 2024. Until then, students will have lessons at the current Metta School campus in Simei starting in 2021.
The other two schools will deliver the primary and secondary national curriculum as well as a suitable post-primary programme for students who are unable to access the national secondary curriculum, said the Ministry of Education (MOE) in a separate media release.
Pathlight School logo as seen on its campus on Nov 8.
One of these schools will be a new Pathlight School campus, which will be run by the Autism Resource Centre (ARC), said Ms Indranee. This will be Pathlight’s third campus, with the first in Ang Mo Kio, and the second one in Tampines announced earlier this year.
For the other school, MOE will conduct a limited invitation for proposals, similar to what was done for the school to be set up by Metta Welfare Association.
SPECIAL EDUCATION SCHOOLS TO LOWER FEES
Six special education (SPED) schools will also lower their fees by at least 25 per cent for Singapore citizens from January 2020, said Ms Indranee.
The six schools are Eden School, Grace Orchard School, Pathlight School, Rainbow Centre – Margaret Drive School, Rainbow Centre – Yishun Park School, and St Andrew’s Autism School.
Students walk along the corridor at Grace Orchard School.
Noting that funding for special education schools has increased by about 40 per cent over the past five years, Ms Indranee said: “As we know, SPED can be costly due to the higher needs and resources. While SPED financial assistance is available to the lower income, we recognise that for families of children with SEN (special education needs), SPED fees add to the other costs they already have to bear.”
According to MOE, 80 per cent of students with special education needs are enrolled in mainstream schools.
To ensure these schools “remain inclusive, safe and accommodating” for students with special education needs, MOE has introduced two intervention programmes that focus on peer support, said Ms Indranee.
MOE said these intervention programmes equip students to help schoolmates with special education needs who may require social or emotional support, and “work with them to overcome their specific areas of difficulties.
MOE noted that some schools have implemented the two programmes over the past few years with “positive outcomes”, leading to the decision to extend these programmes to all mainstream schools over the next few years.
“Training will be provided to relevant school personnel, to enable them to implement these intervention programmes in their schools,” said MOE in the release.
Ms Indranee stressed the need to create an inclusive system, where all are seen as integral members of society.
“Many have spoken of how the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are most vulnerable. It also reflects on who we are as individuals, whether we have the empathy and the maturity to see every person for who they are, and not through the lens only of what they can or cannot do,” she said.
“These may sound like lofty ideals, but if we look around us, our children are already showing the way with their open and big hearts, coming together like today to create wonderful outcomes.”
SINGAPORE: “Good progress” is being made on the the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link project, said Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, though the Malaysian government needs “further time to restructure or review some details”.
“I’m glad to report that we seem to be making good progress on the RTS,” said Dr Balakrishnan during an interview with CNA938 on Friday (Nov 8).
“(The Malaysian government has) indicated they still need further time to restructure or review some details of the plan, but I’m still hopeful that we will go forward.”
The RTS is set to connect Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru to Woodlands in Singapore, serving 10,000 passengers per hour each way. It was meant to be completed by 2024, but is now behind schedule.
The project was suspended in May at the request of Malaysia, which had to pay abortive costs amounting to around S$600,000.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan speaks to CNA938’s John Yip and Yasmin Jonkers on Nov 8, 2019. (Photo: Hanidah Amin)
Mr Khaw’s Malaysian counterpart Mr Anthony Loke said the third suspension period is not to review whether the project should proceed, but to ensure that the relevant agreements can be amended and signed.
RELATIONSHIP WITH MALAYSIA “WILL ALWAYS BE COMPLEX”
Dr Balakrishnan also commented on another project that has been delayed, the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR).
“On HSR, they have until May next year to make up their minds. We will wait for them,” he said.
The two countries in September 2018 decided to postpone construction of the HSR to end-May 2020, with Malaysia having to pay Singapore S$15 million for costs incurred in suspending the project.
Dr Mahathir in October said that the HSR would be “postponed for two years” as Malaysia could not afford the “high costs”.
“It’s worth remembering,” the minister pointed out, “that both the RTS … and the HSR … were in fact ideas that originated from the previous Malaysian government.
“So should we have been surprised that the new government … needed time to review these projects? No, I’m not at all surprised.”
Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan in an interview with CNA938 on Nov 8, 2019. (Photo: Hanidah Amin)
Dr Balakrishnan said Singapore’s relationship with Malaysia “will always be complex”, adding that as permanent neighbours, the two countries’ “futures are intertwined”.
He spoke of the “fairly tense argument” the two countries had had in the past year pertaining to maritime boundaries, air space and the use of Seletar Airport.
“Fortunately, fortunately, wiser heads prevailed. Fortunately, we’ve got good and strong relations, and ability to communicate at a very senior leadership level. So we’re able to overcome misunderstandings,” he said.
INDIA EXITED RCEP “FOR DOMESTIC, POLITICAL REASONS”
With India dropping out, the RCEP now comprises 15 countries with a combined 29 per cent share of world GDP and population of 2.1 billion people. It brings together a diverse range of countries, from developing economies in Southeast Asia to global powerhouses such as Japan, Korea and China.
While India can join the RCEP later and other countries – notably Indonesia and Japan – have been lobbying hard for India to stay, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was emphatic about rejecting terms the other members had agreed on.
Its biggest concern? A wave of cheap goods from China and elsewhere.
Dr Balakrishnan said India’s exit from the RCEP illustrates his belief that “foreign policy, diplomacy, free trade agreements must begin at home”.
“Your own people must be assured that they are competitive … If your own people do not have that confidence, they’ll be very nervous about entering free trade agreements.”
He added: “I think in the case of India, they felt that they were not yet ready to compete on the global stage.
“Now, that’s for them to decide. But what’s important is that Singaporeans need to understand that that is why we are so focused on restructuring our economy, so focused on reforming our education systems, so focused on SkillsFuture and enhancing productivity.”
Smart assistants have been a mainstay in the kitchens of tech-savvy Singaporeans for years now, helping us figure out how many teaspoons of salt you need for a pot of laksa and playing our cooking playlist out loud using voice commands.
So it’s only natural that the next spot in your house to place a virtual assistant is your living room. And since Amazon Alexa ain’t supported here and Apple’s Siri has its own, um, issues, the best digital helper at hand is none other than the AliGenie.
I kid, I kid, it’s Google Assistant.
Most of us would already know that soundbars and speakers are the cornerstones of any respectable home theatre — but what if you could actually have that and hook up Google Assistant to do your bidding?
This week alone saw three brands vying for a spot in the headlines, and all three have the same goal; integrating Google Assistant into your TV consoles.
“This is an unfortunate incident which was a result of overcapacity of 30 pax at a concentrated area of the bridge when the bridge was meant to be a casual transient passage,” a statement from the public relations firm for the resort said.
“Findings from the preliminary investigation show that unlike previously reported, the legs and foundation remain intact.”
The statement did not say how many people the structure could support.
The pier was serviced this year and undergoes routine checks regularly, the statement said, adding that more checks and a full investigation are ongoing.
“In the meantime, warning signs have been placed near the accident zone,” it stated. “Separately, a full repair will be done to ensure that the bridge is even more robust for the safety of guests.”
When CNA visited the pier in the resort premises on Friday, it had been cordoned off by yellow police tape, with a resort sign apologising for the inconvenience caused.
The collapsed section was covered with white canvas, while a few wooden planks could be seen in the water.
Business at the resort was going on as usual, with guests seen blowing balloons in preparation for a team building event. Staff said the resort was fully booked for the day.
“The management of Montigo Resorts Nongsa is cooperating with the local authorities and police on the incident,” the statement said.
“They apologise for any inconvenience caused and are looking into all the well-being of their guests during this time.”
According to the resort statement, more than 30 hotel guests were taking group photos on the structure when it collapsed, after which about 26 fell into “the shallow part of the sea”.
“The affected were sent to the hospital by the resort immediately, and were attended to with the necessary medical checks,” it said.
“Except for two guests, one who sustained ankle fracture and another who had a rib fracture, the rest were discharged immediately.
“The two injured guests are now discharged after an overnight observation yesterday.”
The Singaporeans injured in the incident were employees of self-help group Yayasan MENDAKI.
MENDAKI staff at the Nongsapura ferry terminal in Batam before leaving for Singapore. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
A Singaporean injured in the pier collapse at Montigo Resort was seen in a wheelchair at a Batam ferry terminal. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
“The whole group of 100 pax are coming back to Singapore in accordance with their original schedule,” the statement said.
Several Stompers alerted Stomp to the video that is circulating online.
Stomp earlier reported that the 62-year-old taxi driver was taken to Singapore General Hospital after the accident.
A man was seen climbing out of the car as security officers stood by with a ladder.
In the video, that appears to have been taken from a surveillance camera, the cabby is seen suddenly changing lanes from the second to the first lane, cutting in front of the silver car.
We all know that beggars shouldn’t be choosers. Well, this “beggar” didn’t realise that he probably shouldn’t be gambling away donations either.
The modus operandi of one elderly swindler in Yishun was exposed when a Lianhe Zaobao reader tailed him after spotting him begging for money on Oct 31.
The reader, known only as Deng, 73, said the man, who appeared to be in his 80s, stood at the entrance of Northpoint City and told passersby that he “had no home, no one to care for him and no money to eat”.
The man also claimed that he was sick and said he did not have money to visit a doctor.
“When he spoke, his voice would waver. He also had to lean against a pillar to stabilise himself. He looked very weak and pitiful,” Deng told the Chinese daily.
But when one passerby offered to accompany the man to a doctor, he rejected her and asked the woman for cash instead.
In just 10 minutes, the man received donations from seven or eight good Samaritans, who each gave him two to five dollars.
SINGAPORE: For over a year, thousands of people hid under a shroud of encryption, sharing obscene photos and lewd videos of Singaporean women.
They were operating incognito, gathering in a Telegram group called SG Nasi Lemak, where many only identified by handles and pseudonyms. At its peak, the chat group had more than 44,000 members.
So effective were the codes that concealed them that when the authorities nabbed the administrators of the chat group in October, at least 38,000 photos and 12,000 videos had already been traded.
By then, it had also developed a second purpose – an illegal marketplace for contraband cigarettes, banned vaping devices and paraphernalia, and unregulated sex-enhancement drugs.
This case, which shocked many, is yet another sign that crime has moved into cyberspace. And the reason is simply this – technology has afforded organised crime with an unprecedented degree of flexibility.
SECRETIVE ACTIVITIES THRIVE ONLINE
From social media platforms and encrypted communication channels, to cryptocurrency and cheaper and more advanced drone and printing technology, it has never been easier for criminals to find, and in some cases, groom victims, or to produce and smuggle illicit goods.
Photographs uploaded to our personal social media accounts can be used by others for disgusting purposes that were never our original intentions.
The fact that so much of our data is tied to digital databases and cloud systems makes us particularly vulnerable to data breaches as well. SingHealth’s loss of 1.5 million patients’ data attests to the ease of exploiting a system’s vulnerabilities and how employees too must be a strong first line of defence.
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. (File photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel)
The Internet poses obvious challenges for law enforcement, such as in determining who is behind an illicit group or an attack and where the masterminds are globally located, which requires expert knowledge and use of digital forensic tools.
FIGHTING CRIME ONLINE
Law enforcement need not lose out. By embracing the very same technology that criminals are abusing, law enforcement can keep up or even get a step ahead of them.
With artificial intelligence and data mining, the police can potentially even uncover trends in behaviour that can allow for pre-emptive law enforcement.
Leveraging such tools no longer remains an option but a necessity given the rapidly evolving nature of crime. Technology has not only changed how illicit trade is conducted, but has also brought about new forms of crimes.
The Internet has led to the proliferation of e-commerce scams, where people are conned into buying non-existent products.
Many are also susceptible to online love scams, where an attractive stranger professes his or her love for the victim before requesting for money transfers to tide them over a bad situation.
According to the Singapore police, the total amount of money cheated from online love scams surged 46 per cent in the first half of 2019 to S$17.1 million, up from S$11.7 million in the same period last year.
E-commerce scams, on the other hand, had the highest number of reported cases among all types of scams in the first half of the year, with an increase of 42 per cent to 1,435 cases, and a total of $1.2 million cheated from victims.
File photo of someone using a phone and looking at a computer.
Meanwhile the global illicit trade is expected to grow to US$2.8 trillion by 2022 from US$1.1 trillion in 2017.
A top product fuelling the trade is contraband cigarettes and tobacco, which could be given a further boost with plain packaging becoming a new normal around the world, including soon in Singapore, which may make it more difficult to differentiate the genuine and tax paid products from the fakes and smuggled good.
These days, instead of having to know who your local contraband cigarette or drug peddler is or which store sells counterfeit branded goods, it is all about knowing the right online search term or Telegram group.
We need to fight fire with fire. Just as how technology has made committing crime easier, we must use it to foil the plans of criminals.
Mapping and geo-location tools can enhance surveillance and uncover smuggling routes, while facial recognition technology can help to identify criminals.
In fact, the New South Wales police has been using automated facial recognition technology to cross-reference images of people of interest against a database of custody images and live CCTV feeds.
There is also potential for law enforcement to snuff out crimes and catch them in the act, by culling and monitoring data on social media in search of patterns that may indicate an illegal trade or scam, after squaring away associated ethical questions.
China’s first “cyber court” was launched in 2017 to settle online disputes, as the legal system attempts to keep up with the explosion of mobile payment and e-commerce. (File photo: AFP/Wang He)
But law enforcement cannot shoulder this alone as it lacks the data, expertise and resources. That is where partnership between the private sector, academics and even members of the public come in.
SOLVING CRIME TOGETHER
Law enforcement cannot have their eyes everywhere, but there are times when witnesses choose not to come forward for a variety of reasons.
We realised that at Crime Stoppers International (CSI). Hence, we provided a channel for anonymous reporting. Today, in some jurisdictions like the Netherlands, we help provide some of 70 per cent of information that leads to a crime getting solved.
The work that our Crime Stoppers entities in various countries do with Uber to encourage drivers to report suspicious activities has also helped connect a large number of citizens on the roads who might see something to report so that authorities can be notified.
Information provided by CSI’s global network has led to the arrests of over 1 million criminals, seizure of over US$9 billion worth of illicit drugs, and disruption of the activities of many organised criminal networks.
This is just one example of how cooperation across different sectors of society can help to combat crime.
In the case of SG Nasi Lemak, police reports were made as early as March but it took months for the police to track down and arrest the people behind the chat group. If those in the chat group came forward and sent information through tools like the Singapore Police Force’s iWitness function, which allows for anonymous reporting, the timeline may have been much shorter.
We need social media giants to step up, to monitor for illegal activities or work with non-government organisations like ourselves and the police to crack down on them.
We need online marketplaces to weed out counterfeit products.
We also need governments, international agencies and businesses, from law enforcement authorities to the media, to come together to thwart transnational crime, which is getting more sophisticated with technological advances.
And the list goes on.
Fighting criminals is a high-tech and collaborative effort. Only then can we decipher their codes and unravel their networks.
Devrol Dupigny is the Acting CEO of Crime Stoppers International.
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