SINGAPORE: An abandoned pangolin rescued by the Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) almost two years ago was released back into the wild on Tuesday (Sep 18), becoming Singapore’s first ever case of a baby pangolin being hand-reared and rehabilitated for release. 

Named after the Pokemon character Sandshrew, the pangolin was found weak, hungry and alone in the Upper Thomson area, and sent to the Wildlife Health and Research Centre in January 2017.

At the time of its rescue, the 1.5-month-old pangolin weighed 522 grams and would not have survived in the wild as it was still dependent on his mother.

After it was rescued, Sandshrew’s carers bottle-fed it with milk replacer until it could be weaned. When it was old enough to forage, its carers would look for natural food sources so that Sandshrew could learn how to eat live prey and get used to the occasional insect bite.

Almost two years on, Sandshrew has grown to 6.4kg.

On Tuesday, it was taken by WRS and the National Parks Board (NParks) to an undisclosed location, where it will remain for about 10 days in an enclosure. The gate of the enclosure will be left open for it to leave voluntarily.

A radio tracking device attached to one of Sandshrew’s scales will allow its movements in the wild to be monitored. It will also be watched 24 hours a day to see how it is adapting to life in the wild.

“Being the first of its kind, the delicate operation could open up opportunities to develop protocols for future rescue and rehabilitation efforts for the species as a whole,” WRS and NParks said in a release.

The update on Sandshrew’s rehabilitation was provided by Second Minister for National Development Desmond Lee, who also launched a national conservation and strategy action plan for Sunda Pangolin conservation in Singapore for the next 50 years.

The Sunda pangolin is critically endangered in the region – and is the world’s most widely trafficked mammal.

Among the five goals in the plan include gathering and sharing information on the animal, ensuring a self-supporting population of pangolins and establishing wildlife-conscious urban planning policies and measures.

“In 2009, Night Safari Singapore became the first zoological institution to display the Sunda Pangolin and later to breed the species under human care but this alone is not enough. To save this iconic animal, we need to work together on a comprehensive and coordinated plan,” said Mr Mike Barclay, Group CEO of Mandai Park Holdings.

Mr Desmond Lee added: “I hope we put this plan earnestly into action and also involve many Singaporeans in wildlife monitoring, bring young children on board through citizen science. 

“Allow them to use technology to help participate in wildlife count and use the Sunda Pangolin and other wildlife as icons that we can find in our school textbooks and pre-school material and allow them to get a better feel of wildlife that inhabit this island.”

SINGAPORE: Plans to open up the Fast and Secure Transfers (FAST) transaction system in Singapore have been welcomed by industry experts and financial technology (fintech) players, who said that it will pave the way for greater convenience and more innovative e-payment services for consumers while lending a helping hand to Singapore’s cashless push. 

Education Minister Ong Ye Kung on Monday (Sep 17) said that non-bank players will soon get direct access to FAST – the inter-bank instant electronic funds transfer system launched in 2014 and which peer-to-peer service PayNow is built upon – so that their e-wallets can inter-operate with bank accounts. 

Simply put, this means customers can soon make instant top-ups, or refunds, from different types of e-wallets to any bank account. 

Beyond that, Mr Ong said that allowing open access to a common infrastructure like FAST will hopefully create value-added services as players compete. 

Those that Channel NewsAsia spoke to backed the announcement, with some describing it as an “important” milestone that will put Singapore on the global map. 

While similar initiatives are underway in countries like the United Kingdom, the opening up of FAST will still make it one of the first global payment platforms to allow inter-operability between financial services firms beyond traditional banks, said IDC Singapore’s senior research manager Michael Yeo. 

For consumers, they can expect greater ease of use and eventually, more choices as fintech firms start using and embedding their products and services within FAST, he added. 

Specifically, consumers can look forward to more differentiated e-payment services, said Mr Jeremy Tan, founder and CEO of home-grown payments technology company Liquid Group. 

“While banks serve hundreds and thousands of customers at one go, the fintech players are more likely to look at niche areas, which will create many more different ways of payment services.” 

Meanwhile, having a direct link to bank accounts can help to speed up the process of topping up e-wallets as users will no longer need to do “the extra step” of using methods like credit cards. “I think this will only help to drive e-payment adoption in Singapore,” added Mr Tan. 

With that, Liquid Group has signed up to be part of the industry working group that will iron out the necessary business and technical requirements for non-banks to connect directly to FAST. 

Remittance services company TransferWise, mobile payments technology player MatchMove, gaming firm Razer and ride-hailing giant Grab are among the others that have submitted their names. 

UK-based TransferWise said it can contribute lessons learnt given that it was the first non-bank company to be given access to Britain’s Faster Payments Scheme earlier this year. 

“It will be crucial to ensure that the costs of joining, both technical and financial, are as low as possible, otherwise this valuable initiative will not achieve its intended aims,” said its head of banking Lukas May. 

Others think that the industry working group will have to address issues ranging from system compatibility to security and compliance. 

“The ultimate goal of the working group is to balance open accessibility with stability and security of access, as well as efficient capital deployment for long-term sustainability and competitiveness of the scheme,” said Matchmove’s senior vice president Ashley Koh. 

For Mr Shirish Jain, director at PwC’s “Strategy&” office, it is about striking a balance between convenience and the resilience of FAST. 

“From a working group perspective, it should be about how to strengthen FAST and ensure that it lowers barriers to entry, adequately defines the security of the entry points, and prevents propagation of any issues beyond that participant.” 

SINGAPORE’S RACE TO GO CASHLESS

While Singapore’s push towards a cashless society seems to have garnered more importance in recent years as part of the Smart Nation umbrella, the country’s e-payments journey started relatively early with the Interbank Giro system in 1984. 

That was followed by the introduction of the NETS service two years later, which allowed consumers to use ATM cards that are linked to their bank accounts to pay merchants. 

After a string of initiatives to bring e-payments to the local public transport system, recent measures have zeroed in on bringing greater convenience to consumers and businesses, as well as improving inter-operability. 

These include the introduction of FAST in 2014 and the PayNow transfer service last year. For the latter, 1.2 million mobile numbers and 550,000 NRIC numbers have since been linked to bank accounts, with about S$1.5 billion transferred via PayNow thus far. 

Last month, PayNow was extended to businesses with the aim of reducing cash and cheque handling.

In another move to unite the fragmented e-payment space here, the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR) – a single QR code that is compatible with as many as 27 e-payment solutions – was launched on Monday.  

Describing the unified payment QR code as a “very important foundation step”, Mr Jain said: “It makes retail payments simpler, helps address clutter and confusion for consumer and merchant.” 

He added: “Just like how PayNow simplified remittances using phone number, SGQR should also help further increase innovation in this space.” 

Echoing that, IDC Singapore’s Mr Yeo said that while consumers will still have to check if their preferred payment scheme is accepted by the merchant, having a single QR code sticker is still a “massive improvement” from the current situation of having multiple QR codes on display by some merchants. 

Overall, experts reckon that Singapore is making “positive steps” towards its goal of a cashless society though issues remain.

For one, there is still the “perceived convenience, affordability and ubiquity of cash” within some segments of the society, said Mr Jain.

More also needs to be done in the areas of increasing merchant acceptance and driving consumer adoption, while ensuring security issues can be handled adequately, added Mr Yeo.

On that, Mr Ong said in his speech on Monday that regulations will be the “last piece of the e-payments jigsaw” for the Government.

“All these efforts will come to naught if people do not feel safe using e-payments,” the minister said at the launch of the SGQR.

Upcoming steps will include having financial institutions to put in place “robust” cyber defences so that customers can have confidence in carrying out online financial transactions, while the MAS will issue a set of user protection guidelines for e-payments by the end of this month.

SINGAPORE: Four Singaporean men were arrested and about S$56,000 worth of drugs seized in an operation conducted by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on Monday (Sep 17). 

The drugs seized consisted of 803g of heroin and 5g of Ice, CNB said in a news release on Tuesday.  

The first of the four suspects, a 52-year-old man, was arrested in the Boon Lay Avenue area. He was found with a small packet of heroin, which was allegedly from a suspected drug trafficker in the area.

CNB officers then raided the second suspect’s flat, located on the fourth floor of a housing block, forcing their way in as the people inside repeatedly refused to comply with orders. 

Two suspects, a 55-year-old and a 63-year-old, were arrested. Authorities also found 47g of heroin and 5g of Ice in the flat.

CNB said officers then searched the rubbish chute linked to the raided unit. A total of 756g of heroin, packed in two different bundles, were found in the bin. 

The fourth man arrested is a 51-year-old suspected drug abuser who was spotted behaving suspiciously at a nearby bus stop. 

The amount of heroin seized in the operation is enough to feed the addiction of about 380 abusers for a week, said CNB.

Investigations are ongoing. 

SINGAPORE: Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng will make a three-day official visit to Singapore from Wednesday (Sep 19) at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean.

Mr Teo and Mr Han will co-chair the 14th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The JCBC is the highest-level forum between Singapore and China. 

Mr Han took over as JCBC co-chair after former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli retired, following the Communist Party of China’s 19th Party Congress in October last year.

Mr Teo and Mr Han will also co-chair Joint Steering Council (JSC) meetings to review the progress made on three flagship Government-to-Government projects and discuss future developments, PMO said. 

The first two government-to-government projects – the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin Eco-city – helped to cement ties between China and Singapore.

The third project is the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative, and the inaugural meeting of its JSC was a highlight at the 13th JCBC meeting in Feb 2017. This project, which was launched in Nov 2015, aims to turn the southwestern municipality of Chongqing into a services and logistics hub. 

The leaders will also jointly witness the signing of several Memorandums of Understanding.

Vice Premier Han will also meet Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and call on President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

As part of the trip, Mr Han will also visit Pasir Panjang Terminal to discuss port development, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, to discuss urban planning strategies and other common areas of interest.

SINGAPORE: A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a new test kit that is able to screen for multiple diseases in less than an hour, and for under S$1.

The portable test kit – about the size of a credit card – is designed to detect a wide range of diseases. They range from Zika and Ebola to hepatitis, dengue and malaria, said NUS in a media release on Tuesday (Sep 18).

It can also detect various types of cancers and genetic diseases.

Users simply have to deposit a drop of blood or other bodily fluids onto a small disc on the test kit. This will then flow into another disc that has been pre-loaded with a DNA molecular machine that is designed to recognise disease-specific molecules.

The colour of the disc will change from colourless to brown if a disease is detected.

If the condition is more severe, the colour will turn into a darker brown. Researchers are also working on having the test results further analysed using a smartphone for an assessment of how severe the infection is.

In addition, multiple units of the same test chip can be mounted onto a common cartilage to test for various diseases at once.

It takes 30 minutes to an hour to detect the presence of diseases, which is about two to four times faster than existing infection diagnostic methods that can cost around S$100, said NUS.

“With this invention, tests can be done at the point-of-care, for instance in community clinics or hospital wards, so that disease monitoring or treatment can be administered in a timely manner,” said team leader Assistant Professor Shao Huilin, who is from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at NUS.

The technology, called EnVision (enzyme-assisted nanocomplexes for visual identification of nucleic acids), can detect diseases in their early stages and boasts an accuracy rate of 95 per cent, researchers added.

To validate the performance of the kit, an initial study was conducted on 35 patients from the National University Hospital to check for human papillomavirus (HPV) – the key cause of cervical cancer.

“EnVision is not only able to accurately detect different subtypes of the same disease, it is also able to spot differenced within a specific subtype of a given disease to identify undetectable infections,” said Assistant Professor Shao.

The team took about one-and-a-half years to develop the screening kit.

Researchers hope to commercialise it in a year or two, in Singapore and in regional markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, making the kit available through pharmacies and general practitioner clinics.

SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency’s (NEA) ongoing effort to suppress the urban Aedes aegypti mosquito population and fight dengue – Project Wolbachia – has received a technological boost.

NEA’s Environment Health Institute (EHI) announced on Tuesday (Sep 18) that it has teamed up with Verily (formerly named Google Life Sciences), the life sciences and healthcare company of US-based Alphabet Inc, to come up with an advanced, more efficient way to sort and release the male Wolbachia mosquitoes for Phase 2 of the field study.

The partnership was announced at the opening of the 5th Singapore International Dengue Workshop on Tuesday.

The sex-sorting technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately separate the males from the females. NEA currently uses a funnel-type device to separate them since female mosquitoes are larger than males. The AI sorting is less laborious and more accurate.

“Such a technology would prevent accidental release of female mosquitoes, which is important to ensure the effectiveness of the Wolbachia methodology in suppressing the urban Aedes mosquito population,” said NEA deputy chief executive officer Khoo Seow Poh.

Project Wolbachia uses Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to suppress the Aedes aegypti mosquito population in Singapore. This is done because when male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes mate with urban female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the eggs spawned do not hatch, resulting in a fall in the overall population.

AUTOMATED RELEASE CART

Verily has also developed an automated release cart to dispense male Wolbachia mosquitos. It has been specially designed and tailored to fit into the lifts and long and narrow corridors of HDB blocks. 

The cart is set to be tested at NEA’s Tampines West study site later this month. 

For the trial, two carts will be deployed – one on the ground level and another on a high floor – to ensure that the male Wolbachia mosquitoes are released more evenly. 

With more of such male Wolbachia mosquitoes in the environment, there is a higher chance that the existing female Aedes aegypti will mate with them and lay sterile eggs, according to NEA.

SINGAPORE: Sembcorp Industries will be powering Facebook’s operations in Singapore, including the social media giant’s first data centre to be located in Asia, the Singapore utilities company said on Tuesday (Sep 18).

Sembcorp said in a press release that it has signed a 20-year deal with Facebook to supply it with solar energy.

It will be installing panels on close to 900 rooftops in Singapore between the end of this year and 2020 to meet Facebook’s renewable energy requirement. The offsite solar panels will total 50 MWp in capacity, it said.

Facebook said on Sep 6 that the Singapore data centre – its first in Asia –  is estimated to start operating by 2022. The new facility, to be located at Tanjong Kling in the west of Singapore, will span 170,000 sq m.

“This agreement represents our first step towards supporting our Singapore Data Center and local offices with 100 per cent renewable energy,” said Mr Bobby Hollis, head of global energy at Facebook.

Sembcorp has more than 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power projects
across Singapore, China and India, and it plans to double its renewables portfolio and reduce its carbon intensity by around 25 per cent by 2022, the company said.

“As our world moves towards renewables and lower-carbon energy, there is an increasing demand for solutions that enable businesses to achieve growth while managing their impact on the environment. 

“Sembcorp is actively working with companies in this, and supporting their efforts towards this dual objective,” said Mr Neil McGregor, group president & CEO of Sembcorp Industries.