Parents will soon be able to choose from a wider selection of quality kindergartens at affordable rates.
Come 2023, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will open seven new kindergartens in primary schools. Each will provide full-day Kindergarten Care services and offer about 120 Kindergarten 1 (K1) places.
The seven new kindergartens are MOE Kindergarten @ Yishun, MOE Kindergarten @ Alexandra, MOE Kindergarten @ Bendemeer, MOE Kindergarten @ Fengshan, MOE Kindergarten @ Temasek, MOE Kindergarten @ Princess Elizabeth and MOE Kindergarten @ Shuqun.
The kindergartens will partner Early Years Centres, operated by PCF Sparkletots to provide pre-school services for children aged two months to six years old.
These PCF Sparkletots Preschool centres are at Nee Soon East Block 223 for Yishun; Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng Block 79 for Alexandra; Kolam Ayer Block 39 and Kolam Ayer Block 26B for Bendemeer; Kampong Chai Chee Block 409 for Fengshan; Hong Kah North Block 446 for Princess Elizabeth; and Jurong Spring Block 515 for Shuqun.
Details about the centre for MOE Kindergarten @ Temasek will be provided later.
Since April, safe distancing ambassadors (SDA) have been making their rounds to ensure that Singaporeans follow the Covid-19 rules. But what happens when they don’t exactly behave by the book?
An SDA has been removed from service, Enterprise Singapore (ESG) said in a statement today (Aug 22), following accusations which emerged on Facebook on Aug 19.
In a Facebook post, he was alleged to have abused his authority by requesting free services from Stellar, an accessory and piercing store at Century Square, and neglecting to scan the store’s SafeEntry QR code.
The matter had first come to light after Facebook page Sgarooo shared closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the SDA’s behaviour at the store and related the employees’ complaints.
The store owner, who was not identified, was “reluctantly” sharing his grievances and wanted to avoid “any implication from the authorities”, the page said.
In response to AsiaOne’s queries, an employee at Stellar’s Century Square outlet confirmed that the post was “true” and that the footage was from the store, but said she was not able to comment further.
Singapore will allow general travel to Brunei and New Zealand, as well as for students studying overseas from Sept 1.
However, those intending to visit Brunei and New Zealand are advised to check the entry requirements imposed by these countries, and take the necessary precautionary measures, the multi-ministry task force tackling Covid-19 said on Friday (Aug 21).
Students studying overseas at institutions where distance-learning is not offered as an option by the school will also be allowed to travel, said Education Minister Lawrence Wong.
Singapore is also relaxing its border controls, so that visitors from Brunei or New Zealand, who have remained in the country in the last consecutive 14 days prior to their visit to Singapore, will not have to serve a stay-home notice when they arrive here.
Instead, they will undergo a Covid-19 test upon arrival at the airport, and only be allowed to go about their activities in Singapore after receiving a negative test result.
The Singapore-registered company that says it is close to buying English soccer club Newcastle United admits it doctored photos of former US president Barack Obama in marketing materials used to publicise the newly formed group.
Bellagraph Nova Group (BN Group) also said some of the information in those materials was released prematurely or contained errors after Reuters found inconsistencies when speaking to firms and persons BN Group says it is involved with.
Speaking on behalf of BN Group’s principals, Nereides Antonio Giamundo de Bourbon, head of investor relations, acknowledged that the company had altered photos of Obama to make it look as though he had attended a meeting with its executives in Paris.
His admission came on Wednesday (Aug 19) in response to questions from Reuters.
BN Group has now removed the photos from its website.
However, Bourbon denied that the company had deliberately made any false claims about certain aspects of its business.
SINGAPORE: Seven new Ministry of Education (MOE) kindergartens will open in 2023, the ministry said on Saturday (Aug 22).
All seven will be located within primary schools. With around 120 Kindergarten 1 (K1) places at each new kindergarten, a total of 7,200 K1 places will be available at the 50 MOE kindergartens operational by 2023.
The ministry added there are plans for more. “This is part of our planned expansion to have at least 60 MKs (MOE kindergartens) by 2025, to provide parents with more choices for quality and affordable pre-school places,” said MOE.
MOE Kindergarten @ Princess Elizabeth (Princess Elizabeth Primary School, 30 Bukit Batok West Avenue 3, Singapore 659163)
MOE Kindergarten @ Shuqun (Shuqun Primary School, 8 Jurong West Street 51, Singapore 649332)
All seven new kindergartens will collaborate with Early Years Centres, operated by PCF Sparkletots, to offer kindergarten care services.
All eligible Singapore citizen and permanent resident Nursery 2 children enrolled at these Early Years Centres will be offered a K1 place in a partner MOE kindergarten nearby.
Places will also be available for children who do not come from these Early Years Centres.
Registration for admission to K1 in 2023 for the seven new MOE kindergartens will take place in February 2022. The registration exercise will be open to Singapore citizens and permanent resident children born between Jan 2, 2018 and Jan 1, 2019 (both dates inclusive).
Details of the exercise will be released in early 2022.
A 28-year-old man wanted by the police was arrested on Friday (Aug 21), but only after a public altercation in Esplanade Drive, where he managed to wrangle free of the officers after being tasered, and sparked a chase.
The police said officers had noticed the man, who had an outstanding warrant of arrest, walking around “aimlessly and in a dangerous manner” in Esplanade Drive at around 10.30am on Friday.
When officers approached him, the man was “uncooperative and incoherent”, said the police in a statement on Friday evening.
Police officers attempted to get him off the road and onto the median for his safety, but he became belligerent and resisted the attempts to pull him to safety, said the police.
He continued to be aggressive despite repeated reminders to comply with the officers’ instructions, and charged at one of them, police added.
An officer used a taser to subdue the man, who fell to the ground and clutched his chest. But in a video shot from an office window across the road, he is seen recovering within seconds and getting to his feet.
TIOMAN, MALAYSIA: After three days adrift and clinging to just a lifebuoy, diving enthusiast John Low was on the verge of giving up.
His speedboat was in the watery depths of the South China Sea, and around him, he thought he saw spaceships. Voices encouraged him to let go, among other things.
“They said, ‘Don’t worry, somebody’s going to pick you up … Don’t worry, (here’s) a Coke for you,’” recalled the 61-year-old. “And I could hear the ‘tss’ (fizz).”
He had to endure injuries and fight off these hallucinations that came with his fatigue in the open sea before he was rescued by a passing ship on the fourth day of his ordeal in May last year.
WATCH: Lost at sea for 80 hours – and how I survived: A 60-year-old’s story (4:47)
He has since recovered and has also changed his perspective on life as well as re-evaluated his priorities, he shared with the programme On The Red Dot. That is what coming so near to death has done for him.
CHEMICAL BURNS
His epic voyage had started out well enough. He was in one of two boats travelling from Mersing to Tioman Island when it ran out of fuel.
Low, who owns a diving shop in Tioman, remained in the boat while the captain left with the other boat to get fuel and promised to return.
“I wasn’t very worried,” he recalled. “Unfortunately … the weather started changing. The currents started building up … The boat started shaking.”
He made a call to his youngest son, Bryan, to tell him there was a problem with the boat, which was taking on water.
An illustration of Low in the boat.
Bryan was not too concerned about the situation then. “Water seeping in would be normal. Knowing my dad, he’d be on top of things, and I didn’t give a second thought to it,” he said.
But the boat started taking on water faster than Low could bail. As the vessel went down, he managed to grab a lifebuoy and his backpack.
In the water, the first thing that hit him was a mixture of petrol and seawater, which gave him chemical burns. “It also affected my ability to look around because …. my left eye was burning,” he recounted.
He had no vision in right eye either, not since he was 27, after a driver punched him in a road rage incident that shattered his glasses and blinded the eye.
John Low.
Bryan, who went to the marina expecting to see his father, saw only one boat docked there. The captain could not find the missing boat earlier, so together they searched the choppy seas again.
“It was quite a fruitless search,” said Bryan. “That’s when I realised the boat had sunk, and my dad was out in the sea.”
CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS WATCH
The weather turned calm after a few hours, and in the water, Low was optimistic that he would be rescued soon and even have a meal.
“I was thinking … I still could go for roti canai in one of the villages,” he said.
Low at his diving shop on Tioman Island.
But as time passed, he grew afraid. In the darkness, he could feel “a lot of things moving around” in the water. He also could not control the direction he was paddling in, as the currents were too strong.
“When I do my night dives, I’m always with four to five people,” he said. “This time … I was alone.”
Only the stars lighting up the night sky provided him with some comfort. “I felt that somebody was there with me. And I felt that I’d be home,” he added.
When daybreak came, the sunrise was “like a big smile on someone’s face looking at you”, he described. To him, it is “the most beautiful thing you’ll always see”.
But the day, with the “scorching sun” in the afternoon, also brought him pain. “It’s like putting your head in a microwave oven. A part of my armpit started rotting. The sea water started stinging,” he said.
An illustration of Low adrift.
Occasionally, he could see and hear helicopters, airplanes and boats, with hopes that they would spot him, only to be demoralised when they pass by.
To keep his spirits up, he started talking to his diving watch and lifebuoy. “I called (to) my watch, ‘Brother … can tahan (endure in Malay)? … Okay lah, let’s go,’” he said.
“My watch was an excellent timekeeper … (Talking to) it gave me motivation.”
Throughout his ordeal, he could not sleep as he was in constant pain. He later found out that parts of his skin had disintegrated, and some had stuck to the buoy.
By the third day, he felt that he was moving further and further away from land, and he was losing hope that he would be found.
An illustration of a ship passing by, and Low’s hopes ebbing away.
“I was so tired, and that’s when fear starts and you start thinking, ‘Where am I? Why did they take so long to look for me? Don’t they care for me any more?’” he said.
His family had almost given up hope of finding him alive. Bryan and the Malaysian search and rescue team scoured the seas all the way to Pulau Aur, 80 kilometres east of Mersing, but could not locate Low.
“Once you pass Pulau Aur, it’s basically a big ocean with no islands … It’s straight to Indonesia,” said Bryan. “We circled around there, but (after) 72 hours … I knew there was no way a person could survive.”
But Low’s eldest son, George, said he always believed that their father “was invincible” and that “nothing could harm him”. Said the engineer: “Somehow I was still convinced that he was somewhere waiting to be rescued.”
Bryan, the youngest in the family.
KIDNEYS WERE FAILING
On the fourth day, said Low, he felt small creatures, possibly crabs, on his body. “Is this lunch for me?” he wondered. “On the other hand, am I rotting, so that (is why) these crabs are climbing all over me?”
As he grew weaker, he prayed for help and left his fate to God. He was prepared to not be found.
A few hours later, he thought he saw an “alien ship” in front of him again. This time, it turned out to be the ship, Diogo Cao. The crew got him aboard as quickly as possible.
“Later on, I found out from the crew … that I shouted when they peeled the buoy from my arm. And they were very happy because they thought I was already dead,” he said.
The crew informed the Singaporean authorities, and a helicopter was despatched to get him.
A rough estimate of how far Low drifted, in this map provided by the ship, Diogo Cao.
In hospital, he appeared lifeless, said George. The survivor’s kidneys were failing owing to a high saltwater intake, his lungs were filled with seawater and his burns were severe. But he did have brief moments of lucidity.
“I couldn’t really open my eyes,” he recalled. “The only thing I can remember was the shadow of a head … Then I could see my wife. You can’t explain this kind of feeling.”
One of his diving students, Joey Choo, was on duty in the same hospital when she received a call from George about his father. After her shift ended, she hurried to Low’s side and was shocked to see his condition.
“His skin was peeling off, and there were big blisters all around his body,” said the Singapore General Hospital nurse.
Low in hospital.
His mouth was also full of blisters and ulcers, so she used a syringe with water in it and “fed him by the corner of his mouth”.
Over the weeks, he slowly recovered, although he was in a hurry to get well and regain his strength in order to “enjoy a nice meal with my family”, he said.
His ordeal has made him realise how precious his family is, much more than “business and money”.
“Since the incident, I’ve felt that … we shouldn’t lose an opportunity when it comes to quality family time or caring for your friends,” he said.
A photo of Low with his wife, Eva Hoo.
Even when it comes to food, he finishes everything on his plate “because everything is so precious now”.
His family also enjoy spending more time with him now, he said, as he has learnt to curb his temper.
“I’m using the word ‘sorry’ more … I see their goodness,” added the father of three. (The incident) has helped me with my relationship with my family.”
What it has not done is stop him heading back to sea to dive, which he does occasionally now that he is living and working in Vietnam, having put his nightmare behind him.
On The Red Dot airs on Mediacorp Channel 5 every Friday at 9.30pm.
SINGAPORE: The Singapore-registered company that says it is close to buying English soccer club Newcastle United admits it doctored photos of former US President Barack Obama in marketing materials used to publicise the newly formed group.
Bellagraph Nova Group (BN Group) also said some of the information in those materials was released prematurely or contained errors after Reuters found inconsistencies when speaking to firms and persons BN Group says it is involved with.
Speaking on behalf of BN Group’s principals, Nereides Antonio Giamundo de Bourbon, head of investor relations, acknowledged that the company had altered photos of Obama to make it look as though he had attended a meeting with its executives in Paris.
His admission came on Wednesday (Aug 19) in response to questions from Reuters.
BN Group has now removed the photos from its website.
A photo on the website of Bellagraph Nova Group, showing owners Terence (right) and Nelson (left) Loh and Evangeline Shen sitting next to former US President Barack Obama, is pictured on screen, in Singapore Aug 19, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Ng Yi Shu)
However, Bourbon denied that the company had deliberately made any false claims about certain aspects of its business.
The company, which says it had a turnover of US$12 billion last year and describes itself in marketing materials as the “world’s fastest growing conglomerate”, has said on its website and in press releases that it is headquartered in Paris.
No company called Bellagraph Nova Group is registered in France, according to official online records checked by Reuters on Friday. Reuters could not find any company by that name at the address it has given – 10 Place Vendome – when a reporter visited on Tuesday.
Wooden crates are stacked outside the entrance of Bellagraph Nova Group’s registered offices in Singapore Aug 20, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/John Geddie)
A receptionist at an office rental business operated by Regus in the building said BN Group has used its space but its staff were not always present. Bourbon maintained to Reuters that BN Group had a permanent office in Place Vendome.
In addition, the group, which was incorporated in Singapore last month, has said financial technology firm – Hydra X – is one of the entities in its global empire and that it is implementing a trading system for the Singapore Exchange.
Hydra X has denied both those claims. The Singapore Exchange has also denied Hydra X is implementing a trading system.
“PHOTOSHOP PICTURE”
BN Group’s website and press releases in recent weeks have featured photos of Obama with the firm’s owners, Singaporean businessmen Terence and Nelson Loh, and Evangeline Shen, a Chinese jewellery merchant and former Morgan Stanley banker.
While Shen and the Lohs had photos taken with Obama at a charity event they sponsored in Singapore on Dec 14, BN Group’s Bourbon said some of the photos published in press releases on its website and sent to media had been edited to make it look as though Obama was in a private meeting.
“We are serious people … the only ambiguous thing has been the photoshop picture,” he said. “There wasn’t any malicious aim behind it.”
Shen declined to be interviewed for this story. The Loh cousins did not respond to requests for comment.
The charity event where the photos of Obama were taken was sponsored by Novena Global Lifecare, a Singapore healthcare company founded in 2010 by the Loh cousins.
The photographer who took the pictures confirmed to Reuters that they were taken at the gala event in Singapore.
Obama’s office and the Obama Foundation did not respond to requests for comment about the photos or the BN Group.
The company grabbed global headlines on Aug 15 when it announced it had submitted a takeover bid for one of England’s most high-profile soccer clubs, adding that it had enlisted the help of Newcastle legend and former England Captain Alan Shearer as well as another former player, Michael Chopra, in its bid.
FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football – Premier League – Newcastle United v Liverpool – St James’ Park, Newcastle, Britain – July 26, 2020
The surprise announcement adds to years of speculation over the future of Newcastle United, which has been the subject of several fruitless takeover bids, including a US$390 million Saudi-backed deal that collapsed last week.
If BN Group’s bid is accepted, the English Premier League would then carry out its owners and directors test which involves looking into the backgrounds of the people involved to assess their suitability to own a soccer club.
Newcastle United declined to comment on the bid or BN Group. The club’s owner, Mike Ashley, did not respond to requests for comment.
Shearer’s management told Reuters he was not involved in the takeover bid. Chopra, who on Aug 14 retweeted a picture of himself at the offices of BN Group, did not respond to a request for comment.
HYDRA X
A firm called Bellagraph Nova Pte Ltd – which lists the Lohs and Shen as its three directors and shareholders – was incorporated in Singapore on Jul 20 and is registered to an office above a row of shops in the city-state.
BN Group has said on its website and in marketing materials that it is a French company with an office in Paris at 10 Place Vendome, an exclusive square home to the Ritz Paris hotel and luxury stores such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
Reuters found no record of any company registered in France called Bellagraph Nova Group on the online database of the Registries of the Commercial Courts, the French state agency that holds company information.
Singapore-based Hydra X is one of the entities BN Group has said in marketing materials sent to Reuters on Monday is part of its global conglomerate of 23,000 employees.
It said in those materials that Hydra X was “designing and implementing” a trading system for the Singapore Exchange.
When contacted for comment, Hydra X and the exchange denied this. Bourbon said there had been a mistake in translating the company’s description in its marketing documents.
Hydra X said BN Group was not a shareholder. It said in an emailed statement to Reuters that it was privately owned, predominantly by individual investors, and that it shared no legal or beneficial owners with the BN Group, nor was part of, or a subsidiary, of the BN Group.
Hydra X said it had entered “into a joint venture with a related entity” of BN Group to build technology solutions unrelated to financial technology. It declined to name the entity.
Bourbon maintained to Reuters that Hydra X was owned by BN Group and was in the process of merging into the group. He said sharing further details would break non-disclosure agreements.
“Sometimes the marketing moves faster than the process,” he said.
NEXT LISTING
BN Group’s official Instagram account also says one of its entities, a robotics company called NETX, is listed in Singapore and on New York’s Nasdaq exchange.
Reuters found no record of a company called NETX on those exchanges. Bourbon said they had announced the listings “prematurely” but they were underway.
Without elaborating further, the Singapore exchange referred Reuters to a filing in which a company listed on its junior bourse, bought by the Loh’s investment company DORR Group last month, has proposed to change its name to NETX later in August.
Nasdaq did not respond to requests for comment.
BN Group’s modest Singapore office – on the top floor of a four-storey building above a pet shop and an Indian restaurant – is also the address of Novena Global Lifecare and other firms it owns such as a fine wine merchant and an investment manager.
When Reuters visited the office on Thursday, there was nobody at the reception desk. In the hallway stood a dormant, shoulder-height robot like the ones used in online marketing campaigns for NETX.
A woman, who came out of a glass-walled meeting room to speak to Reuters, said neither the Lohs nor Shen were present.
Bourbon said the Singapore-registered Bellagraph Nova company at that address was the parent firm. “We started from Singapore but we are moving all our realty to Europe.”
It’s no secret that the global pandemic has been wreaking havoc on ride-hailing services. Grab, in particular, saw its ride-hailing drivers facing severely reduced incomes — so much so that they’ve since switched to carrying out on-demand deliveries.
Things are no different for Tada, the relatively newer player in Singapore’s ride-hailing market. But instead of going the food or parcel delivery route, the company launched Tada Fresh Market, a new platform for people to order groceries online from various wet markets at wet market prices.
“The idea of Tada Fresh Market was borne out of the need to provide a source of livelihood to our Private Hire Vehicle Drivers as there lesser rides during the circuit breaker,” Tada’s Southeast Asia General Manager Jonathan Chua told AsiaOne.
“As the market recovers, it will continue to supplement their livelihoods by providing them with delivery jobs during off-peak periods. We are currently working with a pool of close to 100 drivers in Singapore with plans to scale up by the end of 2020.
All customer-facing staff at Tangs can don religious headgear while at work, if they choose to do so. The change took effect yesterday (Aug 21).
They will join their corporate office and back-of-house colleagues, who already have the flexibility to wear religious headgear.
In response to queries from The Straits Times, Tangs said that the standardisation of its dress code will apply to both employees and external brand partners of the department store.
“We have made an immediate change to ensure a policy that uniformly respects all our employees and our brand partners,” Tangs told ST.
On Thursday morning, President Halimah Yacob condemned in strong terms discrimination at the workplace, and said it is particularly disturbing, as it deprives the person affected from earning a living.
This is especially so given that Covid-19 has heightened worries over jobs and livelihoods, and incidents of discrimination “exacerbate anxieties and people feel threatened”.
“Discrimination of any form and against anyone has no place at all in our society,” she said.
