Six aerial segments to look out for during NDP 2023
From 5.40pm to 6.10pm, these aircraft will fly in the Jurong West, Woodlands, Toa Payoh, Tampines and Bedok area.
Lieutenant (LTA) Hanson Lim from 112 Squadron said flying the MRTT has its challenges because it will be travelling at a faster speed than normal since it is moving in formation with fighter jets.
“Our turn radius will be much bigger, and being a bigger aircraft, we are not as manoeuvrable as the fighter aircraft,” he said, adding that Singapore’s airspace is tight.
Major (MAJ) Melcolm Huang, an F-16D+ Pilot from 145 Squadron, said he flies over his home in Pasir Ris during rehearsals. His wife usually brings his six-month-old son to the balcony to watch as the planes go by.
“My wife would be taking photos, recording videos. Hopefully one day I’ll get to show him those images, and inspire him in future,” he said.
Philippines accuses China of more ‘harassment’ near disputed reef
MANILA: The Philippines on Wednesday (Jul 5) accused China’s coast guard of harassment, obstruction and “dangerous manoeuvres” against its vessels, after another incident near a strategic feature of the South China Sea that has become a flashpoint between them. Philippine coast guard boats were assisting a naval operation on JunContinue Reading
Man on trial for murdering 5-year-old daughter, allegedly confined her in toilet for months
SINGAPORE: A man is accused of murdering his five-year-old daughter after months of ill-treating her by keeping her in a toilet with her younger brother, in what the prosecution called “squalid conditions”.
The 43-year-old man cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the victim’s identity and her surviving brother, who might be a witness for other charges the man faces.
The accused went on trial on Wednesday (Jul 5) for the charge of murder under Section 300(c), which is punishable by death or life imprisonment with caning.
He faces another 25 charges for offences including ill-treating his daughter and son by confining them in a toilet for about 10 months and punching his son when he was two years old, but these charges have been stood down temporarily while he is tried for murder.
According to the prosecution’s opening address, the deceased girl and her brother are the children of the accused from his first marriage.
After his divorce, the man married for a second time. His new wife had a daughter of her own from a previous marriage.
In 2014, the man’s two biological children were placed in foster care by the Child Protective Service.
However, the kids were returned to the accused’s custody sometime in 2015 and lived in a rented one-room flat with the accused and his new wife.
At the time of the offences, the accused’s new wife had borne him another daughter, so the man’s two biological children had two stepsiblings.
PROSECUTION’S CASE
According to the prosecution’s case, the accused intended to put his two biological children up for fostering or adoption.
In 2015, he began assaulting the girl and her brother, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Han Ming Kuang.
In the months leading up to her death, the girl and her brother lived in squalid living conditions, first confined in a corner of the flat near a window where they spent most of the day.
They were later shifted to the toilet, where they were confined “practically naked”, said Mr Han.
“Their nights were spent sleeping in the toilet. In the day, they were let out for meals, or when the accused or the accused’s wife needed to use the toilet,” he added.
The couple installed a closed-circuit television camera capturing the view of the toilet so they could monitor the girl and her brother.
On the night of Aug 10, 2017, the accused’s wife tried to get her stepdaughter to exercise, but she refused.
The accused decided to “handle the situation” and went to the toilet, where he physically assaulted her on her head and face between 9pm on Aug 10, 2017 and the early morning of Aug 11, 2017, alleged Mr Han.
At around 7pm on Aug 11, 2017, the accused realised that his daughter had died, said the prosecution.
The prosecution team said the accused took his daughter’s lifeless body to Singapore General Hospital more than 15 hours after discovering her death.
In the meantime, he allegedly packed and threw away items linked to her death, including a camera that covered the toilet area, a phone, scissors, a cane, a rubber hose, bath towels and child safety gates.
He also cleaned up the flat, washed the dead girl, dressed her and placed her in a pram. He allegedly arranged with his wife to tell the police that his two kids had not been in the flat, but were instead at his mother’s flat.
He finally took his daughter’s body to Singapore General Hospital on the morning of Aug 12, 2017.
“She was severely malnourished and covered head to toe in bruises, abrasions, wounds and scars,” said Mr Han.
The girl was in cardiac arrest, with no spontaneous breathing or pulse.
Resuscitation efforts were futile. An autopsy found that she had died of a head injury that was sufficient to cause death and that was likely a result of blunt force trauma from multiple blows.
The accused was assessed at the Institute of Mental Health and found to be not suffering from any mental disorder at the time of the alleged offence.
He allegedly lied to the police in multiple statements, claiming that the girl had died after hitting her head on a slide.
ACCUSED’S WIFE TAKES THE STAND
The first prosecution witness to take the stand was the accused’s wife. The 32-year-old Pizza Hut rider told the court that she was in the midst of divorcing the accused.
Questioned by Deputy Public Prosecutor Norine Tan about how she felt when the deceased and her brother returned to live with her and her husband in 2015, the woman said: “I don’t feel anything.”
Probed about this, she said: “Before the marriage, I have told (the accused) that he will take care of his own kids, and I will take care of my own kid.”
She said the deceased and her brother did not attend school, but her own two daughters did.
Asked why, the woman said there was no placement for them, and the school “did not reply”.
She said her husband usually fed his own kids and showered them. On questioning by Ms Tan, the accused’s wife said her two daughters were of “normal” size while the deceased and her brother were skinny.
“Why were they skinny?” asked Ms Tan.
“They were not given enough food,” the woman answered.
“Who did not give them enough food?” pressed Ms Tan.
“Both of us,” answered the accused’s wife.
She said she was mostly at her mother’s house as her mother was a stroke patient, while her husband would be working. She said he would be the one who went home to feed his own kids as he worked nearby.
The prosecutor asked the accused’s wife why there was a difference in how she treated her husband’s kids versus her own.
The woman closed her eyes before answering: “I don’t have the feeling of them being my kids. I… easy to say, is, I can’t accept other kids as my own kids, even after marriage.”
“The feeling as a mother; I don’t have it for other kids,” she added.
The trial continues, with the accused’s wife expected to be on the stand again on Thursday.
The accused is defended by lawyers Mervyn Cheong, Mr Krishna Sharma and Ms Lim Yi Zheng.
At least S$12 million lost in fake friend call scams since January; new variant involving Android malware
SINGAPORE: At least S$12 million (US$8.9 million) has been lost in fake friend call scams since January 2023, the police said on Wednesday (Jul 5), warning of a new variant involving malicious Android links. At least 3,700 victims have fallen prey to such scams since the beginning of the year.Continue Reading
Government may allow SingPost to raise postage rates in order to remain viable
‘MINDFUL’ OF JOBS BEING AFFECTED
Mr Seah then asked how the government will ensure that SingPost’s service quality does not fall, what the postal rate adjustments would look like, and how the government will preserve the jobs of Singaporeans who work for SingPost.
Mr Tan said that the government is “mindful” of the last point, and that regular conversations also take place between SingPost and the unions representing postal employees.
IMDA will continue ensuring SingPost keeps up and complies with its quality of service, given that a quality of service framework is in place. As SingPost is a listed company, it will have to undertake several reviews along with IMDA “as part of regular discussions”, Mr Tan added.
“I will just assure that … the context of the costs, overheads; context of the postal rate adjustments; context of the declining volume and the operating environment, will be considered as part of these discussions,” he said.
In relation to the service quality framework, Mr Leon Perera (Workers’ Party-Aljunied) asked if there are periodic customer satisfaction surveys conducted for SingPost, and if the government will discuss the findings and hold SingPost accountable to them.
Mr Tan responded that the framework looks at the service level agreement between the licensee and its customers, including how it delivers basic postal mail.
“These are issues that have been around for many, many years and is something that is continually refined to make sure that it meets the needs of the consumers in Singapore, and so meets the needs of the licensees,” he added.
“These are things that we benchmark across the rest of the world.”
Mr Louis Chua (WP-Sengkang) asked what happens if SingPost is unable or unwilling to carry out its obligations due to constraints.
Mr Tan said that IMDA imposes certain conditions – including quality of service – as part of SingPost’s licence.
Mr Chua also noted SingPost’s recent announcement that it is reviewing the commercial sustainability of the domestic postal business. He asked if discussions between IMDA and SingPost involve direct subsidising or funding of SingPost in relation to this.
In response, Mr Tan reiterated that since SingPost is publicly listed, it has its own set of governance rules around its financial statements.
“I will not touch on that because it’s under the remit of the board and management of the company, but I just want to point out that even in its most recent financial statements to its shareholders, the overall company is profitable,” he added.
Negotiator killed, militant shot dead in far South
PATTANI: An armed militant was shot dead and a woman detained by security forces during a clash in Khok Pho district in which a local official helping with negotiations was also killed.
A 50-strong government force surrounded a house at Khuan Lamae village in tambon Na Ket around 2am on Tuesday on information that insurgens believed involved in the recent fatal shooting of a policeman in Khok Pho district were hiding there.
During the operation on Tuesday gunshots were fired from the house, killing assistant village chief Armakosee Hayeeloh.
Authorities had called in local leaders to help persuade those inside the house to surrender. They responded with gun fire. Armakosee was slain,
Security forces fired back at the house. When the shooting stopped they entered the house and found one man, identified later as Sakareeya Sa-i, 35, had been shot dead. Two guns, including an M16 rifle, were found in the house.
A 24-year-old woman who was also in the house was detained for questioning.
Police said Sakareeya had a crimnal record and was wanted on five arrest warrants in security cases. He was also a suspect in the death of Pol L/Cpl Pichak Buakaew, 22, shot dead near a railway crossing last month.
On Wednesday morning, Col Poramet Sanuphong, commander of the 43rd military ranger unit, visited the family of the assistant village head killed during the operation to oiffer assistance and condolences.
Barbie wades into a nine-dash line political minefield
The new Barbie film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is set for imminent release.
But according to Vietnam’s state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper the film’s release has been barred. The head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films, said
We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line
Vietnam’s response to the Barbie movie’s depiction of the South China Sea shows how sensitive these matters are in South East Asia, and especially in Vietnam.
What is the nine-dash line?
The South China Sea has a long history of being contested.
China and Vietnam engaged in military clashes over the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in 1974 and 1988.
Those disputes were over land, but more recently the focus has turned to claims over the continental shelf (the area of seabed that extends beyond the coast to at least 200 nautical miles), and the economic zones (the area at least 200 nautical miles from the coast).
Since the late 1940s, China has promoted the so-called nine-dash line in the South China Sea. The line, also known as the “U-shaped line” or “cow’s tongue” comprises nine dashes.
As depicted in various official and unofficial Chinese maps, the line extends off the coast of China’s Hainan Island, and runs close to the coast of Vietnam, deep into the South China Sea, enclosing the Spratly Islands.
North of Borneo, near the coasts of Malaysia and Brunei, the line turns and runs to the west of the Philippines and ends just to the south of Taiwan.
The line has long been the subject of speculation as to what exactly it purports to encompass. Is it a Chinese territorial claim? Is it a Chinese claim to a maritime space? Does it extend to sovereignty over the whole area or just to resources?
China has never been very explicit as to precisely what the claim includes but it has been persistent in seeking to advance the claim.
This has especially been the case since Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have begun to advance their own claims to parts of the South China Sea, which overlap the nine-dash line.
[embedded content]
Who disputes the line?
A 2009 joint Malaysia/Vietnam submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf highlighted competing claims over the continental shelf in the South China Sea, which is what sparked the current controversy.
China made a formal diplomatic response to the UN claiming:
China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters, and enjoys indisputable sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof (see attached map).
China attached a copy of the nine-dash line map to its formal diplomatic protest to the Malaysia/Vietnam submission and added
The above position is consistently held by the Chinese government, and is widely known by the international community.
It turned out, however, that this was not a widely known or shared view by the international community. Since then the commission has become something of a de facto legal battleground for various views regarding the status of the nine-dash line.
In addition to China continuously advancing its position regarding the legitimacy of the nine-dash line, countries including Australia, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, United Kingdom, and Vietnam have rebutted China’s assertions.
But the commission is not a court and is comprised of scientists who assess continental shelf claims.
It was up to the Philippines, as the other nation with possible claims on the region, to separately challenge the legality of China’s nine-dash line claim under the law of the sea. In 2016, a United Nations Law of the Sea Convention Tribunal ruled unanimously that China’s claim had no basis in international law.
That ruling was clear-cut and conclusive, and immediately rejected by China. While the Philippines conclusively won the legal argument that the nine-dash line had no basis in modern international law or the law of the sea, China refused to respect the outcome of that case and continues to assert its South China Sea entitlements.
China does this in multiple ways. It has built artificial islands in the South China Sea, harassed foreign naval and military aircraft passing through the region, intimidated Vietnamese and other foreign fishermen, asserted rights to explore and exploit maritime oil and gas reserves, and continued to publish maps depicting the nine-dash line claim.
This is why any legitimacy given to the nine-dash line, even in Hollywood movies, is so sensitive.
Why are maps so controversial?
Maps are reflective of a critical national attribute: territory.
They define the outer limits of territorial claims. Children are familiarised with their home country by maps. Maps have historically been depicted on postage stamps, buildings, and more recently government websites.
Maps now depict a country digitally and this has become contested, as highlighted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. University students challenge their professors when maps are shown that depict disputed lands.
Maps have meaning and touch national sensitivities.
Vietnam’s response to Hollywood’s depiction of China’s nine-dash line is understandable. It demonstrates a fierce resistance to any legitimacy that China’s ongoing South China Sea nine-dash line claims may generate, even in Barbie’s fictional world.
Donald Rothwell is Professor of International Law, Australian National University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Singapore will have a K-pop international high school, in collaboration with BTS’ Jungkook’s alma mater
K-pop fans will be familiar with the School of Performing Arts Seoul (SOPA). After all, the prestigious arts school is the alma mater of multiple South Korean idols such as BTS’ Jungkook, Blackpink’s Jisoo and Ive’s Wonyoung.
Now, students from Southeast Asia can experience the learning curriculum of their favourite idols, thanks to SOPA’s collaboration with Singapore Raffles Music College (SMRC). Called SOPA-SRMC, this school will be Singapore’s first-ever K-pop international high school.
During the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Seoul, SOPA principal Hosung Lim said: “As an educator, I am honoured that our educational accomplishments are being recognised globally through this MOU with Singapore Raffles Music College. We are determined to further elevate the School of Performing Arts Seoul’s reputation as an exemplary educational institution not only in Korea but also overseas as an educational institution specialising in K-pop.”
In their press release, SOPA and SMRC announced that they “will identify students from Southeast Asia, primarily Singapore, and offer them specialised K-pop education”.
These students will then hone their skills and be mentored as they are “immersed in a rich tapestry of regional influences”. Additionally, SRMC will facilitate admissions for Korean students aspiring to study abroad.
SOPA-SRMC will conduct all its classes in English. The school will also have a curriculum that’s taught by faculty members from SOPA’s Education System department, which will integrate Korean and Singaporean educational systems.
Ryan Goh, executive director of SRMC said: “The college recognises the impressive achievements of School of Performing Arts Seoul in producing quality graduates with a global footprint. We see this as a unique opportunity to bring the essence of specialised performing arts education from Korea into Singapore and Southeast Asia. This will showcase the exceptional value of industry-focused education and provide the impetus to spur the industry forward regionally.”
South Korea says it respects IAEA approval of Fukushima water release
About 80 per cent of respondents in South Korea expressed concern about the release in a recent survey by Gallup Korea. That planned release has triggered panic-buying of salt in South Korea, based on fears that the Fukushima water would pollute the ocean and also the salt sourced from seawater.Continue Reading
Parliamentary vote for new PM on July 13
The parliament will convene in joint session to vote for a new prime minister at 9.30am on Thursday next week, House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha said on Wednesday.
Mr Wan, ex-officio president of the parliament, said he set the date in consultation Senate Speaker Pornpetch Wichitcholchai.
The 250 appointed senators are entitled by the constitution to participate in the vote, along with the 500 elected members of the House of Representatvies.
Mr Wan said voting on July 13 for the new prime minister may be completed immediately, or not. The new prime minister needs the support of 376 votes of the joint sitting. If there is no definitive outcome, another voting sesson will be scheduled.
“The parliament must convene until the prime minister is installed. Mr Pita [the Forward Party leader] is not the only candidate,” Mr Wan said.
“Mr Pita may be endorsed… Otherwise, a new prime minister must be picked anyway. Under the constitution, the parliament is duty-bound to elect a prime minister of the national administration. The country cannot lack a prime minister,” the House speaker said.
Mr Pita’s Move Forward Party (MFP) won the most seats in the May 14 general election and has the first right to attempt to form a government.
Based on Tuesday’s votes for MFP MP Padipat Suntiphada, elected first deputy speaker, Mr Wan said, the eight coalition parties appeared able to muster 312 votes of support for Mr Pita as prime minister next week. They needed 64 more votes to reach the required minimum support of 376.
If Mr Pita was not voted in as prime minister in the first round, the constitution did not stipulate if a previously nominated person or a new candidate should be presented to the joint sitting.
However, candidates must be from among those previously verified by the Election Commission and their names listed as prime ministerial candidates of political parties.
If all those registered fail to win endorsement from the House and the Senate, an outside candidate can be nominated, but must win at least two-thirds of the votes at a joint sitting, Mr Wan said.
“If the joint sitting is unable to decide on the next prime minister at its first meeting, the next session for a vote will depend on suitability and the opinions of relevant parties.
“The keys are suitability and readiness, especially the attendance of members (of the parliament). Unless the members are ready to attend there will be a lack of a quorum,” Mr Wan said.
MFP leader Pita is the favoured prime ministerial candidate of the eight coalition allies, but is up against complaints questioning his eligibility for political office, mainly in relation to a shareholding in iTV Plc, part of his late father’s managed estate. The constitution bans a shareholder of a media company from standing in a general election.
Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat at parliament on Tuesday. (Photo: Chanat Katanyu)
House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha announced a joint sitting to elect a new prime minister on July 13. (Photo: Chanat Katanyu)