In an unusual case, a family court in Singapore recently issued a partial domestic exclusion order against a woman accused of entering her adult brother’s room without permission to clean at odd hours.
On October 31st, both siblings sought court orders against each other following a peculiar dispute. The sister was granted a protection order for physical assault, while the brother received a domestic order restricting her from accessing his room—an issue that sparked the confrontation.
A third sibling testified that the ongoing tensions between the two were largely fueled by the sister’s habit of intruding into her brother’s room at night to clean, disturbing his privacy and sleep. The brother claimed that these repeated invasions led to his frustration and the eventual altercation. The court’s rare decision highlights the deep-rooted conflicts between the siblings in this exceptional case.
“I accept that, ordinarily, a sibling cleaning another sibling’s room would be harmless – and indeed a loving act – and most certainly not amount to harassment,’’ the judge clarified, indicating that in some situations, what might seem innocuous to some can cause great grief to others.
The brother shared that for the past eight years, his sister had repeatedly entered his room late at night to clean, despite his continuous objections and requests for privacy. Initially, her visits began around 9 pm, but over time they grew later and longer, often starting around 11 pm and lasting until 4 am. Even on nights when she left early, she would sometimes return in the middle of the night and continue cleaning until dawn. These late-night cleaning sessions disturbed his sleep, and the brother described them as an increasingly invasive routine, which fueled growing tension between them.
A third sibling confirmed the sister’s unusual cleaning behavior, telling the judge that the brother would often rush home just to lock his bedroom door to keep her out. However, the sister rarely gave up and would usually find a way in. When asked why she was so determined to clean her brother’s room, she simply stated that she “needed to do it,” leaving the court baffled by her persistence and lack of respect for boundaries. This odd behavior built up over the years, escalating the tension between the siblings and eventually leading to their unusual court dispute.
“Because I need to work, my dear,” she told the judge. “I need work, my own schedule. I’ve got to go according to my own schedule, my free time. I cannot say, you want me to come at 8 am, which means 8am. I’m not their maid, I’m not their worker.”
The woman attempted to justify her actions, explaining, “If the person does housework themselves, cleans up their own room themselves, it’s fine. But they don’t even do so at all after 40 years of age. Not even one finger!”
The judge rejected the woman’s justification, emphasizing that “both parties are adults, and it was not necessary for the sister to impose her own hygiene standards on her brother.” While he condemned the brother’s assault on his sister as “unacceptable,” he acknowledged that it may have stemmed from the immense frustration and distress caused by her intrusive behaviour. The judge’s remarks highlighted the need for boundaries and mutual respect, suggesting that the sister’s actions had crossed a line, even if well-intentioned.
Ghana and Singapore have inked a pact enabling companies to purchase carbon credits from Ghana-based projects to offset a portion of their carbon tax liabilities.
Singaporean firms can buy carbon credits, offsetting up to 5% of their taxable emissions if the invested projects meet Singapore’s eligibility standards.
In 2024, the carbon tax has surged to $25 per tonne of CO2 emissions, a hike from the previous $5 per tonne, with plans to escalate to $50 to $80 by 2030.
The collaboration aims to bolster climate ambitions for both nations and channel funds into climate mitigation endeavors, as per Singapore’s National Climate Change Secretariat, Ministry of Trade and Industry, and Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment.
Carbon credit projects endorsed by the agreement will foster sustainable development, benefiting Ghana’s communities by creating jobs, enhancing water access, bolstering energy security, and curbing environmental pollution.
Project developers are obliged to allocate 5% of proceeds from carbon credits to climate adaptation in Ghana, aiding the nation in preparing for climate change impacts.
Additionally, developers must annul 2% of carbon credits upon issuance to aid in global greenhouse gas emission mitigation.
This agreement coincides with Temasek-backed investment platform GenZero’s involvement in a forest restoration project in Ghana’s Kwahu region.
The initiative, conducted alongside Singapore-based AJA Climate Solutions, aims to replenish degraded forest reserves and sustainably cultivate cocoa trees in shaded farms, fortifying against climate risks such as floods, heat stress, and pests.
Verification of carbon credits from the Ghanaian project is slated to commence in 2028.
One person died on a plane flying from London to Singapore after the plane hit really bumpy air. Singapore Airlines announced this on Tuesday. The plane had to land in Bangkok, and emergency workers came to help hurt passengers because of bad weather.
The Boeing 777-300ER plane landed in Bangkok at 3:45 pm with 211 passengers and 18 crew members on board. The airline shared this information on Facebook.
The hospital team from Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, which is 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Suvarnabhumi Airport, came to help the injured passengers from Flight SQ321 from Heathrow. They took the injured passengers off the runway so they could get medical treatment. Videos on the LINE app from Suvarnabhumi Airport showed a line of ambulances heading to the location.
FlightRadar24 collected data and The Associated Press looked at it. They found that the Singapore Airlines flight was flying at 37,000 feet. Around 8 in the morning, the Boeing 777 quickly went down to 31,000 feet in about three minutes.
The airplane flew at a height of 31,000 feet for about 10 minutes, then quickly went down and landed in Bangkok in less than 30 minutes.
Ghanaian music sensation King Promisehas launched his highly anticipated Asian Tour with a breathtaking performance in Singapore, leaving fans spellbound with his talent and stage presence.
The “Selfish” hitmaker enthralled the audience at a packed venue in Singapore, showcasing his unique fusion of Afrobeat, highlife, and R&B to an enthusiastic crowd.
With a repertoire spanning chart-topping hits and beloved tracks, King Promise delivered an unforgettable show that held the audience captive from beginning to end.
From soulful ballads to energetic anthems, King Promise had concert-goers dancing and singing along all night, keeping them entertained and engaged with his versatile performance.
The Asian Tour represents a significant milestone in King Promise’s career as he expands his fan base beyond Africa to connect with audiences worldwide.
With upcoming shows scheduled in various cities across Asia, the tour promises to be an exhilarating journey for both the artist and his fans.
King Promise makes history as the first Ghanaian artist to host a sold-out concert in Singapore. Continuing his Asian tour, the Afrobeat sensation will take the stage at Bali’s Atlas Beach Club on April 27, followed by Jakarta on May 3.
This is the longest sentence ever given for selling illegal animals in the country.
Gumede Sthembiso Joel was caught at Changi airport in 2022 with 20 rhino horns weighing 34. 7 kg (765 lb) in his luggage and was taken into custody. They were worth about $1. 2 million or £940,000.
The 33-year-old admitted to breaking the law in Singapore by taking endangered animals from South Africa to Laos.
Many rhinos live in South Africa, and poaching is a big problem for them, according to the International Rhino Foundation. There are about 15,000 rhinos in the world.
In the first six months of 2023, 231 rhinos were killed by poachers, as reported by the IRF.
University of Ghana senior lecturer, Prof Kobby Menah, criticizes Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta’s suggestion that the National Cathedral of Ghana could be the ‘new Jerusalem.’
Prof Menah notes that the Akufo-Addo government initially pledged to transform Ghana into a Singapore-like success within its first two years, yet after seven years, the country has not achieved that goal.
He emphasizes that now the finance minister is proposing the idea of a new Jerusalem in Ghana.
“Ghana into Singapore in 18 months didn’t work. Now Ghana will become the ‘new Jerusalem’ … eiii!!! Ghana abre,” the academic wrote in a post he shared on X on Tuesday, December 5, 2023.
What Ofori-Atta said:
Ken Ofori-Atta advocates for a reevaluation of discussions surrounding the National Cathedral, emphasizing its potential to drive economic progress.
During the 2023 Ghana Tourism Investment Summit, he underscores the cathedral’s significance as a robust infrastructure that could significantly boost the country’s tourism sector.
Ofori-Atta envisions the cathedral becoming a pilgrimage site for millions of African Christians, anticipating the possibility of visitors spending an average of $3,000 each.
This, he believes, could result in substantial economic benefits for Ghana.
The finance minister said, “As we look at something like the Cathedral that has economic benefits beyond what we see…In Africa, we have some 600 million people who are Christians so imagine Ghana as the new Jerusalem and these 600 million people floating through with $3,000 to spend, it is a very different reality.”
In the midst of ongoing debates and controversies surrounding the cathedral project, Ofori-Atta called for a more constructive approach.
He suggested a careful assessment of the cathedral’s capacity to actively contribute to Ghana’s economic advancement, urging the government to consider its potential impact thoughtfully.
The finance minister reiterated the government’s commitment to revitalizing the tourism and arts sector, recognizing its substantial economic potential for fostering growth and generating employment opportunities.
View the post below:
Ghana into Singapore in 18months didn’t work. Now Ghana will become “new Jerusalem” 🤷♂️ eiii!!! Ghana abre🧐 https://t.co/8FU3qrxH8Z
In a shocking viral video that has taken social media by storm, a Singaporean woman has divulged startling insights into her country’s trade practices, leaving viewers astonished and outraged.
The woman, whose identity remains undisclosed, claims that Singapore profits from some African and Asian nations by engaging in resource importation, modification of aging cars, and resale to countries such as Ghana, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
The woman, who remains unidentified, claimed, “One of our main resources is oil. We’re the largest oil refinery in the world. So we buy oil from Nigeria and we refine them and we sell it back to Nigeria.”
This audacious admission has left many questioning the ethics and sustainability of Singapore’s economic practices. With a seemingly unabashed tone, she also disclosed that Singapore imports water from Malaysia, purifies it, and sells it back to Malaysia.
“We even buy our water, we buy water from Malaysia, we buy crude water from Malaysia, we desalinate them, we purify it and we sell it back to Malaysia. Don’t judge us, we need to make some money somehow,” she added.
Perhaps the most astonishing revelation in the video is Singapore‘s approach to its cars. The woman revealed that cars in Singapore have a strictly enforced lifespan of just 10 years.
After this period, they are either scrapped or remodelled and sold to countries like Indonesia, Ghana, and Nigeria, where they resold at higher prices.
She elaborated on this practice, stating, “So you know, our car, all our cars have a lifespan of 10 years. After that, we either scrap it or we resell it. We sell it to places like Indonesia, Ghana, we sell it to Nigeria, and all this. So these are the people that will come and buy our 10 year car. What they do is, they modify it. You drive on the left hand, right? Right, so but ours is on the right hand. So they purchase this 10 year car, right? With a lifespan of 10 years, they buy this car and they modify it and they sell it super expensive in your country.”
While the viral video has stirred significant controversy and debate, it is crucial to note that the authenticity of its claims remains uncertain. The source and credibility of the video are yet to be verified, leaving room for skepticism.
Nonetheless, the video has undoubtedly sparked intense discussions about ethical trade and governance in developing countries like Ghana.
A Singaporean reveals that, due to the lack of natural resources in their country, they import raw materials like crude oil from Nigeria, Water from Malaysia, refine them, and then sell the finished products back to those countries.
In a shocking revelation that has sent shockwaves through social media, a viral video has emerged of a woman claiming to be from Singapore, exposing the purported exploitative trade practices her country engages in with certain African and Asian nations.
The unidentified woman claims that Singapore, lacking natural resources of its own, imports crucial raw materials such as crude oil from Nigeria and water from Malaysia. These imported resources are then processed and refined in Singapore before being sold back to the very countries from which they were sourced.
In her own words, she states, “One of our main resources is oil. We’re the largest oil refinery in the world. So we buy oil from Nigeria and we refine them and we sell it back to Nigeria. So you know, that’s basically what we do. So we’re one of the largest oil refineries. Right? Because we have no natural resources whatsoever. You know, if somebody tells us, we even buy our water, we buy water from Malaysia, we buy crude water from Malaysia, we desalinate them, we purify it and we sell it back to Malaysia. Don’t judge us, we need to make some money somehow.”
The video has sparked intense debates and discussions about international trade dynamics and economic strategies.
She then extended her claims the automotive industry in Singapore. According to her, cars in the country have a strict lifespan of 10 years, after which they are either scrapped or sold to countries like Indonesia, Ghana, and Nigeria.
These cars are then reportedly modified to fit the driving conditions and regulations of the respective countries and resold at premium prices.
“So you know, our car, all our cars have a lifespan of 10 years. After that, we either scrap it or we resell it. We sell it to places like Indonesia, Ghana, we sell it to Nigeria, and all this. So these are the people that will come and buy our 10 year car. What they do is, they modify it. You drive on the left hand, right? Right, so but ours is on the right hand. So they purchase this 10 year car, right? With a lifespan of 10 years, they buy this car and they modify it and they sell it super expensive in your country,” she explained.
The authenticity of the video, where it was recored and its content has not been verified yet, but it has generated a lot of reactions online.
Some people have condemned Singapore for exploiting other countries and taking advantage of their resources and markets.
Others have questioned the credibility of the woman and her claims and accused her of spreading false information and propaganda.
Some have also expressed their disappointment and anger at their own governments for allowing such practices to happen and for not protecting their interests and sovereignty.
A Singaporean reveals that, due to the lack of natural resources in their country, they import raw materials like crude oil from Nigeria, Water from Malaysia, refine them, and then sell the finished products back to those countries.
Human rights organisations have denounced Singapore‘s Friday execution of a woman for trying to trade an ounce of heroin, calling it a “grim milestone” for the city-state and its infamously harsh anti-drug laws. It had been almost two decades since a woman had been put to death.
In a statement issued a few hours after Singaporean Saridewi Djamani, 45, was hanged on Friday in Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) made the announcement.
She received the obligatory death sentence in 2018 after being found guilty of transporting 31 grammes of heroin.
The CNB stated that she received “full due process under the law and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” noting that Singapore’s rules allow for the death penalty to be applied to trafficking offences involving amounts of heroin greater than 15 grammes.
Since the 36-year-old hairstylist Yen May Woen was hanged in 2004 for drug trafficking, Saridewi is the only woman to have been executed by hanging in Singapore.
Singapore continues to have some of the strictest drug regulations in the world, and its government is adamant that the death penalty is effective at discouraging drug traffickers and preserving public safety.
The mandatory death penalty is imposed on anyone found guilty of trafficking, importing, or exporting a particular amount of illegal substances including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, or cannabis products.
Since beginning executions for drug convictions last year, Singapore has now hanged 15 individuals, including foreigners and a man with intellectual disabilities. Activists claim this is an accelerated pace after the country took a two-year break due to the pandemic.
According to the CNB, “capital punishment is only used for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant amounts of drugs that cause very serious harm, not only to individual drug users but also to their families and the larger society.”
Rights organisations expressed additional outrage following Saridewi’s execution.
The creator of the nonprofit organisation Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, Celia Ouellette, claimed that by insisting on taking extreme and irreversible action as opposed to believing in human redemption and the ability for rehabilitation.
Singapore is putting its financial future at stake in addition to its reputation abroad. It is now time to permanently abolish the death penalty.
The execution of Saridewi was referred to as a “grim milestone” by the secretary general of the French-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights, Adilur Rahman Khan, who also reinforced calls for an end to executions in Singapore.
Chiara Sangiorgio, an expert on the death penalty for Amnesty International, stated that the most recent execution “defied international safeguards on the use of the death penalty.”
“There is no proof that the death penalty deters crime in a special way or that it has any bearing on drug usage and accessibility. Singapore’s authorities are adopting neither drug policy reform nor the abolition of the death penalty, she claimed in a statement.
According to information provided to CNN by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2022, there were roughly 50 persons on death row, the bulk of them were men. There are unknown numbers of female death row inmates.
Joshua Tong, a criminal defence attorney, stated that although drug traffickers are typically men, he has met “his fair share” of female offenders.
Tong stated that there was generally “no distinction between men and women for criminal punishments” when it came to drug offences.
He continued, “The only distinction made would be on whether caning is to be imposed,” noting that Singaporean law only allows men to be caned.
The killing of Saridewi was the second execution this week in Singapore.
Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, 57, was executed on Wednesday for distributing about 50 grammes (1.7 ounces) of heroin.
A growing number of prisoners are being executed, but according to rights groups, Singapore’s drug enforcement is incredibly opaque because a complete list of prisoners on death row is not made public.
Tangaraju Suppiah, a Singaporean, was executed in May after being found guilty of attempting to traffic 2.2 pounds of cannabis. This execution drew particularly vociferous international criticism, in part because an increasing number of countries have either legalised or decriminalised the drug.
Following psychologists’ assessments that Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, 34, was mentally retarded, his hanging last year provoked widespread outrage.
In this case, rights activists argued that Singapore’s zero-tolerance drug policies should be reexamined because the obligatory death penalty for drug trafficking is a harsh punishment.
According to activists, the region’s illicit drug trade has not been significantly reduced by the death penalty.
According to a report released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the illegal drug traffic in Asia grew to “extreme levels.” According to the research, methamphetamine prices had dropped to new lows and criminal organisations were building new trafficking routes to avoid law enforcement crackdowns.
According to the report, pre-Covid meth seizures in East and Southeast Asia resumed last year after reaching record highs during the epidemic as traffickers resorted to larger and riskier bulk shipments.
In relation to a Pentagon statement, China has turned down a US proposal for Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Li Shangfu to meet at the Shangri-La Dialogue Security Forum this week in Singapore.
China’s opposition to the meeting comes at a time when tensions between the two nations are high due to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the independent island of Taiwan in August of last year and the US’s decision to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon that flew over important US military installations in February.
In the statement, the Pentagon said China had declined an invitation extended in early May for a meeting, but said the refusal would not deter the US from seeking better lines of communication.
“The PRC’s concerning unwillingness to engage in meaningful military-to-military discussions will not diminish the Department of Defense’s commitment to seeking open lines of communication with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at multiple levels as part of responsibly managing the relationship,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder in the statement.
China’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday said the country “attaches importance” to developing US-China military relations but blamed Washington for hampering communication.
“Responsibility for the current difficulties faced by the two militaries in their exchanges lies entirely with the US side,” spokesperson Tan Kefei said when asked about reports that China rejected the Singapore meeting and other exchanges with US military officials.
“The US claims that it wants to strengthen communication, but in reality it disregards China’s concerns and creates artificial obstacles, seriously undermining mutual trust between the two militaries,” he added.
In a separate statement, the Chinese Embassy in the US questioned the sincerity and significance of the invitation, pointing to US sanctions imposed on Chinese officials, institutions and companies, and saying the US should lift its “illegal unilateral sanctions” to create favorable conditions for dialogue.
The statement did not specifically call out US sanctions against Li, which were imposed in 2018 by the administration of former president Donald Trump over China’s purchase of Russian weapons, including a Su-35 combat aircraft and a S-400 surface-to-air missile system.
The US has imposed a range of sanctions on China in recent years for a variety of reasons including alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and restrictions on political freedoms in Hong Kong.
The Wall Street Journal first reported China’s refusal to participate in a meeting between the defense chiefs.
Austin told CNN earlier this year that he had not spoken to his Chinese counterpart in “months,” and China has continued to rebuff requests for meetings and phone calls, defense officials said.
“This is far from the first time that the PRC has rejected invitations to communicate from the Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or other Department officials,” a defense official said.
“Frankly, it’s just the latest in a litany of excuses. Since 2021, the PRC has declined or failed to respond to over a dozen requests from the Department of Defense for key leader engagements, multiple requests for standing dialogues, and nearly ten working-level engagements,” he added.
China’s Defense Ministry also refuted this characterization in its statement Wednesday, which said “in fact there has been no interruption in contacts and exchanges between the two militaries.”
In the most contentious execution to date, Singapore is about to hang a man for trafficking marijuana.
Activists say Tangaraju Suppiah was convicted on weak evidence. Authorities say he received due process, and have scheduled his execution for Wednesday.
It follows a high-profile execution last year of an intellectually impaired man over a drugs charge.
Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, which it says are necessary to protect society.
In recent days his family members and activists delivered letters to Singapore’s president Halimah Yacob in a last-minute plea for clemency, while British billionaire Sir Richard Branson has called for a halt of the execution and a review of the case.
Tangaraju Suppiah has appealed for a stay in his execution.
“I know that my brother has not done anything wrong. I urge the court to look at his case from the beginning,” Tangaraju’s sister, Leela Suppiah, told reporters at a news conference.
Tangaraju, 46, was convicted of “abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” over a delivery of 1kg (35oz) of cannabis from Malaysia to Singapore in 2013.
Though he was not caught during the delivery, prosecutors said he was responsible for coordinating it, and traced two phone numbers used by a deliveryman back to Tangaraju.
Tangaraju claimed he was not the person communicating with others connected to the case. He said he had lost one of the phones and denied owning the second one.
Singapore law mandates the death penalty for drug trafficking and has lesser penalties for couriers. In Tangaraju’s last appeal, the judge agreed with the prosecution that Tangaraju was responsible for coordinating the delivery, which made him ineligible for a more lenient sentence.
Activists have also raised concerns that Tangaraju was not given adequate access to an interpreter and had to argue his last appeal on his own since his family was unable to secure a lawyer.
Singapore authorities say Tangaraju requested for an interpreter only during the trial, and not earlier. They added that he had access to legal counsel throughout the process.
Tangaraju’s sister Leela Suppiah (centre) marched with activists on Sunday
Sir Richard, who previously criticised the 2022 execution of mentally disabled Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, said Tangaraju’s case was “shocking on multiple levels”.
In a blog post, he said Singapore “may be about to kill an innocent man” on the back of “more than dubious circumstances”.
“The death penalty is already a dark stain on the country’s reputation. An execution following such an unsafe conviction would only make things worse,” he said.
Rebutting his allegations, Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said his claims were untrue and accused him of “disrespect for Singapore’s judges and our criminal justice system”.
It said the death penalty was “an essential component” in a multi-pronged approach that has been “effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure”.
Kirsten Han, a spokesperson for Singaporean anti-death penalty advocacy group the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), said the government did not want to appear to buckle under pressure.
But, she added, “of all the things that Singapore punches above its weight for on the international stage and at the UN, defending its right to murder people in the name of its citizens is not something we should be proud of for being outstanding on the international stage”.
Singapore’s strict rules stand in contrast to some of its neighbours’ recent moves. Thailand has legalised the trade of cannabis while Malaysia has ended the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Tangaraju’s family members said they were able to meet him from behind a glass partition at Changi Prison after his notice of execution was released last week.
“He puts up a brave front for my mother because he does not want her to break down,” his niece Subhashini Ilango said. “He has mentally prepared for this day to come. He does feel there’s a great injustice and he’ll be executed for something he did not do.”
His family said they would continue to press for reforms in Singapore’s legal system even if Tangaraju ends up executed.
“If such an injustice happens to my brother, I wouldn’t want it to happen to anybody else so I will continue to fight,” said his sister Leela.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Madeline Chan, 29, owner of Mad Roaster in Singapore. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
As ironic as it may sound, I wasn’t a coffee drinker until I opened my first coffee stall in 2020.
In fact, I never imagined being my own boss. Even as a lawyer, being a law firm partner was never a goal of mine because of the stress and huge responsibilities the partner job entails.
After graduating from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a Bachelor of Laws in 2015, I trained for the bar and got a job at a pretty good litigation firm in Singapore.
For four years, I worked as a litigator managing commercial disputes of multinational corporations.
But as someone who started a journey in law with the desire to help people, I felt I could do more by helping those who couldn’t afford to have anyone in their corner. Big corporations already have teams of lawyers under their payroll.
So I sought out a different route and found my place as a refugee status determination lawyer in Bangkok, Thailand, where I helped the displaced apply for refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Work was fulfilling, as I saw success stories when appeals I’d worked on got accepted, or when I got someone to a safe country.
Yet, it still wasn’t enough for me
I quickly realized how getting a refugee status wasn’t the happy ending I thought it was. The people I helped still had nothing — they can’t get a job or even pay rent, and are resigned to being reliant on aid forever.
They needed a means of livelihood, which I saw as a more sustainable way to help them.
This was an area where simply donating money wouldn’t suffice, as charity donations often go into aid, and I had seen how aid was given out. I had seen refugees line up for hours to prove how needy or desperate they are, and still have to risk being turned away. Being reliant on aid was a painful and uncertain way to live.
And so I began looking into ways to create livelihood opportunities for refugees.
I had a friend who turned refugees’ handiwork into everyday items like laptop bags to be sold at flea markets, but this method had great limitations.
There are only so many laptop bags we can buy, and there will come a day when sales will be insufficient to meet the regularly recurring needs of refugees. I wanted a better solution.
Having worked in the corporate world, I recall coffee being the commodity that many office workers would buy regularly without thinking twice.
Using coffee as a medium to create livelihoods for refugees seemed like the best choice. But there was still a problem I had to face.
I knew nothing of coffee, let alone making it
So I decided to pick it up and master the craft while in Bangkok. Because I couldn’t speak Thai, I had to knock on the door of almost every caf in the vicinity until a shop finally took me in.
For three months, I learned the ropes of running a caf and coffee-brewing techniques by working for free at the caf until 10 at night, after I ended my work as a lawyer at five.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. Safety restrictions meant I had to go back to Singapore in 2020.
I still wanted to keep working with the refugees but being in another country, it was impossible for me to continue doing it in my capacity as a lawyer.
This presented the perfect opportunity for me to get started on my coffee shop business, Mad Roaster — “Mad” being my nickname growing up.
With the money I had saved back when I was still working in litigation, I invested around $20,000 to $30,000 into Mad Roaster.
With the exchange rate and high spending power in Singapore, money from selling small cups of coffee every day means a lot for the refugees in Thailand.
Incorporating that with the idea of creating livelihoods for the refugees, I decided to commission them to color stickers that would go on each coffee cup.
The 11 refugees Mad Roaster currently works with are each commissioned to color 300 sticker labels, each at a fixed price of 10 Thai Bhat. The stickers are printed in Bangkok and then mailed to Singapore after they’re colored in.
In a month, each refugee would get a stipend of 3000 Thai Bhat, roughly $88, which is enough to cover the average rent in outer Bangkok. In months when sales are better, we can commission more stickers from them.
Because of this initiative of ours, the packaging cost is as much as the ingredient cost for some of our drinks, which is uncommon for most businesses.
Brewing coffee isn’t the only skill I have mastered
Back in my college days, I was already into amateur baking, but I had never baked bread before.
But in Singapore hawker centers — open-air complexes with many food stalls — coffee and bread are often served as a set.
So I started learning how to make brioche with zero experience or training.
Fortunately, our hawker stall started to get some regular customers. We went from sitting around reading newspapers while watching people walk past our shop, to sometimes even having a queue outside our stall.
Following the success of our first shop, we opened another caf about four miles away, where our bread production currently takes place.
As the boss of a small business with just a handful of full-time staff, I had to quickly become a jack of all trades.
On a typical working day when I would be rushing to and from the two outlets to drop off coffee beans and bake bread, somehow something would always crop up — from coffee machine breakdowns to a missing staff member — and I’d have to drop everything to deal with the problem.
Since the beginning of my business, I have replaced burnt wires, changed power sockets, done the accounts for logistics, and embarked on social media marketing. It often feels like an endless list of tasks.
In a way, working as my own boss of two coffee shops has made me appreciate my former job as a lawyer a bit more.
When I was an associate, my mind would be off the moment a case concluded. But now, owning a business means that my mind is always running — I am constantly thinking of work-related issues that pop up during the day.
But I will never regret my decision to start all of this.
For the 11 refugees, and possibly more in the future, they have an unprecedented level of certainty and dignity in how they keep a roof over their head. Mad Roaster is the reason.
We plan to expand in the future, though we don’t have any concrete plans for now. When operations are more stable, I plan to go back to practicing law, while managing Mad Roaster on the side.
Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, has bemoaned the lack of human resource in the country needed to promote growth and development.
According to Speaker Bagbin, the situation in the country is so dire that should the current human resource be transported to Singapore, the Southeast Asian country would become undeveloped.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, when the Legislature celebrated its 30th anniversary of democracy, he emphasized the need to invest in Ghana’s human resource.
“We must focus on getting the right human resource to lead the country. You can keep on changing the constitution, change whatever concept of governance you want.
“But if you don’t get the right human resource, you can never develop your society. In this state, if we take our leaders to Singapore, Singapore will become an undeveloped country,” he said.
A country’s human resource can be improved through education and training.
Singapore has moved from an undeveloped country to a developed nation in a span of 50 years.
Five decades ago, Singapore was confronted with severe unemployment, poor infrastructure, and a housing shortage.
According to the World Bank, Singapore is now ranked as one of the most livable cities, boasting one the highest levels of human capital development in the world.
The Bank noted that rapid industrialization in the 1960s catapulted the island nation’s development trajectory, with manufacturing becoming the main driver of growth.
“In the early 1970s, Singapore reached full employment and joined the ranks of Hong Kong SAR, Republic of Korea, and Taiwan a decade later as Asia’s newly industrializing economies. The manufacturing and services sectors remain the twin pillars of Singapore’s high value-added economy, ” the World Bank reports.
In 2022, Singapore’s economy grew more than expected, according to government figures.
The Southeast Asian city-state’s economy grew 3.8 percent last year, preliminary figures from the Ministry of Trade and Industry showed. The government had forecast growth of 3.5 percent, down from 7.6 percent in 2021.
A young man in Singapore has sued a woman after she turned down his advances for love.
According to the man identified as K Kawshigan, the woman’s rejection has caused him emotional trauma.
K. Kawshigan threatened to sue Nora Tan when she rejected him, but initially put the lawsuit on hold after she agreed to attend counseling sessions with him, which she did for a year and a half.
When Nora Tan continued to reject his romantic advances and eventually cut contact with him, he filed two lawsuits.
One suit was filed in a high court with a claim of $2.3 million, for allegedly causing ‘damage to his stellar reputation’ and ‘trauma, depression and impacts’ to his life.
He filed a second suit with a magistrates’ court, asking for $16,700 in damages for breaching an agreement to improve their relationship after she stopped attending counselling sessions.
The latter suit was later dismissed by deputy registrar Lewis Tan, who reportedly called the suit ‘manifestly groundless and without foundation’ and said the court would not be an accessory to Kawshigan’s calculated attempt to compel engagement from Tan.
The court ruled that the two had been friendly after meeting in 2016, but their friendship broke down in 2020 after there was some miscommunication about the nature of their relationship.
The woman then obtained a restraining order against Kawshigan, who then filed the lawsuit in the magistrate court while the other case was pending.
However, the two will reappear before the court on 9th February.
Activists throughout Asiaare concerned about the social media platform’s future under billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Singaporean activist and journalist Kirsten Han uses Twitter to discuss topics that the Singapore government would prefer to keep private.
Han’s outspoken posts draw attention to migrant workers’ rights, the government’s denial of racism, and, most frequently, the hundreds of executions of non-violent drug offenders carried out in the city-state over the last few decades.
Han has been condemned on the floor of Singapore’s parliament and targeted by the police for her work, which she also tweets about to her verified account’s 29,000 followers.
In June, Han was required to turn over access to her Twitter, Facebook Instagram accounts when she was investigated under Singapore’s Public Order Act for holding a four-person vigil against the death penalty. Police cited Han’s postings on her social media accounts, including Twitter, as evidence for launching the probe, which is ongoing.
Han has no plans to stop using Twitter, but how she uses it may change as the rules governing the platform face a radical shake-up under new owner Elon Musk.
Musk plans to scrap Twitter’s identity authentication system as soon as this week, offering the distinctive blue check mark, once reserved for verified high-profile users, to anyone willing to pay $8 a month.
While Han is still waiting for the details of the changes to unfold, she is concerned about the prospect of internet trolls impersonating her and sowing confusion among her followers.
“I assume I’m going to lose the blue tick at some point, but then it also seems – as the details come out – that the blue tick verification thing is just going to be available to whoever pays,” Han told Al Jazeera.
More fundamentally, Han worries that Musk does not understand the responsibility that is now on his shoulders.
“He’s a businessman who, just from observation, has a somewhat overinflated sense of how qualified he is to do things,” she said.
“He doesn’t seem qualified or really that knowledgeable about how communication and social media and tech platforms work, and the responsibilities that they have, which is quite worrying.”
Many live in countries where freedom of speech is severely curtailed by authorities. For such users, Twitter can be a vital window to the outside world, a rare platform for open debate – often from behind the veil of anonymity – or both.
For critics, the concerns range from questions about Musk’s ideological leanings and his business interests in countries like China to doubts about his understanding of the complexities of social media.
The Tesla founder, a self-described “free speech absolutist” who has accused Twitter of exhibiting left-wing bias, has pledged to reshape moderation policies on the platform to encourage the airing and debate of a wider spectrum of views.
On Friday, Musk set in motion a radical restructuring of the company by firing about half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, including the entire human rights team, according to former legal counsel Shannon Raj Singh.
Al Jazeera did not receive a response to requests for comment sent to the Twitter accounts of the company’s communications teams or its head of safety and integrity, Yael Roth.
In countries like Myanmar, where Twitter has played an important role in sharing information since a military coup in 2021, Musk’s takeover has prompted anxiety and concern.
Despite a government crackdown on social media and both domestic and foreign media, anonymous accounts have continued to disseminate information about state-sponsored violence and anti-government protests.
Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for Justice for Myanmar, an account with 165,000 followers, said Twitter had already been failing to counter psychological warfare and misinformation shared by Myanmar’s military administration on social media.
Now, things could take a turn for the worse as moderation becomes even more sparse and government-linked accounts proliferate, Maung said.
“We are concerned that changes will make Twitter more dangerous for Myanmar users who are under threat from an illegitimate military junta, and that Twitter under Elon Musk could provide greater space for the junta and its supporters to spread disinformation and hate speech,” Maung told Al Jazeera.
Tesla’s largest production facility is located in Shanghai, China [File: Aly Song/Reuters]
Activists are also worried about how Musk, the chief executive of Tesla,SpaceX and Neuralink, could be influenced by China, where he has major business interests.
Tesla has established its biggest production facility in Shanghai and earlier this year opened a showroom in Xinjiang, where Beijing has carried out a lengthy campaign of repression against the Uighurs and other ethnic minority Muslims, even as major Western brands publicly distanced themselves from the region.
“The worry is that if Elon Musk is potentially corrupt or trying to appease the Chinese government, he will be handing over data and he will be giving the Chinese government access to data,” Vicky Xu, an Australia-based researcher and journalist who has documented her harassment by pro-Beijing accounts on social media, told Al Jazeera.
“Twitter is such an important platform for advocacy and dissent. With Elon Musk, even if he’s never going to hand over any data to China, even if the Chinese government was not able to influence him, there’s still a psychological fear that a lot of dissidents or activists feel that this platform is just not as free as before and it is not as impartial as before or not as pro-democracy as before.”
While Twitter, like other Western social media platforms, is blocked in China, Beijing oversees a large number of state-sponsored “wolf warrior” accounts that project its messaging and monitor the social media activity of Chinese dissidents living abroad.
Many of these accounts also harass users who post about issues deemed sensitive to China, such as Taiwan’s political status or political repression in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.
Sandra, a Hong Kong-based Chinese-language Twitter account with more than 47,000 followers, said a concern for dissidents like her is the abuse of Twitter’s function for reporting inappropriate content by state-backed accounts and bots.
The Hong Kong democracy activist said she was suspended from Twitter for 6 months in 2019 after being targeted by pro-Beijing accounts for posting about the city’s anti-government protests.
Sandra said many Chinese dissident accounts have faced similar issues, with appeals taking months to reach a resolution.
It is unclear if the situation will get worse with fewer “guard rails” on the platform, she said, while there is also concern about whether Chinese state media will continue to be clearly labelled as such.
Sandra, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sweeping crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, said she was still waiting to see how the changes would play out.
“I have not decided yet,” she told Al Jazeera.
Veteran Thai journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk says many Thais are worried about what will happen to their personal data after Musk’s takeover of Twitter [File: AP Photo]
In Thailand, Twitter is one of the few spaces where citizens can take advantage of anonymity to debate the future of the monarchy without risking jail under the country’s tough lèse-majesté laws.
Pravit Rojanaphruk, an award-winning journalist who was previously charged with sedition for criticising the military government, said many Thais are worried about what will happen to their personal data and whether military-backed accounts will proliferate.
“Twitter is one of the two premier or most popular social media apps when it comes to political discussion. It’s the least censored in Thailand, even compared to Facebook. Many of the Thai users are actually using a nom de plume,” Pravit told Al Jazeera.
“They aren’t using a real identity when it comes to sensitive discussions about the monarchy, and we don’t know [how] Elon Musk is going to interpret this debate about using anonymous accounts.”
In recent years, the popularity of cycling in Singapore has skyrocketed. You should expect more bikers on the roads today, particularly with the upcoming park connections, in addition to the already popular riding routes like Singapore Round Island Loop, Mandai Loop, and Seletar Loop.
Meanwhile, the LandTransport Authority (LTA) has been working to improve connections to keep Singapore’s active travel environment safe and sustainable as part of the Islandwide Cycling Network (ICN) plan.
To ensure the convenience of cycling enthusiasts, the government of Singapore has committed to developing the island-wide bike pathways under the ICN to over 1,300km by 2030.
Why Singaporeans and Tourists Love Cycling
Biking around Singapore is a fantastic way to get fresh air and see more of the city, including some lesser-known spots. Numerous nature bike paths can be found across the island, perfect for any Eco-tourists among you!
The most excellent part about riding a bike in Singapore is that you can do it whenever you choose. Night-time cyclists may take advantage of well-lit routes, including food stops where you can unwind and eat.
List of Top Cycling Routes in Singapore
Singapore Round Island Loop
Seletar Loop
Mandai Loop
Rower’s Bay Park
Coast to Coast Trail
Pulau Ubin
Ketam Mountain Bike Trail
Bukit Timah Mountain Bike Trail
Kent Ridge Mountain Bike Trail
Chestnut Nature ParkKranji Marshes Loop
East Coast ParkMount Faber Loop
John’s & Lazarus Island
Jurassic Mile
Marina Bay Loop
Coney Island
Northern Explorer Loop
Central Urban Loop
Sentosa Island
Punggol Waterway Park
Lorong Halus Park Connector
Don’t worry about not having a bike; just rent one!
The most excellent part about living in a small nation like Singapore is that you can reach any of the city’s many cycling routes with little more than a day’s worth of pedalling.
You may always hire a bike from a shop conveniently located along your intended path if you don’t have your own.
But what if you own a bike and want to ride it but don’t feel like making the additional effort to ride the long distance to the meeting place?
Bike Transport in Singapore
In Singapore, obtaining a vehicle large enough to transport bikes or other bulky equipment can be challenging. To protect your bikes, you should select a service that can deliver them safely and without incident by well-trained pros, giving you peace of mind.
When do you require Bicycle Transport in Singapore?
If you plan to go cycling alone or with family and friends to a cycling route far from home.
If you and your loved ones plan on taking bike rides together on an outing.
If you get a flat or your bike is not working correctly, you need it brought to a bike shop for repairs.
If you have a customer anywhere in Singapore who needs a bicycle delivered.
If after hours of cycling, you may be too tired to haul your bicycle home.
Is there a service available to arrange pick-up?
To save the day, some companies will come and pick up your bike. A bicycle transport service is the most convenient way to transport your bikes from one place to another in Singapore.
Maxicab Transports Bikes in Singapore
There is no shame in booking a Maxi cab to bring your bike to the ferry terminal if you wish to come rested for your off-road excursion on Pulau Ubin and save your energy for the trip to Changi Point.
Bikes can fit in seven, and thirteen-seater taxis that Maxicab offers. It is a good idea for you and your riding companions to load up all your bikes at one spot (additional stops cost extra). The service is offered 24/7, which is the best part.
Prices include ERP and range from S$40 (for a seven-seater maxi cab traveling less than 5 km) to S$60 (for a 13-seater maxi taxi traveling less than 5 km).
Why use Maxicab for Singapore Bicycle Transport?
Maxicab has the best prices in Singapore.
Maxicab is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Maxicab fleet consists of premium vehicles.
Maxicab safeguards and guarantees your bike’s safety while traveling to and from different places.
Maxicab welcomes special/custom orders.
Maxicab is transparent, and there are no hidden fees.
Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has held bilateral discussions with her counterpart, the Singaporean Minister for Communications and Information, Josephine Teo on cybersecurity cooperation.
The talks spanned Critical Information Infrastructure protection, regulation of Cybersecurity Service Providers, capacity building and professional exchanges between officials of the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and the Cyber Security Authority of Ghana.
They agreed to deepen collaboration for cybersecurity skills development and experience sharing on the protection of Critical information infrastructures and regulation of cybersecurity services, among others.
The meeting was held on 20th October 2022 on the sidelines of the 7th Singapore International Cyber Week (SICW) organised by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. The Minister was accompanied by the Ag. Director-General of the Cyber Security Authority, Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako.
Josephine Teo congratulated Ghana on its election to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)’s Council at the just ended ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania and expressed appreciation for Ghana’s support for the United Nations – Singapore Cybersecurity Fellowship which Ghana has been participating in.
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful invited Mrs. Josephine Teo and David Koh, Commissioner of Cybersecurity & Chief Executive, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, to participate in Ghana’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October 2023.
She also had discussions with representatives of INTERPOL’s Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) which is based in Singapore. The IGCI is the INTERPOL’s technology arm, responsible for technology innovation in policing as well as leading global cybercrime response. They discussed improving collaboration and support for Ghana’s criminal justice sector through capacity building and assistance with investigations into cybercrimes and digital forensics capabilities.
As part of the events marking the SICW, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful participated in a Ministerial Roundtable on the theme “Cyber Resilience in the New Normal” and emphasized that governments should work with industry to protect and enhance the resilience of cyberspace.
She indicated that combating cybercrime and malicious activities in cyberspace requires a multi-stakeholder approach with the roles and responsibilities of government agencies and other collaborating partners clearly defined.
She shared Ghana’s experiences in working with relevant stakeholders through the Joint Cybersecurity Committee and the Industry Forum established under the Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038) and also highlighted the decentralised nature of Ghana’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) as another example of multi-stakeholder approach towards cybersecurity development.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful is the first African Minister to speak at the SICW.
The Cyber Security Authority (CSA) has been exchanging best practices with the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore as Singapore is ranked among the top countries in the world with a robust and sustained cybersecurity ecosystem, according to the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index.
The 7th Singapore International Cyber Week sought to strengthen multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaboration in a rapidly evolving global cyber and digital threat landscape.
A Singapore man who installed no less than 9 air conditioning in a rented apartment has been hit with complaints from neighbors struggling with condensation and mold.
Summers can get pretty hot and humid in Singapore, so air conditioning is essential for comfort. One or two units are usually enough for a standard apartment, but one local man used a whopping nine air conditioners to stay nice and cool, and started getting complaints from neighbors. The temperature in the man’s home apparently dropped to a chilly 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 Fahrenheit), which reportedly caused condensation and black mold to form on the walls of neighboring apartments.
“We have to mop the floor three times a day. It’s a headache,” Liu, the man’s upstairs neighbor told Shin Min Daily News. He and his wife said that they had also been struggling with mold on their walls because of their humidity, as well as floor tiles cracking due to the difference in temperature.
The “villain” of this story, a 63-year-old retiree who rented the four-room flat in Sengkang, told journalists that setting the temperature as low as 18 degrees Celsius helped him live comfortably in Singapore’s hot climate. The man, surnamed Huang, added that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and the cool temperature helped strengthen his immunity.
“There are five air-conditioners in the living room, two in the master bedroom, and one each in the remaining two rooms”, Huang admitted, saying that he paid 10,300 Singapore dollars ($7,200) just to have the nine units installed.
This story originally made news headlines in Asia last month. At the time, Huang’s neighbors had started filing complaints about his air conditioners and the trouble they were causing. Authorities tried to bring everyone together to reach a compromise, but that apparently didn’t turn out very well, considering that Asia One recently reported that Huang decided to move out of the apartment.
“My neighbors ganged up against me. They also went to the authorities and the press,” Huang told Shin Min Daily News, adding that he had left on September 17. However, he will not be giving up on his comfort, saying that he took eight of the air conditioners with him.
Re-installing all the units at a new location will most likely cost the man a pretty penny, but he said that “as long as I get to live comfortably, it doesn’t matter.”
Huang’s neighbors said that they were relieved to hear that the old man was moving out, but claimed that they still had to spend a few hundred dollars repainting their walls and ceilings.
A British headteacherwho groomed at least 131 children worldwide using social media while working at a school in Iraq has been jailed for 20 months.
Using Facebook Messenger, Nicholas Clayton, 38, of The Wirral, made contact with kids as young as 10 and requested their images with the intention of sexually abusing them.
He was apprehended after paying a 13-year-old Cambodian boy to come to Malaysia so they could meet and asking the boy for pictures of his bare upper torso.
When he returned to the UK, the National Crime Agency (NCA) detained him after receiving information about the communication.
Investigators found Clayton had been messaging hundreds of boys from across the globe, spanning the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Iraq, Morocco, Turkey and others over a period of just three months.
He appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on 23 August where he admitted three counts of sexual communication with a child under 16 years and one charge of inciting the sexual exploitation of a child.
On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for 15 years.
New Facebook plans will ‘hide similar predators’
The case has prompted fresh calls for a “robust” Online Safety Bill, with the NSPCC warning plans by Meta, which owns Facebook, to introduce end-to-end encryption will “blindfold” authorities to similar predators.
Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the charity, said: “Clayton’s case highlights the ease with which offenders can contact large numbers of children on social media with the intention of grooming and sexually abusing them.
“Private messaging is the frontline of child sexual abuse online. It’s therefore concerning that Meta plans to press on with end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger, which will blindfold themselves and law enforcement from identifying criminals like Clayton.
“The UK government can show global leadership in tackling online child abuse by delivering without delay a robust Online Safety Bill that embeds child protection at the heart of every social media site.”
New Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has previously said there are no plans to water down the proposals for new internet safety laws, which Mr Burrows welcomed as “really encouraging”.
Hazel Stewart, from the NCA, said: “Nicholas Clayton abused his position of trust as a headteacher by attempting to sexually contact and exploit children, using technology to access hundreds of potential victims across the globe.
“Clayton was very cautious and careful in his communications, making them appear to be innocent, but as NCA investigators we could see the patterns of predatory grooming he was using on vulnerable children.
“Protecting children from sex offenders is a priority for the NCA, and we continue to pursue criminals in the UK and internationally to ensure abusers like Clayton are held to account.”
Facebook ‘taking our time to get it right’
A Facebook spokesperson said: “We have no tolerance for child exploitation on our platforms and are building strong safety measures into our plans.
“We’re focused on preventing harm by banning suspicious profiles, defaulting under-18s to private or ‘friends only’ accounts, and more recently introduced restrictions that stop adults from messaging children they’re not connected with.
“We’re also encouraging people to report harmful messages to us so we can see the contents, respond swiftly and make referrals to the authorities. As we roll out this technology we’re taking our time to get it right and working with outside experts to help keep people safe online.”
Sri Lankan MPs have elected prime minister Ranil Wickeremesingheas the country’s new president, despite his unpopularity with the public.
Mr Wickremesinghe faces the task of leading the country out of its economic collapse and restoring public order after months of mass protests.
He roundly defeated party rival Dullus Alahapperuma, with 134 votes to 82 in the parliamentary vote on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka’s ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country last week.
He bolted to the Maldives and then Singaporeafter thousands of protesters stormed his presidential residences and other government buildings, calling for his resignation.
They had also called for Mr Wickremesinghe’s resignation, who was appointed prime minister in May. Protesters burnt down his private home and also stormed his prime ministerial office in Colombo in demonstrations against his leadership.
Protesters have consistently been calling for the former prime minister, now president to step down.
However Mr Wickremesinghe has defied those calls. He automatically assumed the position of acting president after Mr Rajapaksa fled, and his victory on Wednesday means he will carry out the rest of the presidential term until November 2024.
Sri Lanka is effectively bankrupt and facing acute shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies.
Mr Wickremesinghe will strive to restore political stability to Sri Lanka so it can resume stalled negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package.
Mr Wickremesinghe – an ally of the Rajapaksas – had been nominated by their ruling party the SLPP and was seen as the frontunner in the race.
He faced a serious challenge from Mr Alahapperuma, a dissident MP in the SLPP and former education minister who gained the backing of the main opposition.
A grandson of Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew and nephew of the current prime minister was convicted Wednesday of contempt of court over a Facebook post criticising the judiciary during a bitter family feud.
Li Shengwu, an academic at Harvard University, was also fined Sg$15,000 ($11,000) by the High Court over the 2017 post in which he described the Singapore government as “very litigious and has a pliant court system”.
He will have to serve a week’s jail if he does not pay, Justice Kannan Ramesh said in the judgement, although Li is currently living in the United States.
Li is the eldest son of business executive Lee Hsien Yang, who has been at loggerheads with his brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, over their father’s legacy.
He made the Facebook post as the family feud raged publicly following the death of the Lee patriarch in 2015. The spat pitted his father and aunt against his prime minister uncle.
The Attorney-General’s Chambers had described his post as “an egregious and baseless attack on the Singapore Judiciary” and lodged contempt proceedings against him.
Li initially took part in the proceedings through his lawyers, but withdrew later.
“I disagree with the judgement,” Li said in a Facebook post Wednesday after learning about the court’s decision.
He said he was worried that the verdict would reinforce the ruling People’s Action Party’s “tendency to suppress ordinary political speech” in the city-state.
The PAP was returned to power in elections earlier this month although with a sharply reduced share of the popular vote and with the opposition gaining more seats in parliament.
Li’s father Lee Hsien Yang joined an opposition party before the polls and campaigned for its candidates although he did not run.
Nearly 25 years ago, Jerry Rawlings, the president of Ghana at the time, presented a document to Parliament.
In it, he outlined an aggressive long-term plan that would improve his country’s human and economic growth, rural and urban development, as well as overhaul its infrastructure. The aim was to follow Singapore’s example. The document was called Vision 2020.
According to Rawling’s vision, Singapore had transformed itself from a third-world country in the 1960s to a middle-income country in a short time.
However, whereas the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lists Singapore as the third-richest country per capita on the planet, Ghana is languishing down at number 126. The vision appears to have badly stalled.
“We are in 2020, the time that we wanted to achieve a level of growth that is comparable to Singapore, [but] we have worse figures,” Ziblim Alhassan, a Ghanaian policy analyst, told DW.
Why Singapore?
In the 1990s, Singapore under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew had become a global financial, trading and industrial center. Its free market and economic growth over the years inspired Ghana to imitate. Today, Singapore is considered one of the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world.
Ghanaians like Ricky Kasisi, who previously worked in Singapore, are aware of Singapore’s economic might. “Very clean streets to the carefully marked pavements, pedestrian walkways, bicycle lanes, the wonderful high-rise buildings and the pride that they exude in the beauty and progress of their country. That cannot be missed,” Kasisi told DW.
According to Alhaji Sulemana Alhassan, a former government policy analyst, who was present when the Vision 2020 was proposed, the Ghanaian government’s goal was too ambitious. “Singapore had developed so much that they had political stability and a growing economy,” Sulemana Alhassan told DW.
“We felt that if Ghana pursued the path of political stability and economic progress, we could also achieve that status like Singapore.”
Ghana’s mixed results
The picture in Ghana is decidedly mixed. While the west African nation has managed to slash its poverty rate in the past decades, the increased standard of living is not evenly distributed. Policy analyst Ziblim Alhassan said the number of Ghanaians living in extreme poverty has increased.
The 2017 Ibrahim Index of African Governance shows that although Ghana remains among the 10 top-scoring countries on the continent in terms of democracy and good governance, it is also among the 10 countries that have deteriorated the most economically over the last decade.
For Sulemana Alhassan, the main problem is that successive governments kept changing development strategies before anything had a chance to work. When Rawlings retired in 2001 and handed over the reins of power, his successor, John Kuffour, dealt his plans a severe blow. Kuffour chose to focus on food production and job creation at the expense of other growth sectors envisioned by Rawlings.
“In the year 2000, there was a change of government and they [the new regime] also came with their vision,” Sulemana Alhassan said. “Some parts of our development [agenda] were implemented, so if they had been stable, we would have pursued and succeeded. But because we had an interruption of governance, many policies were dropped.”
Is Rwanda ‘Africa’s Singapore?’
In fact, Rwanda is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has come close to emulating Singapore’s rags-to-riches story, albeit not in the same spectacular style.
The small landlocked central African nation boasts years of strong economic growth, pristine streets in the capital Kigali and donor praise for fighting corruption. “Beating the odds is a challenge we Rwandans and Singaporeans share,”Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame told Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong, the son of Lee Kuan Yew, on a visit to the Asian state in 2008. Kagame referred to Singapore as “an inspiration for us in Rwanda,” Reuters reported then.
However, critics of Kagame’s government argue that economic gains have come at the cost of political freedoms like a clampdown on dissenting views and media rights. Kagame has been president of Rwanda since 2000. By contrast, Ghana has peacefully exchanged power in four presidencies.
Singapore might now be affluent and have a robust health care system, but its government too is relatively repressive, limiting critical speech and peaceful assembly. According to a 2019 Amnesty report on Singapore, activists and human rights defenders were prosecuted for organizing peaceful meetings and criticising the government.
A man has been sentenced to death via a Zoom video call in Singapore, as the country remains on lockdown following a spike in Coronavirus cases.
Punithan Genasan, 37, received the sentence on Friday for his role in a drug deal that took place in 2011.
It marks the city’s first case where such a ruling has been done remotely.
Human rights groups argued that pursuing the death penalty at a time when the world is being gripped by a pandemic was “abhorrent”.
The vast majority of court hearings in Singapore have been adjourned until at least 1 June, when the city’s current lockdown period is due to end.
Cases which have been deemed to be essential are being held remotely.
“For the safety of all involved in the proceedings, the hearing for Public Prosecutor v Punithan A/L Genasan was conducted by video-conferencing,” a spokesperson for Singapore’s Supreme Court told Reuters.
Mr Genasan’s lawyer, Peter Fernando, said his client is considering an appeal.
Singapore has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drugs. In 2013, 18 people were executed – the highest figure in at least two decades, according to Amnesty International.
Of those 18, 11 had been charged with drug-related offenses.
It was supposed to be an idyllic trip of a lifetime around the Pacific for one sailor – but instead it turned into a nightmare.
Wong, from Singapore, was hoping to spend three years travelling the seas on his yacht, visiting different countries – but the virus outbreak meant countries started closing their ports to him as he tried to dock.
“I pleaded with them [and said] I didn’t have anywhere to go. They said to head back to the ocean,” he told me, about his arrival off Tuvalu.
And with nowhere to dock, the ocean was indeed where he found himself, wandering alone with no end in sight.
After almost three months, with food and fuel supplies getting dangerously low, he was finally rescued by the Fijian coast guard.
Singapore reported a record daily jump of more than 1,400 coronavirus cases Monday, taking its total to over 8,000, with almost all new infections linked to dormitories housing foreign labourers.
The city-state was initially successful in keeping its outbreak in check with a strict regime of testing and contact-tracing, but is now facing a fast-moving second wave.
Health authorities in the financial hub, which now has the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia, reported 1,426 new cases, taking its total to 8,014, including 11 deaths.
Cases have surged since authorities started carrying out widespread testing of foreign workers living in crowded dormitory complexes, many of whom are construction workers from South Asia.
Around 200,000 workers live in dorms and typically toil for long hours earning in the region of $400 to $500 a month building the city-state’s glittering skyscrapers and shopping malls.
Following criticism of poor living conditions in the dorms, the government moved thousands of workers to other sites — including apartments and floating accommodation usually used in offshore industries — to try to lessen the chances of infection.
Several dormitories with serious outbreaks have been quarantined, with workers not allowed to leave the premises for two weeks. The government is providing meals, and cleaning services have been ramped up.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the weekend warned that the number of foreign workers found to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, is likely to rise further as more are tested.
“Fortunately, the vast majority of the cases are mild because the workers are young,” Lee wrote on Facebook.
While the government is working to stop transmission in the dorms “it will take some time to show results, so we must expect to see more dorm cases for while longer”, he said.
The city-state this month introduced tough restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the virus, including closing schools and advising people to stay at home.
Since then, the number of new infections reported among Singaporeans has slowed — only 16 of the cases reported Monday were citizens or people holding permanent residency status.
Singapore confirmed 287 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, the biggest daily increase yet, taking the total in the city-state to 1,910, its health ministry said.
More than 200 of the new cases were linked to outbreaks in foreign worker dormitories. Singapore has quarantined thousands of workers in dormitories after they were linked to several cases of the COVID-19 respiratory disease.
Six people infected with the disease have died in Singapore and authorities are investigating the death of a seventh person who was also infected but had other complications.
Singapore has told 20,000 foreign workers to stay in their dormitories for 14 days as coronavirus cases increase in the city state.
Two dormitories have been isolated: one with 13,000 workers and 63 cases, and one with 6,800 workers and 28 cases.
They are typically home to men who work in construction from South Asia.
The workers will be paid and given three meals a day – but some have complained of overcrowded and dirty conditions.
What has the government announced?
Two places are being sealed off – the S11 Dormitory at Punggol and the smaller Westlite Toh Guan dormitory.
The government said cases in the dormitories were rising, and that isolation would “keep the workers safe [and] protect the wider community from widespread transmission”.
Workers are banned from leaving their blocks, and have been told not to mix with people who don’t live in their room or floor.
The number of people in a room varies between dormitories, but in 2015 the BBC visited a new complex which had 12 people per room.
A Singaporean activist said Tuesday he had begun serving a one-week jail term after refusing to pay a fine for questioning the independence of the city-state’s judiciary in a Facebook post.
Jolovan Wham was sentenced last year to a fine of Sg$5,000 (US$3,500) following a conviction for contempt of court — but he did not pay, meaning he must serve the short prison sentence instead.
While wealthy and modern in many ways, rights groups say the city-state uses unnecessarily harsh laws to curb dissent, and have held up Wham’s sentence as evidence of this.
He had alleged in his post that Singapore’s judiciary lacked integrity and independence in cases involving the government or politicians.
Wham, who is also an advocate for migrant workers’ rights, appealed his conviction but it was dismissed by Singapore’s highest court.
In a Twitter post Tuesday morning, Wham said he was surrendering himself to the police to start serving his sentence after a send-off from supporters.
“I’m doing this in lieu of a 5k fine because I do not recognise the legitimacy of the (judgement) and the law, both of which are unjust,” he said.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said Wham “did nothing wrong and Singapore is blatantly violating his human rights by imprisoning him.
“Every time Singapore imprisons a critic… the country’s modern image gets another black mark.”
Passing sentence last year, a judge said that Wham “did not show any remorse” even after conviction.
It was Wham’s latest run-in with the authorities. He had previously been fined Sg$3,200 for organising an illegal public discussion that featured prominent Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong speaking via Skype.
His cases are among several that have alarmed rights groups, including that of a Singapore website editor charged with defamation and a lawsuit brought by the premier against a blogger.
Singapore has introduced new laws governing social distancing during the coronavirus outbreak that could see offenders serve six months in jail.
Those who do not keep at least one meter (3.2 feet) apart, or who meet in groups of more than 10 people outside of work or school, could face a fine of up to 10,000 Singapore dollars ($7,000) and/or up to six months’ imprisonment, according to a Ministry of Health statement posted Thursday.
The new measures come into effect Friday and also include the same penalties for those who fail to stay in their accommodation if given a “Stay-Home Notice.”
Such notices have been issued to certain inbound travelers as well as people with respiratory conditions flagged by medical practitioners.
On Wednesday, Singapore reported 73 new cases of coronavirus, its largest one-day increase in cases.
Since Monday borders have been closed to all short-term visitors and travelers transiting though the city.
The only exception is for Malaysians with Singapore work permits, who have been able to continue working in Singapore.
The government has urged employers to put in place measures to reduce close physical interactions between employees, and to facilitate telecommuting for employees to work from home.
Singaporeans could be jailed for up to six months if they intentionally stand close to someone else, under tough new rules announced Friday to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
The city-state has introduced a series of new measures to tackle the virus, including closing bars and cinemas as well as banning large events.
One step aimed at ensuring “social-distancing” — a key approach being used worldwide to halt the spread of the contagious disease — is a ban on individuals standing less than one metre (three feet) apart in certain settings.
People are barred from intentionally standing too close to someone else in a queue, or sitting on a seat less than one metre from another individual in a public place, according to the regulations.
Those found guilty of breaking the rules face a jail term of up to six months and a maximum fine of Sg$10,000 (US$7,000).
Business owners are also required to take steps such as putting seats not fixed to the ground at least one metre apart, and making sure that people keep their distance when queueing.
They face the same punishments if found to have broken the rules.
Singapore, known for having a low crime rate and a tough approach to law and order, introduced stricter curbs after a spike in infections being brought in from overseas.
The health ministry said earlier this week that “we must implement tighter safe distancing measures now to minimise activities and exposure”.
The city-state has reported 683 virus infections and two deaths, but has won praise for its approach and has so far avoided going into a total lockdown.
The rapidly spreading pandemic has infected over half a million people worldwide and killed more than 23,000.