'Aghast and disappointed’: Koh Poh Koon slams doctors for spreading myths, untruths in open letter on Covid-19 vaccine

By JUSTIN ONG

MAY 22, 2021


SINGAPORE — Referring to an open letter by 12 doctors to parents questioning the long-term safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use on children, Senior Minister of State for Health Koh Poh Koon said he was “aghast and disappointed” by the doctors’ conduct.

In a Facebook post on Saturday (May 22), he wrote that the “unscientific and unprofessional” way in which these doctors had interpreted scientific evidence and conducted themselves had also “created confusion and fear” in the public. 

“It created confusion and fear in the public and propagated myths and untruths,” wrote Dr Koh, who is a colorectal surgeon.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, one of the two Covid-19 vaccines approved for use here, was earlier this week approved by the Health Sciences Authority to be safe for use for those between the ages of 12 and 15.

Tesla Drivers Test Autopilot’s Limits, Attracting Audiences—and Safety Concerns

Some users brag online about how they misuse their cars by tricking the driver-assistance system

By Katherine Bindley and
Rebecca Elliott

May 20, 2021 

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk for years has been championing his vehicles’ driver-assistance system called Autopilot and forecasting that self-driving cars are an emerging reality. Some would-be social media stars and Tesla owners can’t seem to wait.

Param Sharma, 25, has posted multiple videos to Instagram in which he appears to operate a Tesla while in the back seat with nobody at the wheel. Police in California arrested Mr. Sharma on May 10 for alleged reckless driving after an officer said he saw him operating a Tesla Model 3 from the back seat on a Bay Area highway.

Similar videos abound on social media, even though Tesla’s technology is intended only as a way to assist drivers, who are instructed to keep their hands on the wheel. Echoing Mr. Musk’s penchant for pushing the envelope, some Tesla drivers over years have created an online-video genre out of testing what’s possible with their vehicles, in some cases appearing to override safety functions to perform stunts that they post to YouTube or TikTok.

One TikTok user shared a video last year that appeared to depict a Tesla going more than 60 miles an hour on a highway with no one in the driver’s seat while its passengers drank hard seltzer and sang along to Justin Bieber. The video, which refers to the car as the designated driver, has 1.7 million likes. The video’s poster didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Commentary: Israel's master plan for Palestine has fail

The hope that the Palestinian issue was safely sidelined has proved to be a delusion, says the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman.

19 May 2021

Gideon Rachman

LONDON: Until about a week ago, it looked like Benjamin Netanyahu had a good chance of disproving the adage that “all political careers end in failure”.

His grip on power in Israel was weakening. But even if he lost office, Netanyahu would still leave politics as Israel’s longest serving prime minister ever – and one of its most consequential.

Last year, Netanyahu secured a historic breakthrough in the Jewish state’s relations with the Arab world. The Abraham Accords normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Israel under Netanyahu was at peace, prosperous and breaking out of its international isolation. The long and often bloody struggle with the Palestinians was out of the headlines.

A world-beating COVID-19 vaccination programme had further burnished the country’s image. There was just the small matter of avoiding conviction in a corruption trial and a possible jail sentence – and his legacy would be secure.

Why SPH news titles will continue with paid model despite government funding: Khaw

May 12, 2021

• SPH’s media publications will maintain its paid-subscription business model
• This is to keep it competitive and keep up the quality of their content, Mr Khaw Boon Wan said
• The incoming chairman of SPH Media Trust added that it is important for newsrooms to have editorial independence
• He said he will try to make a difference in helping newsrooms realise a bigger potential

SINGAPORE — News publications under Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) will continue with their subscription-based business model even when they get substantial government funding.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan, 68, the incoming chairman of SPH Media Trust, its new non-profit media entity, said that this would press the newsrooms to answer a “higher call” to quality journalism and keep them on their toes to produce quality content.

‘Hiccup’ in political transition: ESM Goh commends DPM Heng’s ‘selflessness’ in stepping aside as 4G leader

By Chew Hui Min

07 May 2021


SINGAPORE: Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said on Friday (May 7) that he commends Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat for his “self-sacrifice” in stepping aside as leader of the 4G or fourth-generation leadership team.

At the launch of a second volume of his biography titled Standing Tall, Mr Goh said that there has been a “hiccup” in the political transition in Singapore but that it was “part of the process”.

“There were also hiccups before the Old Guard passed on the baton to the 2G. I recounted them in my first volume, Tall Order,” said the former Prime Minister.

“I commend DPM Heng Swee Keat for his self-sacrifice in stepping aside as leader of the 4G. It takes courage and selflessness to do this when one is only a step away from being prime minister.

“He has put the interests of Singapore first, like a good leader should.”

SPH to restructure media business into not-for-profit entity

By TESSA OH, JANICE LIM

MAY 06, 2021

• The Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) will set up a new subsidiary to house its media business, with injection of initial resources, funding
• The subsidiary will eventually be transferred to a company limited by guarantee to be funded by private and public sources
• The exercise will involve transferring the entire media-related business of the conglomerate, including employees and its news and print centres

SINGAPORE — The Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) will be restructuring its media business into a not-for-profit entity amid falling advertising revenue.

With this move — which is expected to be fully completed by October, subject to shareholders’ approval — SPH’s media business will eventually become a company limited by a guarantee, it announced on Thursday (May 6).

Commentary: Why the interest over TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi’s nationality and how Singaporean he is?

What does it take to be "one of us"? Singaporeans' obsessions in defining the "us" in this latest episode stems not only from a fixation on labels but insecurities amid seismic changes in society, says SUSS' Dr Leong Chan-Hoong.

By Leong Chan-Hoong

06 May 2021


SINGAPORE: Are you a Singaporean? Did you embrace our way of life?

It does not require a genius to see the subtext in discussions over our daily headline news whenever the term “foreign” is mentioned in the media. This happens both when someone has misbehaved or achieved an extraordinary feat in a profession.

We saw this most recently last week when TikTok, the social media giant named 39-year old Chew Shou Zhi its new CEO.

Indonesia - model for Myanmar

 [Two news articles on the Military in Politics, and how Myanmar might have used Indonesia as a model.]

‘We live in a different age now’: Why Indonesia’s military is unlikely to return to politics

February’s coup in Myanmar has turned the spotlight on other Southeast Asian countries whose militaries have played a significant political role. The programme Insight examines the situation in Indonesia and the prospects for its democracy.

JAKARTA: He was tortured, underwent forced labour and had to eat mice, snakes, lizards and snails to survive.

Arrested for being a suspected communist sympathiser, Bedjo Untung was never charged despite being detained from 1970 to 1979, under the authoritarian regime headed by Suharto, the former general.

It has been 23 years since Suharto’s fall, but Bedjo, now 73 and a human rights activist, worries that Indonesia’s military “will always try to play a role” in government.

That has been the case in Thailand, for example, and February’s military coup in Myanmar has cast the spotlight on other Southeast Asian countries whose militaries have played a significant political role over decades.

But is Indonesia’s military capable of making a political comeback following the country’s transition to the multi-party democracy it is today? The programme Insight examines the balance of probabilities.