Sun Cable Update - 29 Mar 2025 "It's a Go! Again!"

Video: Singapore needs this Mega Project to work

In 2021, Singapore revealed that it was in discussion with an Australian Consortium to harvest solar power in the Northern desert of Australia, and send the electric power 4200 km to Singapore. 

Lies about Ocean Plastic

[First Drafted 28 Sept 2024]

 Video: You are being lied to about Ocean Plastic

1:49 It's the fishing industry

3:57 The Garbage Patch in the Pacific is not as big a problem as Coastal Plastic Pollution

5:24 It's not littering

From high-rollers to roller-coaster geeks, Singapore's IRs are reeling them in but is it enough to stay ahead?

Having tasted success, new challenges await Singapore’s integrated resorts as neighbouring countries including the Philippines and Japan are ramping up their own tourism offerings.

 

 


Renald Loh

07 Dec 2024

Soaring high at 200 metres and gleaming gold at sunset, the architectural marvel that is Marina Bay Sands (MBS) is at once a striking silhouette of Singapore’s skyline and a symbol of its riches.

While the integrated resort’s (IR) impressive facade and iconic SkyPark have drawn the rich and famous from overseas, its counterpart southwest of the island appeals more to tourists such as 43-year-old Australian Kacy McDonald and her family.

Videos of travel influencers screaming their lungs out on roller coasters at Universal Studios Singapore (USS) and showing off their hauls from its novelty shops had captured the attention of Ms McDonald’s young children.

That's why Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), home to the USS theme park — and not the lavish MBS — was at the top of the list for the family's six-day holiday itinerary.

Don’t let 38 Oxley Road become a story of monumental regret

Sumatran Squall, 17 Sept 2024

 A report on the Sumatra Squall that struck Singapore on 17 Sept.

CNA Explains: What is a Sumatra squall and how did it bring a sudden storm to Singapore?

What are the characteristics of a Sumatra squall? How often does it occur and how bad can it get? CNA speaks to weather experts.

Singapore No. 1 again in world ranking on government effectiveness

Singapore edged out Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Norway, which were ranked second to fifth, respectively. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY

Jean Iau

MAY 15, 2024

SINGAPORE Singapore has topped a ranking that tracks the effectiveness of more than 100 governments around the world for the second consecutive year.

It edged out Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Norway – which ranked second to fifth, respectively – in the fourth edition of the Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI) released on May 15. South Korea (20th) is the only other Asian country in the top 20.

PM Lee to step down: Key milestones of his political career

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at a Merdeka Generation Appreciation ceremony at the ITE Central, on June 2, 2019. 
Raj Nadarajan/TODAY

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that he will hand over the premiership to his deputy Lawrence Wong
Mr Wong will be sworn in on May 15, 2024 at 8pm at the Istana
TODAY looks at the key milestones and events of Mr Lee's illustrious political career

How Deng and his heirs misunderstood Singapore

MARK R THOMPSON 

01 FEB, 2019



As official China celebrates the four decades of “reform and opening” that began in late 1978 to early 1979, it is instructive to recall the role Singapore played in this process. The fulsome eulogies for Lee Kuan Yew offered by Chinese officials in 2015, beginning with Xi Jinping himself (who has been noticeably less enthusiastic in his praise for Deng Xiaoping given China’s top leader’s “family feud” over who deserves the most credit for the reforms), are just the most obvious indication that Lee and the “Singapore model” more generally have played (quite literally) an oversized role in China’s rapid transition from Maoism to “Market-Leninism”. Appropriately, Lee was honoured late last year as one of the foreigners who helped China most in its reform process.

Swift connection

From “Taylor Swift ‘exhausted’ in Singapore because of her family’s attachment to the lion island nation”

The decision to bring The Eras Tour to Singapore means a lot to Taylor Swift

During the “Evermore” era, Taylor sang Marjorie – a song dedicated to her grandmother Marjorie Finlay and shared her family’s connection to Singapore.

“My mom actually spent most of her childhood with her parents and sister growing up in Singapore,” Swift revealed as she played gentle chords on the piano.

10 MRT Rules Most Singaporeans Don’t Know Exist & Are Probably Breaking

19 Mar 2024

Raiz Redwan

MRT rules in Singapore

Bringing in durians or smoking on the train are some of the rules most of us are probably aware of and are hopefully not breaking. But Singapore, being the fine city that we are, actually has numerous other rules that some of us may not even have heard of. Here are 10 lesser-known MRT rules to know so you aren’t found guilty of breaking them.

1. Bringing super-big luggages on board – $500 fine

Saving on delivery fees for your new 50” TV or refusing to cab to the airport is a good idea, but make sure your items are within the specified dimensions when you board the MRT. If kena reported, there’s a chance you might face a fine of $500.

PUB partnering UCLA and American startup to build world’s largest ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant in Tuas

A rendering of an ocean-based carbon dioxide removal plant.

PUB, Singapore's national water agency PUB, is teaming up with an American university and startup to build the world's largest plant that will remove carbon dioxide from seawater and the atmosphere
When fully completed, the plant in Tuas — named Equatic-1 — will be equipped to remove 10 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per day from seawater and the atmosphere
This is more than 100 times the amount a trial plant has been able to remove

SHYNN ONG

February 27, 2024


SINGAPORE — Singapore's national water agency PUB is teaming up with the University of California (UCLA) and a UCLA-linked startup to build the world's largest plant that removes carbon dioxide from seawater and the atmosphere.

What makes Singaporeans happy

Jan 7, 2010 

Tambyah Siok Kuan & Tan Soo Jiuan 

The Straits Times

THE media gives some insight into what makes Singaporeans happy or upset.

[An article from 14 years ago. Is it still relevant?]

Botero's "Happy Singaporeans"?

Musk undue influence over US policy and the Russo-Ukraine war.

 Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule

How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.

By Ronan Farrow


Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine. A staffer handed him an iPhone—in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night texts and colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact: “He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’ ”

The reason soon became apparent. “Even though Musk is not technically a diplomat or statesman, I felt it was important to treat him as such, given the influence he had on this issue,” Kahl told me. SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia. More alarmingly, SpaceX had recently given the Pentagon an ultimatum: if it didn’t assume the cost of providing service in Ukraine, which the company calculated at some four hundred million dollars annually, it would cut off access. “We started to get a little panicked,” the senior defense official, one of four who described the standoff to me, recalled. Musk “could turn it off at any given moment. And that would have real operational impact for the Ukrainians.”

In Singapore, loud echoes of Beijing’s positions generate anxiety

President Xi Jinping wants to build influence among ethnic-Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, raising concerns that the Chinese Communist Party is stoking divided loyalties

Waterloo Street, one of the oldest streets in multiracial Singapore, is host to Chinese temples, food centers and
newspaper vendors, alongside a Hindu temple and a synagogue.

By Shibani Mahtani 
Amrita Chandradas

July 24 at 5:00 p.m.


SINGAPORE — As China accelerates efforts to build its global power, President Xi Jinping has laid out an extravagant vision for overseas ethnic-Chinese communities that he hopes will “give shape to a powerful joint force for advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

The Big Read: With more seniors needing care, is assisted living the answer for S'pore's 'missing middle' and their caregivers?

Experts interviewed by TODAY said that the issue of caregiving options has become even more pronounced in light of
Singapore's rapidly ageing population. Ili Nadhirah Mansor/TODAY

• With Singapore society ageing rapidly, one particular eldercare option has sprung up in recent years — community or assisted living to help seniors with basic daily activities 
• It is touted as a possible solution for the “missing middle” — seniors who cannot live independently but are not too ill to be cared for in nursing homes
• But experts, industry players and caregivers pointed to various factors on why assisted living services has not taken off faster, including costs, regulatory ambiguities and manpower shortages
• At the same time, there are different challenges in expanding other caregiving services such as foreign domestic helpers and day care centres 
• Experts believe that the right way forward is a shift in approach from reactive to preventive measures in eldercare, and more sustainable public-private partnerships

Preparations for Singapore's leadership transition going 'as well as they can': Shanmugam

The fourth-generation leadership is "doing well", Mr K Shanmugam said when asked for his assessment on how the
new team is making their mark. TODAY file photo

• In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Law and Home Affairs Minister Shanmugam spoke about the training that Singapore's leaders go through as they rise up the ranks
• He noted, for example, how Singapore's fourth generation of political leaders have gained valuable experience through the Covid-19 crisis and current housing issues
• This is different from the process in many other countries, he said, where people do not need training before becoming prime minister
• Mr Shanmugam also touched on geopolitics, including the tensions between the United States and China, and the Russia-Ukraine war

April 8, 2023

‘I’ll take cabs but eat hawker food most days’: Millennials’ spending choices spark debate

One millennial could spend up to S$800 monthly on Grab rides; another buys make-up using ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes. Talking Point finds out why younger Singaporeans may be more at risk of getting into more debt than previous generations.

Neo Chai Chin
Chan Luo Er

09 Apr 2023 

China’s cities are buried in debt, but they keep shoveling it on

March 28, 2023


NEW YORK — In 2015, when Shangqiu, a municipality in central China about the size of Kentucky, laid out a plan for the next two decades, it positioned itself as a transportation hub with a sprawling network of railways, highways and river shipping routes.

By the end of 2020, Shangqiu had built 114 miles (183km) of high-speed rail, and today several national railways make stops in the city.

By 2025, Shangqiu expects the coverage of its highway network to have increased by 87 per cent. The city is building its first two airports, three new highways and enough parking space for 20,000 additional slots.

Commentary: Anti-corruption sweep exposes a disturbing truth in Malaysia

With former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and others caught in the widening anti-corruption net, Anwar Ibrahim might have the momentum to push through political funding law reform, says CNA’s Leslie Lopez.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has made battling corruption the central plank of his reform government.
But there are gripes over delays on pushing ahead with law to regulate political funding. (Photo: Facebook/Anwar Ibrahim)

Leslie Lopez

21 Mar 2023 

KUALA LUMPUR: Before taking over as Malaysian Prime Minister in November last year, Anwar Ibrahim often told his closest advisors that reforms to regulate political funding would be a priority. But it appears taming widespread corruption in government and politics must take precedence.

Recent charges brought against former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and several leaders of his Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) party over governance breaches in a COVID-19 stimulus programme that was introduced in November 2020 to jumpstart the economy show that state capture remains a huge problem and little has been learnt from the debacle surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Muhyiddin has been slapped with seven separate charges that involved the abuse of power, mounting to RM237.5 million (US$53 million), and money laundering, totalling RM195 million. 

Fat, Sugar, Salt … You’ve Been Thinking About Food All Wrong

Scientists are asking tough questions about the health effects of ultra-processed diets. The answers are complicated—and surprising.

IN THE LATE 2000s, Carlos Monteiro noticed something strange about the food that Brazilian people were eating. The nutritionist had been poring over three decades’ worth of data from surveys that asked grocery shoppers to note down every item they bought. In more recent surveys, Monteiro noticed, Brazilians were buying way less oil, sugar, and salt than they had in the past. Despite this, people were piling on the pounds. Between 1975 and 2009 the proportion of Brazilian adults who were overweight or obese more than doubled.

This contradiction troubled Monteiro. If people were buying less fat and sugar, why were they getting bigger? The answer was right there in the data. Brazilians hadn’t really cut down on fat, salt, and sugar—they were just consuming these nutrients in an entirely new form. People were swapping traditional foods—rice, beans, and vegetables—for prepackaged bread, sweets, sausages, and other snacks. The share of biscuits and soft drinks in Brazilians’ shopping baskets had tripled and quintupled, respectively, since the first household survey in 1974. The change was noticeable everywhere. When Monteiro first qualified as a doctor in 1972, he’d worried that Brazilians weren’t getting enough to eat. By the late 2000s, his country was suffering with the exact opposite problem.