Wall Street Journal

In other news, IKEA shelves India entry plans because of a local-sourcing policy that requires single-brand foreign entities to stock up 30% of its inventory with local products.

New TVC fresh out of RSN.

This news didn’t break local mainstream media when it first appeared on our newsfeeds a few days ago.

Stomp:

A group of Chinese national passengers claimed that they were ‘assaulted’ by Changi Airport staff and police when they were protesting over a 9-hour delay of a Hong Kong Airline flight from Singapore to Hong Kong.

An airline spokesperson said that CCTV footage of the incident showed that the Singaporean ground staff had acted appropriately.

According to news reports shared by a STOMPer, the Airbus 330 carrying 159 passengers had been delayed in Singapore for almost nine hours due to a technical fault.

Some of the passengers claimed that they were “assaulted” by airport staff and security after they tried to block a walkway in Changi Airport.

They said a policewoman had knocked into an old woman with a luggage cart and hurt the old woman’s hand.

One of them even claimed that the airport police were “taking out their weapons and handcuffs” to threaten them.

Their protest continued in Hong Kong when the passengers refused to leave the plane when it landed at 5.30am yesterday (Nov 16).

The matter was finally resolved eight hours later when Hong Kong Airlines agreed to compensate each of them with HK$1,200 (about S$200).

The interesting part of this story was that our local media completely did not make any mention of this while it was extensively covered by both Hong Kong and Taiwan media.

Some videos of the broadcasts below:

In a remarkable practical use of Psychology 101, students from the Singapore Management University (SMU) ambushed a stalker whom was harrassing a female friend. While it is unclear as to how the stalker got her number in the first place, at least the students are finally putting theory into use.

Source: TNP

According to this post by a forumer over at AsiaOne whom cited a report in yesterday’s Shin Min Daily (Chinese Daily Paper), it is said that Mr Gerald Ee, chairman of the Ministerial Pay Review Committee, in an interview confirmed that the report will be out latest by the next month.

The Shin Min article cited also mentioned that huge paycuts will be expected across all ministerial levels, including the President.

As the debate over whether to conserve Bukit Brown Cemetery rages on, it has gotten so much publicity that reporter, Chun Han Wong, summarizes the entire issue from beginning till today onto Wall Street Journal.

Creative Commons Image by flickr user sheeprus

If you’re living in Singapore, you’re probably familiar with multi-story shophouses that has a open space between the shopfront and the outer-most facade. But did you know where it came from?

The idea of a Five Foot Way (五脚基) can be traced back to the old Colonial Government and Sir Stamford Raffles’ 1812 Town Plan.

This form of architecture is unique to South-east Asian colonies of the time and can still be found in the former colonial settlements in Malaysia, Brunei and Borneo.

I’ll just leave you with an opening from an old Singaporean 80s’ TV drama with the same name.

Moral of the story folks, well, there’s really no moral to be learnt here. I probably would turn and look as well.

Yesterday at about 9am, just before the start of a blessing ritual organized by the Inter-Religious Organization (IRO) to help calm the area after a recent spate of suicide-deaths, a 6th body (since June) was found floating at the other side of the ceremony platform.

Former Minister for Foreign Affairs, George Yeo, who was in attendance at the ceremony that morning, shared a prayer on his Facebook Page.

In response to the latest incident, PUB told Straits Times that they are considering putting up signs with helpline numbers to help deter people from taking their lives.

According to Lianhe Wanbao, a local chinese evening newspaper, the deceased early this year had attempted to jump off his Bedok North flat but was eventually rescued by the Police’s Special Operations Unit and SCDF’s DART team.

We’ve found a record of that incident on Straits Times’ STOMP platform.

Image taken from MP Zaqy Mohamad’s Facebook Page

Opposition MPs from Workers’ Party and the ruling PAP last Friday in a show of unity came together to form a Parliamentary soccer team to compete against a combined team comprising of media staff and representatives.

The parliamentary soccer team was formed by MOS Teo Ser Luck in August which comprises of Parliamentarians as well as Parliament staffs. Last Friday’s match up with the first game the team played.

MP for Aljunied GRC, Pritam Singh, one of the Workers’ Party players, shared his experience in a Facebook note which tickled our funny bone.

The game was played in good spirit and friendly banter. Before the game, I informed MOS Tan Chuan Jin I was a leftie (both in terms of my kicking foot and my general ideological leaning) and that I would be happy to play anywhere on the left side of the pitch. He responded noting that the WP appeared generally rather centrist, to which I agreed to play in the centre if need be, but not before adding in jest that I could be “right-winged” on some matters. A round of laughs ensued. On the bench at the start of the second half, Ag Minister for MCYS MG Chan Chun Sing jokingly noted that if the Parliament team won the game, the media probably would not report the story since we were competing against a combined Singapore media team. I jokingly retorted that such non-reportage would prove the mainstream media was biased! Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer in good humour, promised me an extra minute of speaking time in Parliament after I scored a consolatory penalty.

Now if this is the direction that the new Parliament is heading, it only bodes well for Singapore. After all, regardless of party affiliation, we all bleed Red and White.

Tan Chuan Jin (MOS) has a photo album of the game on his Facebook page.

Straits Times coverage