SPF issues media statement distancing Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee from ex-NCS Director Esther Goh

The Singapore Police Force has issued a statement on its Facebook page today distancing Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee from ex-NCS Director Esther Goh who was alleged to have provided sexual services to disgraced ex-SCDF Chief Peter Lim Sin Pang.

The statement was made in response to a photograph featuring Mr Ng presenting a token of appreciation to Ms Esther Goh which has been circulating widely on the internet.

Mr Ng has expressed deep ‘regrets’ that “the photograph has been misused by irresponsible persons online as a basis for making vulgarities, inanities and all manner of mischievous innuendos.”

Ho Yenn Dar, the Assistant Director of Media Relations, SPF took pains to stress that Mr Ng is not acquainted with Ms Goh and the photograph in question was taken during a Police charity concert to benefit the Community Chest on 12 October 2011.

During the event, Mr Ng presented tokens to donors who gave more than $10,000, including Ms Goh who represented NCS.

“It will be unfortunate and most unfair should the Community Chest and the charities that it supports suffer because of the actions of a few misguided and irresponsible individuals,” the statement ended.

Underaged JC babe Liu Yifan used another’s IC to go clubbing

A 17 year old girl from Nanyang Junior College Liu Yifan was charged for using another person’s identity card (IC) to try to get into St James Power Station in March.

Liu was caught red-handed by the security officer at the entrance of the club when he noticed the picture on it was not her, but   18 year old Tong Wern Ching from Temasek Polytechnic.

She pleaded guilty in court today to using someone else’s identity card without lawful authority.

Because of her age, District Judge Soh Tze Bian called for a report to gauge her suitability for probation.

It is a common ‘practice’ for underaged guys and girls to use ICs of older friends to sneak into clubs and this must be the first time that a teenager was hauled up to the court for it.

Depressed female law graduate gets probation only for theft while her boyfriend was jailed

A 23 year old female law graduate Ong Shi Han was sentenced to 15 month’s probation for stealing drinks and rice from a condominium storage room.

The court learnt that she stole eight boxes of Pokka drinks, a sack of rice and some electrical items – a two-pin power plug and an extension socket – from a storage room in Blue Horizon condominum in West Coast Crescent in November 2011 together with her boyfriend Jeremy Kuek Beng Kiat.

However, Jeremy, a 23 year old an aeronautical engineering student, was sentenced to a day’s jail and fined S$3,000 in May.

As Ong Shi Han was determined to be suffering from depression at the time of the offence, she was ordered by the district judge to attend psychiatric treatment.

Ong’s parents, who were both in court, signed a S$6,000 bond to ensure her good behaviour.

SMRT reminds passengers to ‘mind’ gap between train and platform

Train operator SMRT has sent out a ‘reminder’ to the public to mind the gap between the train and platform in response to a second incident in a week which saw a man’s leg trapped in the gap when he was trying to alight.

The incident happened on an east-bound train at Raffles Place at around 4.10pm and the man was extricated with the help of another passenger and SMRT staff after a few minutes.

A snapshot of the dramatic scene was taken and went viral in cyberspace, prompting SMRT to issue a response.

“The width we maintain in our system is one of the narrowest possible without compromising safety, and is necessary to accommodate the train’s movement. We would like to remind passengers to mind the platform gap when they board or alight from the train,” a SMRT spokeswoman said.

According to SMRT, the gap between the train and the platforms measure 10cm in underground stations such as Raffles Place and Bugis, and about 7.5cm for above-ground stations, and are there to “accommodate the train’s movement”.

Local polytechnic student calls for foreigners studying in JCs and polytechnics to serve NS

I read this article (http://spbuzz.sp.edu.sg/blog/2012/06/13/sp-grad-gets-first-class-honours-in-university/) with jealousy as a full time local student studying in a local polytechnic.

Having the opportunity to continue to study in local university NTU after graduating from local polytechnic or Junior College without going through NS is truly a blessing for him, thanks to our PAP Pro-Foreign students policy.

Foreign students in Junior Colleges and local polytechnics has the privilege of not serving NS after graduating and directly gain entry to local university if they do well. Unfortunately, local poly and JC students have to be disrupted for either one year ten months or two years to do their compulsory National Service.

This is indeed an irritating disruption to many local male students as some students has developed an entrepreneurial or commercialized business model for companies or for themselves during their Final Year Project. After working so hard and developed a feasible project for the industry, the poor male students have to go for the compulsory NS while their ideas are taken away by companies, not be able to patent their own ideas or to keep track the process, but, only to see companies used their feasible and hard-work ideas to turn into huge profit and in the end, they gain nothing.

I do hope to see the government could come up with some policies to allow foreign students to serve NS. Many foreign male students are taking the advantage of schooling in our local polytechnic and junior colleges, while pending their citizenship as foreign student while preventing it to be converted to Permanent Resident so they could skip doing National Service.

As our population is increasing, our defense forces could not solely depend on Local Male Singaporeans. We need to increase our defense forces ie. soldiers to defense our country. PM is so concern about our economic growth, and encouraging more foreigners to work in Singapore, but, why does he not concerning the figure of our soldiers, should’t that once our population increase, our defense force should increase too just like China is increasing their defense forces annually.

Due to our limited number of male singaporeans serving NS, should he recruit young foreign male students after studying in local JC and poly to serve NS too after they graduate to tally our increasing population with our defense forces? How could our current defense forces manpower protect the increasing population in 5-10 years down the road?

Should our soldiers include foreign students too instead of allowing them pending their citizenship and gain entry to local university after graduating from polytechnic and JC or follow their parents to other country for further education right after they graduate when their age is also same as our local male student age 17-20?

What do you think?

CHAN CHONG

*The above is currently a full-time student in a local polytechnic

NUS PRC professor: Small doses of hallucinogenic drugs can make students more ‘creative’

Small doses of hallucinogenic drugs can make students more ‘creative’, wrote Shi Yuzhi, an Associate Professor of Chinese language and linguistics in the Department of Chinese Studies at National University of Singapore on his personal blog.

[Source: NUS]

Prof Shi, who graduated with a PhD from Stanford University in 1999, quoted the example of the late former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs who had famously described taking LSD as a “positive life-changing experience”.

The post caused a stir among netizens with many disagreeing with him.

In response to queries from the media, NUS said it does not endorse the views espoused by Prof Shi and it will be ‘investigating’ the matter.

Massive outcry over NUH offering free health screening to pinoys to celebrate its Independence Day

A massive outcry has erupted in cyberspace at NUH’s offer of free health screening and dental checkup for pinoys this coming Sunday at Suntec City as part of its celebration for the Filipino Independence Day.

According to an announcement made by the Pinoy Independence Day Council (PIDC) Singapore on its Facebook, NUH will be providing doctors to provide FREE basic medical consultation and dental services for the pinoy community in Singapore.

The ‘kind’ gesture by NUH did not go down too well with some Singaporeans who wondered why no similar health screenings were organized for Singaporeans on National Day in the past.

Kevin Goh asked on Facebook if public resources are being used for the event:

“To MOH : If NUH is a fully private hospital, “I don’t care” If not, Pls account for the cost of this generous gesture…”

Chris Tan was not impressed:

“What the hell is this? Creating a event in public for their own independence day, and now NUH is giving them free check up. Did i see all these on singapore national day? This is singapore!!! Not yr pinoyland.”

Liu Zhanhong asked why NUH is not helping needy Singaporeans instead:

“Even if its a community service initiative, does it makes sense to do community service for foreigners in your own land instead of serving your less-privileged countrymen? I’m confused. Please enlighten me on the rationale behind this initiative.”

Meanwhile, Singaporeans are ‘advised’ to stay clear of Suntec City this coming Sunday as it is likely to be converted into a ‘mini-Manila’ with large number of pinoys expected to congregate there to celebrate their ‘Independence Day’:

Foreign observer concerned with rising tide of xenophobia in Singapore

I am a dilettante of the Singaporean sociological/political/philosophical scene, and I felt obliged to offer my views on the growing concerns of this tiny island, what with the rising tide of xenophobia, racism, and plain bigotry that has been surfacing in recent months. I would like to stress that the views I am about to express are my own, and any and all are free to agree or disagree as they see fit.

First off, to address the issue of foreigners in Singapore. Were an unbiased, independent poll to be conducted, I am certain that sentiments on the ground would reflect the increase of the “us and them” mentality in the average Singaporean. Fair enough, each man is entitled to his own opinion. But a man should first substantiate his opinion with evidence.

It is true that there are certain individual foreigners who have been behaving badly, causing both damage and danger to life and property. However, one should not go so far as to tar all foreigners with the same brush. It is shocking to hear thoughts such as “all PRCs are the same” (replace “PRCs” with your own pet peeve), and to determine the behavior of one as representative of the behavior of all.

Another frightening example is the re-emerging tendency to highlight the presence of blood/race/ancestry as a determining factor in the behavior of any given individual. It is nothing short of pure racism to make statements such as “all Filipinos are racist” or “all PRCs are rude”. Such statements are no different from “all Jews are greedy” or “all Germans are Nazis” or “all Frenchmen are cowards”. To hear such sentiments expressed, in a decidedly First World country, in the Twenty-First Century, does not bode well for the future of this country.

I would like to end with the hope that a bastion of civilization such as Singapore will encourage a growth out of such primitive tribalism, and to focus on truly pressing issues, such as equal rights, freedom of speech and of the press, and the continuing struggle for individual liberty.

Sincerely,

 

Martin Colbert

More than half of JC students expect to earn $3,000 monthly for their first job

In a survey conducted by BrightSparks, a scholarship, higher education and career portal 55.4 per cent of ‘A’ level and IB graduates said they expect to earn more than S$3,000 per month while 10 percent expects to make more than S$4,000 per month after they graduate.

Four in 10 students voted Business Administration as the most popular course of study, followed by Accounting (28.8%) and Engineering (28.6%) based on findings of the same survey which covered some 2,700 students.

The top five most popular industries to work in are banking and financial services, airline/travel, public service, healthcare and auditing/accounting.

The survey also found that students prefer scholarships issued by local universities to those awarded by government agencies or companies.

The National University of Singapore retained the top spot as the most popular scholarship provider followed by NTU.