FPDA nations to mark 50 years with flypast, naval vessel display off Marina South on Oct 18
SINGAPORE - The five countries in the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) will be putting up a flypast and a naval vessel display off Marina South on Monday (Oct 18) to mark the pact's golden jubilee this year. The defence pact, established in 1971, involves Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. The commemoration will come at the end of Exercise Bersama Gold 2021, a two-week field training event featuring about 2,600 troops from the five nations, said the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) on Thursday. Among the highlights were a "contactless" maritime drill in the southern parts of the South China Sea in international waters, anti-air and anti-submarine exercises, gunnery firings and manoeuvring drills. The FPDA's 50th anniversary display will be live-streamed on Mindef's social media platforms on Monday at noon. The display over the waters off Marina South will feature assets from the five nations, added Mindef. The flypast will start with planes from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) flying in a delta formation. Fighter aircraft, maritime patrol planes and helicopters from the five countries will then perform a combined flypast. Finally, the RSAF's F-16 ...
JPMorgan entices CEO Jamie Dimon to stick around with surprise stock award
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Jamie Dimon's five-year retirement joke just got serious. The billionaire chief executive officer (CEO) of JPMorgan Chase & Co was granted a special gift to persuade him to lead the biggest US lender for another "significant number of years". He was awarded 1.5 million stock appreciation rights, which are like options and will let him capture a profit if the stock price rises in the coming years. At 65, Mr Dimon is the only sitting bank CEO who led a major firm through the financial crisis. He took over JPMorgan in 2005, and built it into the biggest and most profitable bank in the country. Mr Dimon's tenure, and the question of who may eventually succeed him, has long been a topic of interest across the financial industry and beyond. It came into heightened focus last year when Mr Dimon was sidelined for four weeks after he underwent emergency heart surgery. And the firm is also fresh off its biggest leadership shakeup in years, putting Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak at the front of the race to potentially take over the top job. Mr Dimon himself has found ways to be non-committal about when he'll call it quits. His favourite quip: The date is five years...
Singapore-based TE Asia Healthcare looks to join US$1 billion club
SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - TE Asia Healthcare Partners, backed by private equity firm TPG Capital, expects to achieve a valuation of US$1 billion (S$1.33 billion) in five years as it expands in South-east Asia, according to its chief executive officer. The Singapore-based company plans to invest US$90 million mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia this year, building new cardiac hospitals and repurposing an existing medical facility in Kuala Lumpur into an orthopedic center, Mr Eng Aik Meng said in an interview. That would take TE Asia's total investment to US$260 million by the end of this year, he added. The healthcare firm plans to double that investment in the next three to five years as it seeks to set foot in more countries and offers a broader range of specialized medical services, Mr Eng said. "If we continue at this pace, this is easily a US$1 billion company" in five years, he said. Demand for healthcare services, especially in specialized fields, is set to rise as countries in South-east Asia become more affluent. The average health-care spending in the region was at 4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2018, compared to 5.4 per cent in China and about 10 per cent globally, ac...
5 killed in Tanjong Pagar car crash: What happened
SINGAPORE - The bodies of five people killed in a pre-dawn crash along Tanjong Pagar Road were identified by their next-of-kin at about 10.30am on Saturday (Feb 13), about five hours after the accident. This is a timeline of the events which took place early on Saturday: 5.30am: The roar of car engines is heard about 10 minutes before a loud crash. Eyewitnesses say the car, a white BMW, burst into flames soon after it slammed into a vacant shophouse previously occupied by Five Oars Coffee Roasters. 5.40am: Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) is alerted to a fire at 37 Tanjong Pagar Road. A man is later seen crying hysterically at the scene and begging for his friends to be rescued from the car. 7.30am: Land Transport Authority announces road closures on Tanjong Pagar Road (towards Murray Street) after Maxwell Road. 7.50am: The Straits Times arrives at the scene of the crash. About 200m of Tanjong Pagar Road is cordoned off by the police. SCDF had sent four fire trucks to the scene. 10.30am: Next-of-kin of the occupants of the car are spotted at the crash site, identifying the bodies of the five killed. Two police hearses are at the scene. 10.50am: Police cordon is expanded to bloc...
Pandemic speeds up labour shift to robots
ZURICH • Robots will destroy 85 million jobs at mid-sized to large businesses over the next five years as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates changes in the workplace, a World Economic Forum (WEF) study has found. Surveys of nearly 300 global companies found four out of five business executives were accelerating plans to digitise work and deploy new technologies, undoing employment gains made since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. "Covid-19 has accelerated the arrival of the future of work," WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi said. For workers set to remain in their roles in the next five years, nearly half would need to learn new skills, and by 2025, employers will divide work between humans and machines equally, the study found. Overall, job creation is slowing and job destruction is accelerating as companies around the world use technology rather than people for data entry, accounting and administration duties. The good news is that more than 97 million jobs will emerge across the care economy, in tech industries like artificial intelligence (AI), and in content creation, Geneva-based WEF said. "The tasks where humans are set to retain their comparative advantage include managi...
Social distancing rules in Singapore and Hong Kong
Singapore and Hong Kong have adopted different social distancing norms to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is a look at the rules implemented by the authorities at present. Any changes will be subject to future announcements. Singapore's rules • It is mandatory for everyone to wear a mask when they are outside their homes. Only those engaging in strenuous exercise or eating and drinking can remove their masks. But they must mask up promptly when done. • All individuals are required to keep a distance of at least 1m from one another in public. • Social gatherings of up to five people are allowed, and they can be from different households. The number of visitors to a household is also capped at five. Households with more than five people can go out together, but they are not allowed to sit in groups bigger than five at food and beverage outlets. • Shopping centres, F&B outlets and cinemas must have temperature checks at entrances. Nightclubs remain closed. The sale and consumption of liquor is not allowed at F&B outlets after 10.30pm. Cinemas have capacity limits. For instance, large cinema halls with more than 300 seats can admit up to 150 patrons. • Places of interest can apply to ...