Singapore: Goody bag for every newborn

Babies born in Singapore in 2015 will get goody bags marking the city state's golden jubilee, it seems.

After a month-long vote in which 20,000 people participated, a special medallion or coin was selected from a list of 15 ideas that included shawls, clothes and toys, Channel News Asia reports.

'Some looked for items that would see the most practical use for parents; others chose items that would provide historical significance when the baby grew up and looked at the gift some 20 years from now,' says the government's agency for population and talent. The package will also come with a commemorative birth certificate and other gifts, government minister Grace Fu says.

Faced with a falling birth rate, Singapore has a raft of government packages designed to encourage marriage and parenthood. Despite lower numbers of newborns, government statistics suggest that around 40,000 gift packs may be given out next year.

Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.

Five things in Singapore that are cheaper than other cities

Singaporeans are good at finding bargains abroad. Some of us even drive across the Causeway every weekend for cheap petrol and groceries, and others shop in Thailand for inexpensive clothes and other wearables. But is there anything we should buy here at home for a change?

A recent study by Deutsche Bank, which compares the prices of goods and services across major countries and cities, has some interesting answers. The Straits Times looks at five things from the report that are actually cheaper here than elsewhere.

1. A bouquet of roses, delivered.

There's no time like the present to show your affection for a loved one, and now there's no excuse not to. At about US$74 (S$92.55) to deliver a dozen fresh roses to someone's doorstep, Singapore ties with Brazil as one of the least expensive places to buy and gift the flowers. Only South Africa, France and Germany offer them cheaper, at US$67.14 a bouquet. Lovebirds in Switzerland have it the worst - a bouquet there is about US$142.50, probably the most costly bunch of roses you can get in the world.

2. Apple iPhone 5S, 16 gigabytes, no mobile plan.

While Japan is still the cheapest place to get your hands on the newest Apple smartphone at US$695, Singapore is within the bottom few countries at US$784.37 (S$981). This costs about the same as in India (US$781), and beats buying from our neighbours the Philippines (US$820.44) and Indonesia (US$944.91). Malaysia is still cheaper, at only US$731.29. Surprisingly China, which both makes and assembles many of the phone's components, still pays a premium to get the finished product - at US$856.02. But don't expect to pay less for the rest of Apple's products here. A 13-inch MacBook Pro could set you back by about US$1,657.66 (S$2,073.25) in Singapore, while you could get it for just under US$1,500 in India, Malaysia, the United States and Indonesia.

3. Minimum fare for a single ride on public transport.

With the MRT breakdowns and increasingly crowded buses and trains, Singaporeans may be glad to know they are not paying more than others - far from it, in fact. We enjoy one of the cheapest public transport systems in the world at 61 US cents (S$0.76) for a basic single trip, a fraction of the amount it takes to get around in several similarly developed cities, such as London (US$7.79), New York (US$2.50), and Berlin or Paris (both US$2.06). It costs only half as much to commute in Kuala Lumpur at 30 US cents, while New Delhi is one of the cheapest at only eight US cents a ride.

4. Most basic annual health insurance.

Getting yourself covered is affordable - or at least that's what Deutsche Bank seems to be saying, although it admits that 'the definition of a standard package varies between countries'. A basic health insurance policy in Singapore costs US$90.50 (S$113.20) annually, extremely affordable compared to places like Australia, Japan, and France, which range between US$1,500 to close to US$2,000. Good luck to you though if you're living in the US - the land of the free isn't so free when it comes to annual healthcare premiums it seems, far outstripping any other country to top the list at US$5,884.

5. Hiring and deploying a business graduate for a month.

The world's most value-for-money MBA holders are found right here in Singapore. Just US$6,274.30 (S$7,847.27) will be enough to pay the monthly salary here of a graduate from a globally-ranked top business school, a figure which includes a mobile phone, laptop and office space. It costs about the same to deploy a business graduate in Mumbai (US$6,025.40), and much more to do so in Chicago, London, Paris or Melbourne, which are all above the US$10,000 mark. It's not only firms that are striking a good bargain when they invest in local grads, our students are also getting more bang for their buck. A recent study by The Economist ranked Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) one-year business course above Harvard and Wharton in terms of their return on investment for the student after a year.

Singapore central bank warns on foreign property investment

SINGAPORE: Singapore's central bank has issued a warning to investors about the risks posed by buying property overseas, as high house prices at home prompt a growing number of its residents to invest in real estate abroad.

A strong Singapore dollar and curbs on mortgage lending at home have encouraged more Singaporeans to buy property in the likes of Britain and Australia, with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) reporting a 43% rise in the value of overseas property transactions handled by local real estate agencies in 2013 compared with 2012.

MAS said in a statement that it is monitoring developments closely to ensure financial stability and that investors do not over-extend themselves.

'Risks are more difficult to assess or manage when investors are unfamiliar with conditions in overseas markets, such as the prospects for oversupply of properties, or of a deterioration in economic conditions,' MAS said.

It also flagged the foreign exchange risk of borrowing in one currency but collecting rent in another.

MAS said the value of overseas properties dealt with by Singapore real estate agencies was S$2bil (US$1.6bil) in 2013, up from S$1.4bil in 2012.

A recent research report by estate agent Knight Frank found that buyers from Singapore accounted for 23% of all purchases of newly built central London property in 2013, second only to British buyers who accounted for 27%. - Reuters

Tags / Keywords: Foreign News

One Direction to play in Singapore next year

POSTED: 19 May 2014 13:19

SINGAPORE: UK boy band One Direction will play in Singapore at the National Stadium on March 11 next year as part of their On Their Road Again Tour.

It will be One Direction's first ever gig in Singapore.

'Hello Singapore! We cannot wait to see you.

'See you all in 2015 at your new Singapore National Stadium,' said One Direction in a video clip announcing their upcoming concert here.

One Direction is made up of Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan.

Formed in 2010, the band is known for its hit songs like 'Up All Night' and 'What Makes You Beautiful'.

From Our Website From the Web

Shame In Singapore: If Edward Snowden Betrayed America, America Has ...

I can't stop thinking about the strange circumstances surrounding the tragic death of a promising young American electric engineer in Singapore two years ago.

His name was Shane Todd and his story is a cautionary tale for sanctimonious ideologues like Edward Snowden.

Unlike Snowden, Todd defended America's secrets and doing so may have cost him his life.

While local authorities in Singapore claim that Shane committed suicide, his family is convinced he was murdered. For better or worse, so am I.

Rather than recapitulating the circumstances surrounding Todd's death Todd's story, I would refer readers to an enormously compelling piece that appeared last year in the Financial Times about Todd's death.

Ironically, the only evidence I can add is taken from a classified diplomatic cable sent to the Central Intelligence Agency about seven years ago from a federal export controls official in China. The cable, which was made public by Wikileaks, reviews an application from a Chinese company for a license to export the technology that Shane had worked on in Singapore - a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) epitaxial system for producing epitaxial materials like gallium nitride (GaN), a semiconductor circuit technology that offers disruptive capabilities in efficient microwave power generation.

The MOCVD at issue was made by VEECO, the same Plainview, NJ company where Shane Todd was sent to work by his sponsors in Singapore in early 2012. The export controls official expressed 'strong reservations' about approving the application for an export license because of potential ties between the exporter and the Chinese military, stating:

ECO remains concerned about possible links to entities of proliferation concern and strongly recommends resolution of this issue prior to any export licensing decision. ECO further notes that the VEECO MOCVD system will be installed in one location and then re-located at a later time; accordingly, should this license be approved, ECO recommends that a Post-Shipment Verification end-use visit be requested.

Two months after this cable was written, the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a new round of funding to scale production and reduce the cost of GaN-based semiconductors. Writing in Flightglobal, Stephen Trimble described the press release like so:

This press release issued yesterday may not look like much, but it announces a new project that - and I'll word this carefully to avoid drifting into hyperbole - could forever change the world as we know it.

I'll explain: Gallium Nitride is a semiconductor material that can transform that cell phone in your pocket into a high powered microwave transmitter. It could render the iPhone about as sophisticated as my first digital wristwatch.

The only reason it's not in the mass market today is because manufacturing the material is so expensive that it would cost you as much to buy a cell phone as a new car (although, with the iPhone, clearly that gap is already narrowing) .

But this press release announces that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking to seed the development of a low-cost manufacturing technique that will soon make Gallium Nitride far more affordable to produce. Assuming the method works, this will certainly benefit electronics consumers like you and me, but also, not least, the US military.

Military electronics already operate in the highest bands of the spectrum, but are usually powered by very large travelling wave tubes to generate the necessary voltage. Cheaper Gallium Nitride chips are the military's ticket to the next wave of advances in radar, electronic warfare, communications and surveillance technology. It's also fair to wonder if perhaps Gallium Nitride is the key to finally making directed energy weapons as operationally feasible as bullets, bombs and missiles.

Those with long memories may recall this has all happened once before. In the mid-1980s, DARPA seeded the development of a new manufacturing technique to lower the cost of producing Gallium Arsenide semiconductors to replace silicon. The arrival of this material made it possible to pack a transmitter powerful enough to make cellular phones possible in the first place.

A small library of similar stories have been written in the media about the disruptive potential of GaN.

Simply put, there may not be a fire, but there is enough smoke in the air around Todd's death to sting a person's eyes.

Americans should be ashamed of Snowden, but proud that he was able to do what he did. After all, if the United States was truly an Orwellian state, low-level bureaucrats like Snowden would never be given access to highly-classified state secrets in the first place.

By contrast, Americans should be proud of Shane Todd and ashamed of itself for not standing by him.

One Direction descends on Singapore on 11 March 2015

Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction attend The BRIT Awards 2014 ...

For the first time, British pop boyband One Direction will be coming to Singapore.

The quintet, responsible for smash hits 'What Makes You Beautiful', 'Best Song Ever' and 'Story of My Life' will bring their 'On Their Road Again' Tour to the new National Stadium for one night only on 11 March 2015.

Ticket prices are S$168 (Standing) and S$88, S$128, S$148, S$168, S$188, S$198, S$388 (Seated), and will go on sale at the stadium's ticket portal Sports Hub Tix from 11 June.

Watch them share the big news with Singapore fans in this video:

(Video taken from Facebook)

One Direction comes to Singapore for first gig

Boy band sensations One Direction are set to play their highly-anticipated first gig in Singapore at the new National Stadium on March 11.

One of the biggest pop groups in the world right now, the English-Irish quintet comprising Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan have earned an ardent global fan following and an impressive 61 No.1 hit songs in the last three years.

Put together by music mogul Simon Cowell, the group first came to fame when they ended up third in the 2010 season of British reality television singing competition, The X Factor, in 2010. Besides selling 36 million copies of albums, singles and DVDs, the group has also picked up multiple music awards, including at the Billboard Music Awards, Brit Awards and MTV Awards.

Tickets from ranging from $88 to $388 will go on sale from June 11 through Sports Hub Tix ( www.sportshubtix.sg or call 6333-5000), at the Indoor Stadium Sports Hub box office, and at all SingPost outlets.