More Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats are being sold over the S$1 million mark; the latest was a ground floor unit in Yishun.
Despite fewer units sold in June 2022, prices for HDB resale flats continued to rise for the 24th consecutive month.
A 1,765 sq ft executive apartment HDB flat in Block 608 Yishun Street 61 was recently sold for S$1 million.
There were 31 HDB resale transactions for at least S$1 million each last month, reported The Straits Times, indicating a rise of 1.2 per cent on resale flat prices.
Prices increased for all flat types in both mature and non-mature estates.
“A flat’s generous size and convenient location, panoramic or pleasing view from the unit, and the buyer’s lifestyle preference continue to be key factors driving million-dollar sales transactions,” said PropNex Realty head of research and content Wong Siew Ying to ST.
She also expects HDB resale prices to increase further by seven to nine per cent for the rest of the year.
An executive maisonette at Pasir Ris Street 13 and two executive flats in Woodlands were also sold for over a million dollars each in May, marking a first for the two estates.
“We believe the rise in price and decrease in transactions suggest that the supply in the market is drying up,”” said property site 99.co last month.
Responding to the latest resale transaction, netizens wondered how a ground-floor unit snatched such a price.
“This is where I walk every day. My childhood for 20 goddamn years is inside this one picture. A lot of smell used to come from those ground-floor houses. Now it’s 1 million?” asked Facebook user James Lee.
Photo: FB screengrab
“$1m for a full sea view is still acceptable. But $1m for a unit in Yishun on a ground floor?” added another netizen.
“I still don’t understand why that unit cost 1 million. It’sIt’s in front of the bus stop. Walk 5 min to Khatib Mrt and 5 min to swimming pool, but it’s a very old unit,” said Facebook user Aileen Tan.
Photo: FB screengrab
On the other hand, Facebook user Alan Lee pointed out that a ground-floor unit would be a better choice for elderly residents. “On ground floor, that’s good for older folks, no stairs to climb. One old rich couple can afford to live there./TISG
Amidst the dire state of Sino-US relations, Singapore’s overseas expansion can soothe tensions between the two superpowers. A hint of this possibility lies in Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan’s recent visit to the port of Sines in Portugal.
The US government of President Joseph Biden and the previous US administration of President Donald Trump view China as a competitor, especially with the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s mega-project to connect China with other countries through infrastructure projects like ports and roads.
Senior officials of the Trump administration like former State Secretary Michael Pompeo have denounced the Belt and Road. In late June, US President Biden announced a US$600 billion global infrastructure plan to counter the Belt and Road, the value of whose projects are estimated to total trillions of US dollars. This shows Washington’s competitive attitude towards China’s economic rise on the world stage.
However, there is one country whose overseas economic expansion will not rile the US. That is Singapore, which can be argued to be creating its mini version of Belt and Road through its infrastructure projects abroad, including a container terminal in Sines.
Firstly, the scale of the city state’s overseas projects is small compared to the gargantuan scale of the Belt and Road. Secondly, Singapore and the US have strong economic and military ties, so the US should have no problem with the international expansion of such a friendly country.
PSA in Sines
In 1999, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) gained a 30-year concession to build and operate a container terminal in the port of Sines with the Administration of the Port of Sines.
On July 1, PSA Sines inaugurated a new stage of the expansion at the Sines Container Terminal, said a PSA press release on the same day. The inauguration event was graced by the Portuguese Secretary of State of Infrastructure, Hugo Santos Mendes, the Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs, Vivian Balakrishnan, President of the Sines Port Authority, José Luís Cacho, the Mayor of Sines, Nuno Mascarenhas, PSA management, customers, partners and stakeholders, PSA added.
PSA Sines has embarked on an expansion project worth over EUR 300 million (S$433 million), said the PSA press release. When the expansion is completed by 2028, the terminal will have doubled its annual handling capacity to 4.1 million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units), herewith strengthening its position as one of the main ports in the region, PSA added.
On his Facebook page on July 2, Balakrishnan wrote, “PSA Sines is a significant port on international maritime routes. It is strategically positioned to be a key transhipment hub for Europe, connecting to Asia via Singapore. This partnership will create new opportunities for Singapore and Portugal as maritime states that depend on trade for our prosperity. My congratulations to PSA for its success in establishing a worldwide network of ports and flying the Singapore flag high!”
If the Chinese flag flew high over a worldwide network of ports, Washington would freak out, but not in Singapore’s case.
The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was born near Sines, Balakrishnan wrote on his Facebook page. “In 1498, he changed history when he discovered a new trade route between Europe and Asia. This heralded the arrival of the Portuguese people to Southeast Asia and beyond.”
Vasco da Gama paved the way for the Portuguese to conquer Malacca and colonize Macau. Thanks to da Gama blazing a trail from Europe to Asia, other European empires followed in his wake, with Britain adding India, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore to its empire, Holland conquering Indonesia and Indochina incorporated into the French empire.
By no stretch of the imagination can Washington think Singapore harbours ambitions of creating an empire through PSA’s container terminal in Sines. If Washington does not fear PSA’s worldwide network of ports, why should it regard Belt and Road as a threat? In this way, Singapore’s overseas expansion can allay US fears of Chinese overseas expansion.
It can be argued that the international business of Singapore is tiny compared to the enormous scale of Chinese overseas projects. Moreover, the US government accuses China of ambitions in the South China Sea, suppressing liberties in Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan, while Singapore faces no such accusations. Thus, the US will look benignly on Singapore’s overseas expansion but not China’s, so the argument goes.
In that case, overseas Singaporean projects like PSA Sines can bring on board companies from China as well as European countries, Japan and other nations. As Chinese companies partner with firms from Singapore and other countries in international projects, the US will feel less threatened by such projects.
China and US tussle over Portugal
In visiting Sines, Balakrishnan did not just alight on a strategic hub connecting Asia with Europe, but also an intersection of rivalry between the US and China.
As tensions between the US and China degenerated into a full-fledged commercial war, Washington began to grow more critical of Lisbon’s close ties with China, wrote Loro Horta, a Timor-Leste diplomat on 22 July 2021 in an article of ThinkChina.
“Matters came to a head when in 2020 Portugal accepted a Chinese proposal to modernise and expand the port of Sines, the country’s most important harbour. Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) China proposed a 640 million euro container terminal at Sines to transform it into a major shipping hub between Europe and the Americas. Unfortunately for small Portugal, the Chinese proposal angered the Americans,” said the article of ThinkChina, an e-magazine powered by Lianhe Zaobao, the main Chinese-language newspaper in Singapore.
“In no uncertain terms, the US ambassador to Portugal George Glass told the Portuguese government that Lisbon needed to rethink its relations with Beijing,” the ThinkChina article added.
The Portuguese authorities pushed back at Glass’ comments and denounced American meddling in Portugal’s internal affairs, Horta wrote. “Lisbon stated that it remained a firm ally of the US and that its ties with China are based on economic interests.”
Partly like Singapore, Portugal is an ally of the US through NATO yet has growing economic ties with China.
“However, Washington has made clear that Lisbon must choose. The new Biden administration, while having a more polite posture, is unlikely to change this stance,” Horta predicted.
Through PSA’s presence in Sines, Singapore sits at a crossroads of Sino-US tensions. But the Singapore government can use this to mediate relations between the two superpowers, like what happened on its home ground. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 10, US Defense Secretary J. Lloyd Austin met Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe to prevent tensions between their countries from getting out of hand. Likewise, Singapore’s presence in Sines can be a point of mediation between China and USA.
Singapore has shown that building infrastructure projects abroad need not frighten other countries. It is unrealistic to think US perceptions of China as a danger will disappear anytime soon, but Singapore can help reduce fears of Chinese global expansion.
Toh Han Shih is chief analyst of Headland Intelligence, a Hong Kong risk consultancy. The opinions expressed in this column are his own.
Savannah Daisley was detained in June 2022 and had her bail request rejected in Waverley Local Court. She owned a $10 million mansion and operated a lucrative weight-loss business before being sent to prison.
This could be the unexpected downfall for the successful Australian heiress and entrepreneur. Police did not take the matter lightly when it was alleged that she had drunken unlawful sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old boy on four occasions in a 24-hour period.
Police in the state of NSW also alleges Savannah Daisley, who was refused bail, had sex with the teen on May 20, 2021, in Longueville, a luxury waterfront suburb in the state capital of Sydney.
News.com reports she was highly intoxicated at the time of the alleged offending, according to police allegations tendered to the court. Police have applied for an apprehended violence order on behalf of the young complainant.
Who is she really?
Daisley, 45, is known as the founder of Smart Cleanse.
She reportedly started the company in 2014 after growing up eating an unhealthy diet.
“After having a childhood wrought with junk food (toxic food), to becoming the resident mojito (cocktail with mint, lime, and sugar in it) girl in my 20’s, I manifested some pretty tough imbalances in my body over the years,” Daisley wrote on her website.
A court reportedly rejected her father’s $10,000 bail offer and determined that her release from detention was not in the public interest.
According to Daily Mail, she will stay in jail until her next court appearance in August, even though she has disputed the accusations against her.
According to police, a legitimate phone tap picked up the founder of the detox company Smart Cleanse confessing to kissing the claimed victim.
Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham says that although her daughter isn’t on any social media platform at the moment, just the thought of it makes her worried. Her daughter Harper Beckham is just 10 years old.
“Harper isn’t on social media, so we don’t have to worry about that just yet,” said the doting mother in a July 3 interview with Vogue Australia. “But seeing how cruel people can be, yes it really does [concern me].”
Victoria’s concern is not unfounded, seeing how body-shaming is a big issue in the online world.
“She’s at that age where her body is going to start changing, but it’s about making sure that we communicate a lot as a family and she surrounds herself with nice friends,” she shared. “But it is quite terrifying, I can’t lie.”
Harper may not be spending her time writing captions and posting them on Instagram, but she has been writing sweet little notes to her parents, one of which Victoria posted on her Instagram story back in February 2021.
“Dear mummy, I love you so much and you are my best friend ever,” Harper wrote. “I love when we always do our makeup together you are my heart and I love you Sleep well sweet dreams Love Harper.”
She also wrote to her dad, David Beckham on a yellow index card, as follows;
“Dear daddy, I hope you have a great sleep and the best friends,” the letter read. “You worked so hard at work today and I am so proud of you love you so much Sleep well.”
Victoria and David celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary on July 4th. The couple got married in 1999.
The fashion designer posted on Instagram on Monday biting back at naysayers who said their marriage wouldn’t last.
“They say he isn’t funny, they say I never smile, they said it wouldn’t last [laughing face emoji],” she wrote. “Today we celebrate 23 years being married. David you are my everything, I love you so much!!!!”
A woman working as a waitress and dishwasher took to social media asking for advice after her fiancé’s family belittled her.
In an anonymous post to popular confessions page SGWhispers, the woman wrote that she was a lowly educated school dropout, who only studied until Secondary 2. She explained that she had to stop school because she is an orphan.
The 40-year-old woman wrote that she got engaged to her fiancé in May and planned to get married in October.
On the day of her fiance’s brother’s wedding, she wrote that she took a shower at work and went to his house. “Just yesterday after the wedding, I overheard my fiance’s sister mentioning to the other family members that i am a very smelly person. She said I smelled like a pot of oil, and a lot of sauces. She said she could smell my sweat of oil from very far away. To my horror, the whole family agreed with her that I smelled”, she added.
She noted that her fiance’s family even asked her to resign “as they won’t be able to take the smell if I moved in with them after I marry ( my fiance and I are waiting for our BTO to finish building). They mentioned that I smelled normal when I am not working and they want me to maintain that”.
The woman wrote that she was very hurt and cried as she really wanted her fiance’s family to take to her.
“My fiance consoled me by saying that why not I quit? He can support me by giving me money weekly. He’s a well to do man and highly educated. He mentioned he didn’t like pple insulting me. He mentioned to tolerate insults for a job, it’s not worth it”, the woman wrote. However, she added that if she resigned, she would not have enough money to save for her wedding. She did not want to be a full-time housewife or to have to rely on him for everything.
Asking netizens for advice on what to do, the woman wrote that she had allergies and was not able to wear perfumes because of them.
“It’s not the first time I was being told I am smelly”, she wrote.
Elon Musk had twins with his employee, Shivon Zills in 2021. With that, the wealthiest man in the world has now brought his tally up to nine children, at least that we know of.
According to court documents, in April, the Tesla CEO and his company executive filed a petition to change the children’s names so that they would have their father’s last name and their mother’s last name as part of their middle name.
Zills is currently the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, where Musk is co-CEO. Musk has been in the limelight lately as just before this, his 18-year-old child Vivian Jenna Wilson was granted a name and gender change.
Wilson also wanted to be disassociated with her father, stating that she “no longer wanted to live with or wish to be related to her biological father in any way, shape or form”.
Just last month, Musk got himself in trouble for exposing his penis to a flight attendant for SpaceX, his aerospace company, during a flight. The attendant was paid $250,000 to settle the case in 2018.
Before that, in March, Grimes whose real name is Claire Boucher welcomed a second baby with Musk who they named Exa Dark Siderael.
In an interview with Vanity Fair on her relationship with Musk, the singer said,
“There’s no real word for it… I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we’re very fluid. We live in separate houses. We’re best friends. We see each other all the time… We just have our own thing going on, and I don’t expect other people to understand it.”
It appears Musk’s penchant for procreation doesn’t end there. While Grimes mentioned that they intend to have at least three or four more children. Sources say Musk and Amber Heard, who he dated some years ago may also have frozen embryos together.
Five teenagers brutally murder beloved father-of-two after cruel joke
It was a brutal murder that arose from nothing more than a joke made by one of the murderers. And five teenagers have been found guilty of murdering the man. What was supposed to be a memorable day, became a nightmare for the couple, and his partner will have to live with such horrible memories.
The crime is even more heinous because they battered the father to death in a senseless and savage attack sparked by banter about his resemblance to the U.K.s I’m A Celebrity co-host Ant McPartlin, reported Metro UK.
Male PHV driver molested by two male passengers who found him cute, claimed God sent them to pleasure him and they were actually women disguised as men
Photo: Taken from Canva.com/used for illustration purposes only
A 28-year-old male Grab driver was repeatedly and mercilessly molested by two passengers, who alleged: “God had sent them to pleasure him”.
The two male passengers also claimed “they were women disguised as men” and found the driver “cute.”
Unpopular Opinion: Many netizens sympathetic towards death row inmates, but say criminals should not be treated as heroes
Malaysian Kalwant Singh and Singaporean Norasharee Gous were hanged on Thursday (Jul 7) morning, with an estimated 60 others still on death row. Support from activists and International Human Rights organisations poured in, urging the Singapore government to halt the executions.
Last week, Malaysian human rights group Lawyers for Liberty urged the government of Singapore to halt the hanging of Kalwant Singh. In a Facebook post on Thursday (June 30), activist Kirsten Han noted that Kalwant’s execution would be the seventh scheduled in 2022.
Baby born to brother & sister parents suffers severe genetic defects and dies
Due to serious genetic defects, a young boy born to an incestuous couple in Dustlik, Uzbekistan, passed away barely hours after his birth, reported Daily Star.
On June 4, 2022, the infant was born with a number of severe congenital impairments and the last moments of the baby were caught on tape and the video went viral.
‘Better stay single than with wrong partner’ — Divorce in Singapore increasing, women reveal ‘unreasonable behaviour’ of partner as main cause
Photo: Taken from Canva.com/used for illustration purposes only
About two-thirds of civil divorces in Singapore last year were from women, citing “unreasonable behaviour” as the top reason for the separation.
The number of marriages and divorces increased in 2021 compared to 2020, although Singaporeans are now putting off marriage, further extending the medium age for first marriages.
Hollywood is making a big effort to incorporate the “gay” element into its films, and now the first openly gay, effeminately homosexual Spider-Man is here!
Will that lead to more conflict with the producers and a movie ban in some nations?
It will, without a doubt, even if it is still too early to predict how this will affect moviegoers.
Something I realized immediately when conceiving Web-Weaver is that he can’t–and shouldn’t–represent ALL gay men. No single character can.
His fearlessly femme identity is central to who he is, but it’s not the STORY…which you can experience for yourself in September!
Spider-Man with feminine traits and lace clothing in a new novel is coming out in September.
But the story, the creators say, is not about the femme-spider-man, nor spider-woman. To know what the story is really about, wait until September.
However, many nations will be outraged by the film, and their censor boards will undoubtedly ban the entire production from showing in their theatres.
But, there is always Netflix and online streaming to catch the banned movies.
Even so, a Party Islam Malaysia member of the most conservative state in Malaysia, Kelantan, has defended a ban on movie theatres by claiming that because Netflix exists, the state doesn’t need theatres.
Back to the Fifi-Spider, according to Comic Book Resources, the comic book publisher initially revealed its plans to fans in a solicitation dated June 16 that introduced the new character as “WEB-WEAVER.
The character is a not-so-mild-mannered fashion designer at Van Dyne who gains spider powers and shows us a completely different kind of Spider-Slayer.
However, staff members from the company have also disclosed other notices. The first homosexual Spider-Man is being introduced, which is a “big gay honour,” according to writer Steve Foxe.
Foxe adds that he didn’t make his new gay character representative of “ALL gay men,” reported Breitbart.
Lightyear banned
The Disney-Pixar film ended up flopping at its opening weekend, but it gained much attention in countries where it got banned from the silver screen.
Disney decided against releasing Lightyear in Malaysia after refusing to remove sequences “promoting the LGBT lifestyle,” according to Malaysia’s film censors on Friday (17 December). But Malaysia said it has indeed banned the show for the LGBT content.
Up to 14 nations apparently outlawed the Disney-Pixar movie because it featured a kiss between two female characters. In addition to Malaysia, these nations also include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Kuwait, and Egypt, reported the Independent UK.
Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board announced on Friday that it has cleared the movie subject to adjustments but with parental guidance for viewers under the age of 13.
The board reportedly ordered that scenes and language that it “found to have elements supporting the LGBT lifestyle which contravene important portions of the Guidelines on the Film Censorship” “be deleted and muted.”
Lindsay Lohan has tied the knot with Bader Shammas. She made the announcement in an Instagram post, where she referred to him as her ‘husband’.
The Mean Girls actress made the social media post on July 2 which coincided with her 36th birthday.
“I am the luckiest woman in the world. You found me and knew that I wanted to find happiness and grace, all at the same time. I am stunned that you are my husband. My life and my everything. Every woman should feel like this everyday,” said Lohan in her post, which also featured a selfie of herself and Shammas.
Shammas is a Dubai-based financier who is of Lebanese and Kuwaiti parentage. He resides in Dubai, where Lohan has been living for the last couple of years.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he is an Assistant Vice President at Credit Suisse. He attended the University of South Florida, where he studied mechanical engineering. He later took up finance at the University of Tampa.
Lohan had gotten engaged to him in November last year when she put up a series of photos of the two of them as well as her engagement ring when she made the announcement. “My love. My life. My family. My future” she had then said.
Although the wedding was a relatively low-key secretive event, rumour has it that there is more to come. There is talk of two weddings, one overseas and one in the States, somewhere between Dubai and the US, said one source.
The source also told US Weekly that Lindsay likes her privacy. “It’s going to be intimate. You don’t see her out and about anymore.”
Lohan has in the past shared pics of her partner on social media. On his birthday in June, she wrote on Instagram, “My love! You’re not only a great man, an incredible person, you’re my best friend. Thank you for you loving me back babe! I Love You So Much! Happy Birthday.”
Lohan has taken a break from acting for some years but will make a comeback soon in Falling For Christmas. “This first movie was perfect for me, because I really want to do something happy and fun and family oriented. I like doing that. I miss seeing romantic comedies and less of the horror genre. I want to keep it happy.”
Opening his doors once more to less-recognised groups of people, Chee Soon Juan invited cleaners and security guards to his café.
As part of his café Orange & Teal’s first year anniversary, he “continued to reach out to our friends who keep the Rochester Mall clean and safe by treating them to the café’s best dishes”.
In a Facebook post on Friday (Jul 8), Dr Chee wrote that they had originally invited the cleaners and security guards for lunch but “in their usual self-effacing manner, they said “pai sei” and didn’t want to bother us”.
“And so, we gave them all take aways, assisted in part by those who gave through our pay-it-forward initiative”, Dr Chee wrote.
Last year, in a similar initiative, Chee Soon Juan invited two marginalised groups of people in Singapore to dine at his café; cardboard collectors and poor elderly people.
In a Facebook post on Friday (Aug 13), Dr Chee wrote: “Rather than indulge in self-glorifying parades and making grandiloquent rally speeches, society should commemorate our independence by lifting up the poorest among us”.
He noted that for years he had always spoken against a system that did not pay much attention to the weak and vulnerable.
“Well, now I have an opportunity to do something about it, albeit in a small way. I’m inviting them for lunch at our café”, he wrote. The Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Dr Chee called for anyone who knew cardboard collectors or poor elderly people to make arrangements to bring them over to the café.
