Blog Posts by Deborah Choo

Fancy a drink or a quick shower in the sky? Well, all that is now a reality.

With exquisitely designed onboard shower spas, and a lounge for first and business class passengers to socialize and conduct business meetings in flight, air travellers can do just that on Emirates' newly launched A380 flight carrier.

The aircraft will provide daily non-stop flights between Dubai and Singapore starting December 2012.

Currently available for only first and business class passengers, who's to say that in time to come, it may be available for not just the privileged few. Maybe then we can truly kiss problems like jet lag and plane fatigue goodbye.

Other video links:
Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck had died at the age of 91
J. Lo shines at Gardens by the Bay
PSY brings 'Gangnam Style' to Singapore

Derision greeted the news that a government agency promoting marriages in Singapore has launched a scheme for people to give “dating cash vouchers” to single friends or relatives.

Valued at $10, each voucher can be purchased online and be used to offset the cost of events and services offered by agencies accredited by the Social Development Network (SDN).

Yahoo! Singapore readers who responded to this news, however, said it would be “insulting” to give or receive such vouchers.

Facebook user Rokiah Iz said, “To give a ‘social gift voucher’ to our single friends is ridiculously a personal insult, and for SDN to suggest it to us buying it as a gift for them is an insult to our intelligence.”

Another reader Yap Ri Hao said, “That’s like the same as telling your friend: ‘Oh I’m so sorry to hear you’re single, hope this helps.’”

User Jerry Xie said, “Well, I sure I don't want to receive this or want to give it as a present.”

Others were more skeptical of the scheme, and questioned whether this

The jack-up rig in Jurong that tilted and injured 89 workers on Monday has stabilised but the cause of the accident cannot yet be fully determined, said the chief executive of the maker of the rig.

Sembcorp Marine president and CEO Wong Weng Sun said in a press briefing on Tuesday that the priority now is for them to assess how best to restore the structure to a fully upright position before any personnel goes onboard the rig platform to investigate.

The rig is currently stuck at a 17-degree tilt with part of the rig platform touching the surface of the seawater.

Though no one has been near or on the platform since the workers from the rig were evacuated, Wong said that preliminary findings have shown that the fault lies with a brake malfunction on one of the three legs of the rig called the “forward leg”.

The brakes, Wong said, had been used before in previous successful projects. The incident is the first major industrial accident of the company, he added.

Meanwhile, the stop-work order

UPDATED (11.12am 5 December 2012. Adds further updates on the injured workers)

Out of the 89 workers who were injured after a jackup rig at Jurong Shipyard tilted to one side on Monday, all but three have been discharged from various hospitals.

According to publicly-listed rig maker Sembcorp Marine, which owns the shipyard, a worker who had been admitted into West Point Hospital has a shin injury with hairline fracture. His shin is currently in a cast.

The two remaining workers are currently residing at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and is experiencing swelling in their ankles.

All three workers are in normal wards and are expected to be discharged in a few days.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary (SPS) for Manpower Hawazi Daipi went down to Singapore General Hospital on Monday evening, where he visited two workers who were under observation at the A&E ward.
They included a 22 year-old Singaporean female engineer and a Bangladeshi worker.

“MOM takes a very serious view of the accident –

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday said it was important to calibrate on fundamental strategies but warned about the dangers of turning things “upside down”.

Defending Singapore’s meritocracy system, he said, “I ask myself if we’re not going on merit, what are you going to look at?”

Cutting to the chase in a speech addressed to more than 1,600 People’s Action Party (PAP) activists, Lee noted, “You have a choice. You can look at wealth – they got money, you give them. You want that? You have another choice. You have connections, you give them. Some countries do that. I don’t think that’s the Singapore you want.”

Some had previously questioned the value of meritocracy in the city-state, especially in the academic system of the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE).

Lee reminded Singaporeans that it is the same meritocracy system that allowed students with disadvantages and disabilities to progress.

While a balance is required between meritocracy and economic growth, Lee said that

Imagine the shock when after becoming new parents, you find out the baby you happily carried home was not yours.

That was what a pair of parents found out when they noticed that the baby they brought home on Sunday wore an identification tag belonging to another mother.

Fortunately, after the couple alerted KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), the babies have been reunited with their biological parents.

In a media statement released on Tuesday, the hospital called it an “unfortunate incident” which saw the two new-born babies erroneously discharged.

“The hospital deeply regrets this error, and the babies have been reunited with their biological parents. Both babies are well and with their respective mothers, who have been offered counselling from the hospital,” it said in the statement.

The hospital's chief executive, Professor Kenneth Kwek, told local media that the mix-up was the result of a series of mistakes that happened after one of the babies lost one of his ankle tags and was

Rat activity has been spotted at 313@Somerset shopping mall on Orchard Road.

According to the National Environment Agency, recent inspections of 57 licensed premises at the mall showed signs that rats had been around eight of the places there.

These eight retail premises include the Food Republic food court and Cold Storage supermarket.

NEA said in a press statement on Monday that enforcement action will be taken against relevant parties.

The mall’s management, Land Lease Retail Pte Ltd, as well as all individual food outlets, have been instructed to conduct a thorough clean-up which includes false ceiling, and to seal off all access points which could potentially allow rats to enter their shops, it said.

The management will also have to put in place a system to monitor the overall rat situation in the mall to enable the company to identify hotspots for prompt control action, NEA added.

Individual food shop operators have been told to tighten their housekeeping and waste management

Singaporeans can expect to live up to 80.6 years.
 
That is 16 years longer than their counterparts in other tropical countries, according to findings in the State of the Tropics report released on Monday.
 
It also shows that life expectancy in Singapore has increased by 20.4 years between 1950 and 2010.

Women in Singapore are also expected to live about four years longer than men for those born between 2005 and 2010.
 
The life expectancy at birth for women is 82.7 years, and for males, it is about 78.5 years.
 
Research also found that Singapore has also seen significant improvements in infant mortality rates, with only two deaths per 1,000 live births from 2005 to 2010.
 
That is down from 61 deaths per 1,000 live births in the years 1950 to 1955.
 
Infant mortality across all of the tropics has fallen from 161 deaths per 1,000 live births to 58 over the same period.
 
Professor Sandra Harding, the Vice Chancellor of Australia’s James Cook University which initiated the State of the Tropics