SINGAPORE – Takashimaya department store, supermarket chain Sheng Siong as well as fashion labels Uniqlo and Zalora got the thumbs up from consumers but a study shows that customer satisfaction in the retail sector has declined. These findings, revealed on Wednesday (July 6), come from an annual study by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) […]

SINGAPORE – Australia and Singapore will seek to draw on the “huge reservoir” of strategic trust between them to strengthen supply chains that could withstand future crises, said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Wednesday (July 6). Speaking during a joint press conference with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong, he described both countries as longstanding, natural […]

SINGAPORE – About 20 students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be going to Paris in January next year when the NUS Overseas Colleges programme expands to France. The undergraduates will be attached for six months to start-ups in the French capital that are in the digital, food and retail technology sectors, said […]

SINGAPORE – Certificates of entitlement (COE) premiums hit an all-time high of $110,524 in the Open category at the latest tender exercise that closed on Wednesday (July 6). The premium for Open category COE, which tends to be used to register larger cars, rose by 5.9 per cent from $104,400 at the last tender. The previous record […]

SINGAPORE – The family of Lasalle College of the Arts student Felicia Teo, whose disappearance in 2007 was investigated 13 years later as a murder case, will have to wait longer for answers. The victim’s former schoolmate and friend Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa’ee was expected to plead guilty on Wednesday (July 6) to a number […]

SINGAPORE – Local company SG Diagnostics donated more than 30,000 antigen rapid test (ART) kits to 16 nursing homes and social service agencies on Wednesday (July 6). Some of the beneficiaries include Dementia Singapore, Fei Yue Community Services and the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society. The company had donated 24,000 ART kits to 20 social […]

SINGAPORE – Staff, families and partners of Citi Singapore have raised $152,000 through activities like bake sales and auctions to support annual charity concert ChildAid. ChildAid is in aid of The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund and The Business Times Budding Artists Fund. Citi last month donated $120,000 to ChildAid to mark the bank’s 120th […]

SINGAPORE – A 26-year-old man who took up another man’s offer to take part in a threesome with the latter’s girlfriend without her knowledge and consent had his jail term reduced on appeal to 16½ years on Wednesday (July 6). Srihari Mahendran was sentenced in 2020 to 17 years and 10 months’ jail and 14 […]

SINGAPORE – JTC has completed its review of its internal processes following the unauthorised clearing of Kranji woodland. JTC has implemented four measures to strengthen its processes and capabilities in land clearance projects. These were shared on Tuesday (July 5) in a written parliamentary reply by Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong. First, […]

SINGAPORE – The public service should engage Singaporeans in good faith during the upcoming Forward Singapore engagement exercise, said Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. Public officers will have a central role to play in the exercise, he said, calling on them to work together with Singaporeans to come up with innovative and effective responses to […]

SINGAPORE – At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people here looking for shelter went up sharply. Those working here but living in Johor Bahru or Batam found themselves stranded as borders closed, while those who had been sleeping rough at void decks or public areas could no longer do so when […]

SINGAPORE – It was a seemingly endless process of trying out different materials and combinations to put together a reusable face mask that would fit all criteria. Pulling long hours, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) team tested about 30 prototypes before settling on the one that was eventually distributed nationwide in May […]

SINGAPORE – The authorities can now direct social media platforms and Internet service providers to investigate attempts by foreign parties to interfere in Singapore’s domestic politics. These hostile attempts could include the use of inauthentic accounts and bots to engineer a false sense of strong public support or opposition to certain views, with the aim […]

SINGAPORE – A teenager who had represented Singapore at the Asian Youth Para Games was on Wednesday (July 6) ordered to undergo reformative training for at least a year after he assaulted two people in separate incidents, causing one of them to suffer a facial fracture. The youth, now 18, also committed other offences including […]

SINGAPORE – China-owned fuel station operators have lowered petrol prices by another four cents a litre across the board – the third reduction since last Friday (July 1). According to Fuel Kaki, a pump price tracker initiated by the Consumers Association of Singapore, Sinopec cut rates on Tuesday (July 5), followed by fellow Chinese company […]

SINGAPORE – Travellers heading to Malaysia this weekend can expect delays at the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints, said the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) on Wednesday (July 6). There is a three-day-long break, with the Hari Raya Haji public holiday falling on Monday. Departing traffic is forecast to be heavy on Friday and Saturday, while […]

SINGAPORE – There was plenty of good and bad news when it came to love and marriage last year, as the number of marriages and divorces shot up after the first Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020 disrupted both nuptials and break-ups. A total of 28,329 couples wed in 2021, a 25.1 per cent jump from […]

SINGAPORE – Train service has resumed on the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), about 3.5 hours after a signal fault disrupted commutes along the entire line in both directions and left some commuters stuck on six stalled trains. In a tweet at around 11.35am, SMRT said trains are running again along the nine-station stretch between Woodlands North […]

Good morning! Here are our top stories to kick-start your Wednesday, July 6. Curbs on hospital and residential care home visits as Covid-19 cases rise

SINGAPORE – There’s no turning away from the topic of inflation. For the second time this week, cost-of-living challenges were raised in Parliament. Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC), in his adjournment motion on the use of macroeconomic policy to combat inflation, said that “when the prices of what we eat, getting to work, […]