Society: Deceived...

...into paying exorbitant commissions. Forced into working unwanted jobs in hazardous conditions. Denied the right to resign without paying up. Punished for speaking out. These are some of the allegations made by 10 Bangladeshi migrant workers against STAFF ME, an employment agency; and Built-TL Construction Private Limited (BTCPL), L&L Builders Pte Ltd (LLB), two construction companies. All three are fully or partially owned by the same person, anonymised as “Ms Tan” in the case dossier and video published by Workers Make Possible (WMP), an NGO advocating for workers’ rights here. We’ve derived the below account from that.

The workers paid fees of S$1,000–S$3,100 to a mix of Bangladeshi and Singaporean agents. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) stipulates employment agencies cannot charge more than two months’ salary, which in these instances was around S$500. The men assumed they’d work as painters, cleaners and electrical workers—a few were told as much. Instead, they were coerced into rebar casting, an extremely difficult job, dangerous without training. Some were also forced to enter septic tanks without safety equipment or enough ventilation. They resigned, but were told their contracts have a three-month notice period. Singapore’s Employment Act specifies no ceiling on notices. “...Can an employer include a clause that requires a worker to serve notice with them till they die, or, even better, till their children or grandchildren stop reproducing?” sardonically asked WMP. Some agreed to serve the notice even as they sought advice from MOM. Others requested the notice be waived, allowing them to look for new jobs, but Tan invoked another clause to demand three months’ wages (S$1,500) from each. 

The group steeled itself to raise the matter with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM), a mediation body with reps from MOM, the National Trades Union Congress and the Singapore National Employers Association. TADM’s proposed agreement allegedly allowed Tan to “retain her claim of 3 months [sic] salary,” but forced workers to drop remuneration claims for work done. In return, Tan would pay for a ticket back to Bangladesh and a “verbal” promise to not pursue her claims if and when the workers returned to Singapore. Most refused to accept it. Two, exhausted by the ordeal, did—following TADM reassurances. But when one of them returned late last year, Tan pounced. “When are you going to return the money…You do not reply, we will go and find your [new] company.” The workers also allege that after they complained to MOM, Tan denied some food and accommodation. One was forced to sleep on the pavement.

Many cases are now with the Employment Claims Tribunal. WMP claims that numerous others at BTCPL and LLB are desperately unhappy, but won’t approach MOM, “because they fear being worse off.” Both firms are subcontractors of Soilbuild, which was in turn performing work for ComfortDelGro. As worrying as the labour allegations is the notion that whistleblowers will be targeted. For society’s most vulnerable, how can they find justice and restitution? What’s the responsibility of MOM and the client in ensuring an ethical supply chain? Soilbuild told WakeUpSG that it’s commenced investigations. Comfort and the MOM have not responded to our requests for comment.

Note: WMP is raising funds to help tide the workers over while their cases are resolved. Many are currently unemployed. Donations can be made via PayNow to Kumarr, a WMP member and host of the aforementioned video, at 94506169. Kumarr and others, including the workers themselves, will decide how the money is disbursed.

Business: Singapore Inc embroiled in racist and exploitative practices Down Under

Australia’s Mount Isa region in Queensland has a rich cultural and trading history. Extensive mineral deposits facilitated perhaps the world’s earliest ground-edge stone tools, some 20,000 years ago. Indigenous peoples may have traded axes and blades for tobacco, and also created vibrant rock art, whose figures have “distinctive feathered headdresses, no face, and often a third leg which is variously interpreted as either a penis or a lizard’s tail.” The Kalkadoon people, the traditional owners of the land on which Mount Isa sits, fought a successful guerilla war against advancing European prospectors in the late 1800s, before inevitably succumbing, with 900 killed during a six-year campaign of retribution. Resource exploitation accompanied racial: the lead, silver, copper and zinc of Mount Isa Mines make it one of the most productive in world history. 

And now Singapore Inc is implicated in its lingering racism. Singtel subsidiary Optus this week agreed a settlement (pending court approval), including a A$100 million (S$83.5 million) fine, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), for “unconscionable conduct” while hawking its telecommunications goods and services to consumers in the Mount Isa region and the Northern Territory. In one incident, a First Nations consumer, who speaks English as a second language and lives in a remote area with no Optus coverage, was pressured by Optus staff into entering a store, and then accepting a “free” phone and other “free” products. They were then unwittingly contracted to two phones, three plans, two Device Protect services and one accessories bundle, with a total minimum cost of A$3,808 (S$3,180) over 24 months—and, for good measure, a second contract the following day. Optus staff falsified their credit information. In another case, a consumer with an intellectual disability, whose main source of income was the disability support pension, was similarly manipulated by Optus staff into three separate contracts that would cost over A$8,000 (S$6,680) over 36 months. 

Even after Optus’s senior management discovered these breaches through a 2019 internal investigation at the Mount Isa store, it did not provide restitution to victims, but rather “sold outstanding debts associated with some of those contracts to third party debt collection and factoring agencies”, who in turn went after them. Optus is wholly owned by Singtel which is majority owned by Temasek which is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance. Its profits can flow into our reserves which can flow into our pockets. Exploitative forms of shareholder capitalism, pioneered by European colonialists, thrive when moral responsibility is relinquished through an unethical supply chain. Singtel’s bosses have a lot more explaining to do—and it’s on all of us to push them. (The firm did not return a request for comment.) 

Earth: Beyond the shore, into the deep

To see a baby turtle waddling across a beach, each sandy slap a determined lunge towards the sea, is to revel in creation, the joy of life, the spirit that knows not what lies ahead, or whether birthplace will be seen again. For millions of years they, in all their forms and shapes, glided through waters and trundled across lands, their armour and their shy, touch-me-not bodies keeping predators at bay. The arrival of homo sapiens altered their fates. We kept them, rode them, raced them, mythologised them and turned them into artefacts. We’ve polluted their waters and our fishing nets have trapped them. Our shore lights have disoriented them, preventing them from seeing the light of the moon, from finding the blue they know.

And we’ve eaten them. The ancient Chinese praised the medicinal properties of turtle broths and spoke of eggs “as large as duck eggs, and perfectly round. When eaten fresh they are more delicious than birds’ eggs.” (Their endangered cousins’s eggs are probably still savoured in Terengganu, even as conservationists resist.) So popular was turtle soup in 18th-19th century England, with the zing of lemons and cayenne, or the umami of butter and bacon, that they were almost driven to extinction, spurring the evolution of “mock turtle soup”, made with the heads of calves and other offal. In the US, from Native Americans to the White House, turtles slipped their way into diets. One of Heinz’s famed 57 varieties was “Real Turtle Soup”. The herbal Singaporean version, made with (possibly) sustainable turtles, is an anatomical sight to behold: gelatinous carapace, meaty flesh, globular yellow eggs, and other edible bits and bobs a reminder that dismemberment preceded moreishness.

This week we learned of the human toll of this delicacy. Bobby Chu, 65-year-old proprietor of the 60-year-old Very Lucky Turtle Soup, now in Jalan Besar, announced the shop’s closure this August. His parents had started the original stall in the 1960s, and he’d joined as a kid. In April, after feeling dizzy, he was rushed to the hospital, where a doctor told him he’d contracted a virus and that his leg suffered from poor blood circulation due to his long working hours, standing 14 hours a day. He was hospitalised for three weeks. Enough is enough, but Chu’s turned down offers from his two sons. “Practising this trade requires you to have determination. Those who are not interested will find it difficult to do it in the long run,” he told Shin Min. Instead, he’s looking to sell his recipes for S$40,000 to any willing apprentice, whom he’ll also train. In a world of struggles there are many beings, it seems, who may not wish upon their progeny that journey into the deep.

History weekly by Faris Joraimi

Last week’s land swap between the Singapore government and Tunku Ismail, regent of Johor, prompted surprise among online users that “foreign governments” still own Singapore land. Until the swap, the regent owned two plots near the Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG). Only one was swapped for Singaporean state land, so that any development that Tunku Ismail undertakes on his land will be some distance from the SBG. Presumably, our government wants a greater say in the area surrounding the SBG, especially given the latter’s UNESCO World Heritage status. 

Tunku Ismail’s land has been privately owned by the Johor ruling family for generations. But until 1824, all of Singapore and the islands around it were “owned” by Tunku Ismail’s ancestors, the Temenggungs of Johor. They did not own it like one owns land now, as a commodity bought and sold. This was their domain (jajahan) which they ruled in the name of the sultan of Johor, who was in Lingga. The Teochews, who ran gambier and pepper plantations when Raffles arrived, had planted them only upon the Temenggungs’ invitation and official permission. Even after the Temenggungs ceded Singapore to the British, they remained in the town’s high society. Temenggung—later Maharaja, later Sultan—Abu Bakar (1833-1895) spent much time in Singapore while modernising Johor’s mainland. (By then, the family of Johor’s “sultans” were demoted to rulers of Riau-Lingga only. It’s all a bit confusing.) Abu Bakar’s wealth brought him international connections and prestige, but also grand residences. Istana Woodneuk and Istana Tyersall, Abu Bakar’s Singapore residences, were located on the plots of land adjoining the SBG today. 

Tyersall, now demolished, was one of the first buildings in Singapore lit by electricity; it was located in “Plot B” of the Singapore Land Authority’s plan, which will remain with Tunku Ismail. Woodneuk, a ruin in the wilderness, is in Plot C, the swapped parcel now owned by the Singapore government. It was the home of Khadijah Khanum, a Circassian lady from the Ottoman empire whom Abu Bakar married as his fourth wife in 1893. Now the haunt of paranormal investigators, the dilapidated mansion will remain undisturbed until the government has plans to develop Plot C. There’s no reason to wonder about the Johor royals’s continued ownership of—admittedly large—land parcels. As private landowners, they exercise no sovereignty here. A potpourri of foreigners own slivers of our expensive little island. These ones just happen to have an older relationship to it, and exercise a different kind of ownership. 

Arts: Access for all

A dancer, wheelchair strapped to his waist, puts his wheels up in a dramatic headstand. One of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies is retold, wordlessly, by a deaf Lear. And instead of the traditional white surtitles against a black background, we see text that might crackle, fade, or shuffle through typefaces and colours as performers speak, conveying their vocal registers through creative captioning. Disability access, once the exception, is becoming the norm in the performing arts here. Both national arts platforms and smaller nonprofits have been programming work by artists with disabilities into main season showcases, and are also seeking out disability-led consultancies and social enterprises to make arts experiences engaging for able-bodied and disabled audience members alike. 

The latest arrival is Rebirth Ensemble, a consultancy studio committed to “multi-sensory, accessible art experiences for all abilities”. Its artist-couple founders are disabled themselves. Amanda Yip has retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary eye condition that causes progressive vision loss. And Shalom Lim has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative neuromuscular condition that weakens skeletal and heart muscles over time; he currently uses both a wheelchair and a ventilator. They met at a theatre workshop in 2023, and have been inseparable ever since. Lim told CNA, “we want to show that even with severe disabilities, we can still thrive, flourish and be the people we want to be.”

Rebirth Ensemble joins the likes of Equal Dreams and Access Path Productions, homegrown organisations that have been crucial in implementing and normalising a whole suite of access services in the arts. These include audio descriptions and touch tours of sets for blind and low-vision audience members, and relaxed environments that embrace what might conventionally be considered disruptions to a show. You can stretch your legs, have a chat about what’s on stage, go to the toilet any time you like—especially helpful for those with autism and sensory sensitivities, or parents wrangling young children. “COLONY”, at the recent Singapore International Festival of Arts, offered all of these options, and more. Videos spliced into the show revealed a rehearsal process freighted with frictions: Zoom glitches, language barriers, fraught conversations. But both the onstage and offstage worlds of the rehearsal studio and the crumbling city eventually find their equilibrium as the performers turn the corner from chagrin to camaraderie. It’s an apt metaphor for access in the arts: expect some abrasion as we adjust to each other, but relish the delight when that alignment comes. 

Tech: Bringing AI home

Not long ago, AI was the exclusive domain of tech giants with deep pockets.. Now, Singapore is flipping the script with its AI Cloud Takeoff programme, bringing enterprise-grade AI within reach of 300 local companies through a public-private push. The initiative, spearheaded by Google Cloud and Digital Industry Singapore, combines S$500,000 incentives with hands-on support to help businesses build or adopt AI products. 

This isn’t theoretical moonshot thinking. The program builds on a proven 2024 pilot that already equipped 30 firms with AI capabilities, from automated customer service to predictive maintenance. The support structure of Google’s cloud credits and workshops addresses technical barriers, while milestone-based funding ensures real-world implementation. If successful, this template could be exported across South-east Asia, turning Singapore’s homegrown AI revolution into a regional transformation. After years of watching Silicon Valley dominate AI, Singapore is attempting to write its own playbook one cloud credit at a time.

Tech: From Temasek to Danantara 

Indonesia has named its new sovereign wealth fund Danantara. A portmanteau of Daya (Strength), Anagata (future), and Nusantara (the Indonesian name for the archipelago), it reflects the nation’s ambitions for itself and the region. The fund has already made a bold overture to partner with Singapore’s Temasek, signalling a strong desire to fast-track the country’s renewable energy goals. President Prabowo hopes to leverage Temasek’s investment expertise to transform Batam, Bintan, and Karimun, strategic islands near Singapore, into low-carbon industrial hubs. The proposed collaboration represents more than financial synergy; it’s a knowledge transfer opportunity, with Danantara explicitly modelling itself after Temasek’s S$389bn success story.

This partnership could redefine South-east Asia’s energy landscape. Temasek’s established networks in sustainable infrastructure (through portfolio companies like Sembcorp) combined with Indonesia’s vast natural resources creates ideal conditions for large-scale green projects. However, the venture’s success hinges on navigating complex cross-border regulations and ensuring equitable benefits—as we’ve written before, green energy development, whatever its merits, often has a social and environmental impact on vulnerable communities in our neighbourhood, including through displacement, land degradation and environmental damage. This will be a test case for how Singapore’s financial sophistication can catalyse development in its neighbours. As the two nations take the lead in energy transition, this alliance may set the template for South-South cooperation in sustainable industrialisation.

Faris Joraimi, Abhishek Mehrotra, Corrie Tan, and Sudhir Vadaketh wrote this week’s edition. Additional contributions by Liyana Batrisyia and Sakinah Saifee.

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