News this week included: Singapore’s 2026 GDP growth forecast at 2-4 percent following stellar first quarter; SCMP analysis of the costs of our regional AI boom; ST commentary on why Singapore isn’t great at nurturing homegrown tech giants; chief justice on the challenge of “truth decay” and “echo chambers”; closing oral submissions at the ministers vs Bloomberg trial; Lim Chu Kang land-use changes for agriculture and defence (and the farms affected); war has not deterred Asian Muslims from the haj; ERP may return to Orchard; identity theft almost leads to S$2.9m fraudulent loan; hullabaloo about performing the azan, the Muslim call to prayer, as part of a Pulau Ubin tour; TWC2’s director on three practical measures to help migrant workers; English or Singlish over mother tongues, says new IPS survey; the first local brain tumour removal through eye socket; ST investigation into the Pokemon trading boom; young professionals earning well, but feeling poor; personal bankruptcies on the rise; a new father builds a baby tracker with AI; over 1,000 new marine species discovered last year, with 90 percent still unknown; and a cute little rat on the MRT!

Below are the issues we explore in depth:

Politics: Time to Koon

Calling himself “an absent husband, father and son”, Koh Poh Koon, senior minister of state for both manpower and health, resigned as a political office holder effective June 1st. He’ll remain an MP for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). So rare are such mid-term departures from this well-oiled political machine that some online cruelly speculated, without evidence, about possible adultery with a colleague (as has happened before, on either side of the aisle). More sensible views from professors and analysts touched on the sheer toll of political life.

A Singaporean minister’s workload was pithily captured by Adriel Yong, a co-founder of Clouted and an angel investor, on LinkedIn: “Ministers here run substantive portfolios. often two. plus a statutory board seat or two. plus party roles. plus constituency MP duties from weekly meet-the-people sessions running past midnight, multiple weekend constituency events and weekday house visits.” Yong, suggesting it’s less a failure of character than design, also critiqued the “cascade” effect, whereby a minister sets the “operating rhythm” for their subordinates, which then flows down to others in the ministry and possibly even to grassroots volunteers, all seized by the (real or perceived) sense of overdrive. 

Is it time to rethink ministerial workloads? Among the reasons to suspect little will change are the notions that million-dollar salaries must be accompanied by relentless work; and that some ministers, perhaps power-hungry, might be loath to let go of their sweeping responsibilities and extensive facetime opportunities in this unique retail politics environment created by the workaholic Lee Kuan Yew. Still, Koh’s brave decision should hopefully lead to some introspection in a society trying to promote fertility. It “points to a structural truth about our society: the disproportionate burden of caregiving that remains heavily gendered,” wrote Margaret Thomas, former AWARE president. To be clear, ministers aren’t the only ones struggling to juggle work, family (including caregiving responsibilities), leisure, and rest in our frenetic society—at least they get paid for it, a cynic might quip. (And no, Koh: not everybody has a car.)

The electoral and governance impact on the PAP will be negligible, particularly considering the numerous new, young politicians elected last year. It might be a good time, cracked Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at NUS, for the party to assess how many of Koh’s duties could be replaced by their newest saviour: AI.

Society: Singapore’s AI discourse is skewed and partisan

Following in the footsteps of his namesake, who addressed the ills of the industrial revolution 135 years ago, Pope Leo XIV this week issued his first papal encyclical, an open letter meant to guide the choices of Catholics. Titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), the over 40,000 word document’s subtext is “On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence”. The introduction’s first line reaches for the scripture’s most devastating parable of delusional utopia. “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”

Pope Leo XIV called for, among other things, government regulation of AI firms; worker protections; critical education about the technology for students; the shielding of kids from AI-generated violence, sex, and falsehoods; and safeguards to keep weapon use in human hands. A messenger of God was speaking to those who want to become one—their messianic dreams fuelled by a technology that has already solved complex math and biochemistry problems, and promises to revolutionise medicine. Who needs prayer when you have algorithms? In Silicon Valley, the epicentre of the US’s AI industry, the first American pope’s warnings were largely poo-poohed. And yet joining him on stage at the Vatican this week was Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, a major AI developer. Olah worried about “a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing…We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.” 

Do we have these moral voices in Singapore Inc? In recent weeks, even as societies elsewhere have engaged in deep rumination about AI, the official messaging here has been almost entirely about its benefits. There’s Lawrence Wong, prime minister, devoting large chunks of his May Day rally to AI’s opportunities. There’s Vivian Balakrishnan, foreign minister, wowing the AI Engineer Singapore conference with his experience of building a personal agent. There’s Josephine Teo, minister for digital development and information, arguing for widespread adoption as Singapore strives to become “a leading AI hub”. The corporate machine is moving in lockstep: OpenAI has committed over S$300m for its first Applied AI lab outside the US; data centres are spreading across Johor; and nuclear power is on the horizon to fuel our dreams. Recent GDP growth and manufacturing output numbers have been buoyed by AI.

Most establishment concerns seem to be around security threats, not workers’ rights. Yes, government initiatives like IMDA’s AI Verify Foundation make all the right noises about inclusive growth. And Wong did acknowledge that the impact of AI on jobs will be greater than with previous technological revolutions. “We may not be able to protect every job. But we will protect every worker.” But the government’s tripartite approach has always favoured the interests of capital over labour. “AI displacement could be the first disruption where the interests of workers, employers and the state diverge sharply enough to test that [tripartite] mode,” said The Straits Times (ST). The more progressive ideas have instead come from the opposition Workers’ Party, for instance a National AI Equity Fund that would tax rich corporations and pay dividends to every Singaporean. A partisan debate seems to be emerging, with ST calling “AI disruption” the next possible political battleground. Will every establishment journalist, professor, and expert fall dutifully in line with the PAP’s headlong embrace of AI?

Society: Beyond ‘wrapping it up’

Viral loads in HIV patients on antiretrovirals (ARVs) for more than six months become undetectable in blood tests. At this point, the patients can no longer transmit the disease. Global public health campaigns have long used the “U=U” (Undetectable=Untrasmittable) mantra to promote access to treatment and reduce the stigma associated with HIV.

But prevention is always better than cure. “Where is the prep????”, asked a netizen in response to a Mothership social media post on the recent rise of HIV cases among Singapore residents—166 new cases in 2025, up from 151 a year earlier (but still markedly fewer than the 455 a decade ago). Some 65 percent of these were detected during regular medical care, and the majority were late-stage infections. 

Leong Mun Wai, a former non-Constituency MP, asked Parliament in 2023 about the feasibility of subsidising pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), medications for preventing HIV transmission. Ong Ye Kung, minister of health, responded that subsidies would not be given since PrEPs and PEPs are not “fully effective”, and to “avoid sending the wrong signal that these drugs can substitute the recommended HIV prevention methods, such as avoiding casual sex and correct use of condoms”. 

PrEP is an HIV-preventive oral pill; taken before sex, it can reduce the risk of contracting HIV. The Department of STI Control (DSC), Singapore’s only public sexual health clinic, has cited various studies showing that taken daily, PrEP reduces HIV contraction risk by 75-86 percent in real-world trials, rising to 90-92 percent when blood tests confirm people are actually taking it. PEP is a different pill taken daily for four weeks; the first dose must be administered within 72 hours of a possible exposure. Its efficacy can be more than 80 percent if used as prescribed. Despite their efficacy, access to PrEPs and PEPs remains a significant barrier in the absence of subsidies—a brand-name PrEP like Truvada can cost around S$400 a month while PEP treatment ranges from S$400 to S$800. Recognising this, Australia has enacted PrEP subsidies while there are growing calls in the UK to further expand access. 

Meanwhile, condoms—fairly affordable, widely recognised as one of the most effective measures (abstinence being the most effective, of course) against HIV transmission or other sexually-transmitted infections—are technically also “not fully effective” because Singapore’s condom literacy is poor. A 2022 local Durex survey of 400 young adults aged 18 to 29 found that 43 percent believed a tighter condom offers better protection, and nearly one in three thought that doubling up on condoms improves safety. Both are false. More troubling, over 35 percent did not know if mosquitos can carry Sexually Transmitted Infections, including HIV, from one person to another (they can’t). These insights indicate a strong need for sexual health education remedials. 

Public health is fundamentally about harm reduction, and prevention systems should not deal in binaries. Framing condoms as PrEP and PEP substitutes misses this point entirely. HIV prevention exists along a continuum—from education and testing to condoms, PEP, and PrEP—and an equitable public health system should support it in full.

Sport: Dope or dopey?

The gloss of 21st century sport feeds the belief that professional athletes are laughably wealthy. That may be true of the upper echelons but they are dwarfed by the number of individuals who are extraordinarily talented yet not elite enough to earn a comfortable living. In many sports, even the best barely scrape by. Injury is a constant spectre; retirement looms as a financial cliff. “[Y]ou never get into swimming for the money…that’s fine to say when you’re 20, 23 years old, but when you get to 28 or 30, it’s a very different story,” said Ben Proud, silver medallist for Great Britain in the 50m freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The precarity was what drew Proud and 41 others to the Enhanced Games—a competition modelled after the Olympics that allows professional athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) banned in official tourneys, with life-altering sums on offer.

The athletes are the only ones to have elicited any sympathy from detractors alarmed by this push to normalise doping. The stickiest criticism concerns a brazen conflict of interest: Enhanced Inc, the publicly-listed company behind the games, also hawks testosterone, peptides, and a blizzard of other unregulated supplements whose long-term effects remain uncertain. That’s risky for athletes taking them, and potentially far riskier for laypeople who neither exercise for a living nor have the same access to doctors, trainers, and monitoring systems. One (unconscionable) justification is that millions are doing it anyway: the global appetite for supplements which includes the kinds being offered by Enhanced is projected to double from US$200bn (S$255.7bn) to US$400bn (S$511.4bn) within a decade.

Still, it’s difficult to shrug off the suspicion that at least some of the censure is a reaction to style, not substance. Among Enhanced’s backers are Silicon Valley billionaires and Donald Trump Jr, and so, unsurprisingly, the messaging accompanying the event was nauseously messianic. “We have changed the world tonight,” crowed CEO Maximilian Martin at the end of the Games’ inaugural edition. They had done nothing of the sort. Only one world record was broken (even that’s controversial), and three “clean” athletes, including one in the hyped 100m dash, beat their juiced rivals. Strip away all the wild claims though, and the results were quite notable. For instance, several athletes past their prime beat personal bests from years, in some cases more than a decade, earlier. They hint at the promise that PEDs may extend careers, with longer-lasting primes.

This raises questions about the very nature of sport and its meaning for fans. Purists are unequivocal: no enhancements, ever. But they’re on thin ground when one considers that not only do sanctioned enhancements exist, they’ve also changed over time. Creatine, a muscle-growth stimulant is allowed. As is caffeine, which would have been an unremarkable thing to note if it had not been banned until 2004. Besides, if reports of rampant doping in supposedly clean sports are even remotely true, purists may be deluding themselves. The moral panic also seems odd in a world where marathoners are celebrated for setting records wearing “super-shoes” and all manner of athletes are forever on the lookout for gear that gives them even the slightest edge. Is mechanical doping fairer than chemical?

So, a thought experiment: in a world where PEDs were proven safe and detached from morality, where athletes partook not from desperation but desire, and where organisers’ primary motivation was performance not profit, would professional sport retain its charm?

Culture: Inconvenient truths

We all know that orange, green and red-striped beacon, that fluorescent lighthouse in the dark. Its well-stocked aisles hold a promise for both the partier and the overtimer: a readymade supper for the weary soul. The golden slick of butter chicken briyani, microwaved to scorching perfection inside a sturdy plastic film tub, those go-to cigarettes, a vodka mixer, or a spire of ice-cream. We’ve all made our late-night and early-morning pilgrimages to the cathedral of convenience: 7-Eleven. The man who spread its gospel died earlier this month, aged 93. All the conveniences we take for granted—from parcel drop-offs to bill payment to thick wedges of onigiri—can be traced back to Toshifumi Suzuki’s savvy. He brought the American chain to eastern Tokyo in the 1970s, and there are now 22,000 across the country. Gavin Whitelaw, Japanese Studies scholar, observed that the convenience store—anointed as a neighbourhood community centre—has become part of the country’s public infrastructure, where a child might complete a first solo errand, or a young person might seek refuge from a stalker. The store doubles as a post office and bank in remote rural areas, and often acts as a provider of essential supplies and information during natural disasters. “People feel a certain sense of affinity and a sense of relief when they see these stores,” Whitelaw told The New York Times. 

In Singapore, we once sought out these spaces in the form of our mom-and-pop minimarts, and the mamak shops that lined our void decks. Their storekeepers were also keepers of the neighbourhood: our therapists, afterschool caregivers, phone operators, port of call. Yahyah Amudin opened his Ang Mo Kio mamak shop in 1980, and was so trusted by the community that parents would instruct their kids to wait there for a pick-up. In 2011 the octogenarian had to shutter his store for good, because of his failing health, and failing business. In the 1970s-80s, Singapore had about 3,000 provision shops; as of last year, only some 250 remained. As our family-run shops recede, unmanned and AI-powered convenience stores are on the rise. Vloggers and influencers have made a genre out of convenience store mukbang, chowing down 7-Eleven fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner and extolling the virtues of their open-door policies. And Singapore’s 7-Eleven branches are leaning into TikTok trends like blind boxes and drink mixing to “stay relevant” as they go through a fresh round of revamps. 

But perhaps what was most convenient about our mamak shops was their understanding of inconvenience. “We cannot know each other without being inconvenient to each other,” wrote the literary scholar Lauren Berlant, “We cannot be in any relation without being inconvenient to each other.” The uncles and aunties who run our mamak shops know that customers with dementia might accidentally bring items home without paying for them, that harried parents might need an extra eye on their kids after school, that if an elderly regular doesn’t show up, something might be wrong. A Redditor recalled never having to pay for groceries as a 10-year-old because of these informal, credit-based systems, and paid homage to the comforting chaos of their local hangout, and hideout. “Uncle always behind the counter cracking jokes while auntie watched everyone like a hawk,” the commenter wrote. “The uncle and auntie have since passed on and the shop is no more—the whole market complex was bulldozed for a development that never quite took shape and is now an empty field near the entrance to the Thomson Tree Top Walk.”

Abhishek Mehrotra, Sakinah Safiee, Corrie Tan, and Sudhir Vadaketh wrote this week’s issue.

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