Tough challenges ahead to achieve common prosperity given wealth gap in country, says China

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wealth disparity, with the top 1 per cent owning more wealth than the poorer half of the population in total by some estimates.

China's Gini coefficient fell to 0.468 last year, down from a peak of 0.491 in 2008

"We will continue to control and narrow the wealth gap," Mr Ning said, pointing to the charity sector as one way to do so...Technology giants Alibaba and Tencent have pledged 100 billion yuan (S$21 billion) each to support China's march towards common prosperity. Other big names that have done likewise include Pinduoduo, Xiaomi and Meituan, which collectively have donated billions to social causes.

Ultraman Tiga yanked from streaming sites as Beijing steps up scrutiny of children's shows

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boycott on children's programmes that depict violence, gore and pornography as a reason for Ultraman Tiga's removal.

Unsuitable language and the portrayal of undesirable behaviours such as smoking, theft and aggression are common occurrences among the programmes, which include Pokemon, Peppa Pig and Detective Conan.

supportive of the ban on Ultraman Tiga because children may imitate behaviours they watch on television. She added that her nine-year-old son talks constantly about fighting and killing after watching shows such as Ultraman, and she is worried that he is normalising violence....She is also annoyed at how shows can encourage children to buy merchandise such as collectors' cards.

the games, called "jubensha" in Chinese and which typically involve participants taking on roles to solve a murder, can "potentially distort reality for young players"....."if a game's content is too scary and thrilling, it may cause players... especially minors, to confuse the plot and reality, resulting in mental problems". Jubensha shops have been known to pull out all the stops, including providing costumes and holographic projections, to provide players with an immersive experience.

Beijing has been on a drive to clean up the Internet to make sure that those under 18 are better protected. In recent months, regulators have ordered China's technology giants, such as Tencent and Alibaba, to purge their platforms of soft pornography involving children, and increase efforts to prevent minors from becoming addicted to online gaming.

TikTok's latest craze: Stealing stuff from school

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Try to compare this with the ice bucket challenge which is also a dare, but at the same time with a purpose: to create awareness of a medical condition, and to raise funds....

In Singapore, two teenagers are under investigation for possible vandalism of government property in acts that are believed to be linked to a TikTok challenge, said the police on Tuesday (Sept 21). Both cases involved the removal of government signs

"It is our understanding that this inappropriate behaviour likely stemmed from a 'challenge' promoted through various social media platforms, particularly Tik-Tok

other platforms, like Reddit or Tumblr, have also hosted communities where people would give tips on stealing, or share what they stole.

Three countries refute Nicki Minaj's claim that vaccine causes swollen testicles

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"My cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine because his friend got it and became impotent. His testicles became swollen."

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson was drawn into commenting on the viral tweet, which went out to Minaj's 22.7 million followers and was retweeted 117,000 times. When asked about it at a press conference, he said that he would rather get Covid-19 information from Dr Nikki Kanani, NHS England's medical director of primary care, than from Minaj.

"There is a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media, and the only way we know how to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information and to essentially debunk these kind of claims which may be innocent on her part."

she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis except for a one-off anecdote, and that is not what science is all about.

Excellent example on social media/celebrities propagating fakes news (misinformation / disinformation) .....people not buying into science...

Qn: ‘Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone’s opinion is of equal value.’ What is your view? (Cam. 2016)

Foreign manpower: The most worrisome fault line in Singapore

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"You drive, you don't even take the MRT, you don't know what it is like!"

how wide the gulf seems to be, between the official line on this issue and the concerns of Singaporeans raised by MPs.

the fault line over different lived realities, evident in the debate on foreign talent and on other issues.

The problem arises when some local workers feel their lived realities do not gel with such stories, or that the official version makes light of their job fears and their struggles to make ends meet.

"lived realities on the ground could be very different to ours" - in effect acknowledging the gap in social reality that exists between legislators (including those from opposition parties) and the people they legislate for.

Different lived realities can create barriers in understanding that develop into policy blind spots on policymakers' part, and into personal prejudice and bias in individuals who then dismiss official narratives. When this happens, a gap of credibility and empathy develops between people and government.

Qn: Should decision-making be entirely in the hands of experts?

World's first commercial cultured meat production facility operational in Singapore

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pave the way for more such protein alternatives to enter the Singapore market and boost food security for the Republic.

Eat Just's Good Meat cultivated chicken is available here via the foodpanda delivery platform from Madame Fan, the Cantonese restaurant at JW Marriott Singapore South Beach.

Cultured meat refers to meat products that are made from growing animal cells in a bioreactor - similar to the vats used in brewing beer - instead of slaughtering actual chickens.

Alternative proteins are gaining traction globally amid growing consciousness about the massive carbon footprint of rearing livestock for food, which produces about 15 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions,

Singapore the only country which has approved the sale of such products here

Relate to issues on food security, self-sufficiency, reducing carbon footprints, resolving ethical concerns over eating meat by avoiding killing....Note how technology can resolve ethical issues instead of just creating them like in AI..... 

PSP's Hazel Poa, Manpower Minister Tan See Leng debate jobs created for locals

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I don't know about u, but there's some very sharp observation here! GASP!

Ms Poa argued that a portion of the jobs Dr Tan said had been created in the past 15 years could have been due to the "reclassification" of permanent residents (PRs) who became citizens and foreign workers who became PRs, and were not actually new jobs.

Ms Poa presented a scenario where 1,000 foreigners holding PME jobs obtained PR status, causing the 1,000 jobs to now be classified as a growth in local jobs despite no actual increase taking place.

which were actual jobs created and which were due to the "technicalities" of a job holder's status being reclassified

he PRs become citizens, so there's a drop in the PRs, and then the new foreigners go in to fill up that PR numbers. So as a whole, the number of citizens plus PRs actually increases. That base increases, and therefore leading to an increase in the number of local PME jobs purely due to reclassification, not job creation.

Qns: 

1. How reliable are statistics as a guide for planning the future? (Cam. 2020)

2. Discuss the view that too much faith is placed in statistics. (Cam. 2008)

3. Statistics measure everything but prove nothing. Discuss. (Cam. 2003)

Tennis: Raducanu can become one of world's most marketable athletes

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Of the world's 10 highest-paid sportswomen, nine are tennis players.

Russian Maria Sharapova into the highest-earning female athlete after she won Wimbledon aged 18, with off-court career earnings of around US$320 million.

Athletics: Vienna marathon winner disqualified after shoes' soles violate rules

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How do you think this affects sport's ability to inspire people to greater heights, and the triumph of the human spirit? What about sports that rely heavily on technology such as F1 races (compared with Tour de France's cycling)? 

disqualified soon after when the soles of his shoes were found to be one centimetre too thick and in violation of the rules.

Australia vows to keep mining coal despite climate warning

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Australia's energy exports were needed to power developing countries, and predicted that technology would enable them to be burned "in a much more climate-friendly way" in future.

Environmentalists argue that inaction on climate change could cost Australia's economy billions of dollars as the country suffers more intense bush fires, storms and floods. But Canberra has refused to adopt a net-zero emissions target and remains one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters.

Coal exports brought in A$50 billion (S$49.6 billion) a year and the industry provided direct jobs for 50,000 Australians

Qn: 

1. Assess the view that attempts to control climate change can never be truly effective. (Cam. 2017

2. Discuss the view that, with an increasing global need for energy, every possible source should be exploited to the full. (Cam. 2014)

Men in China go under the knife to boost life chances

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Qn: 'People should have absolute authority over their own body,' Discuss. (NYJC Prelim 2021)

Forum: Rigour, scale of competition at Olympics greater than that at Paralympics

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Can a case of equal treatment lead to unfairness? Think "There is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals".

.Qn:  In your society, how far is equality for all a reality? (Cam. 2012)

'Tainted celebrities': What's behind China's crackdown on the entertainment industry?

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Think notion of fostering public morality......

Qn: 'Celebrities and politics should not mix.' Discuss.

Taliban orders university women in Afghanistan to wear face-covering niqab

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Qn: 'People should have absolute authority over their own body,' Discuss. (NYJC Prelim 2021)

Paralympian Yip Pin Xiu has earned respect and deserves parity

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Life isn't fair and neither is sport (as if Yip requires any lessons on either). Tennis folk are more famous than judokas and footballers get paid more in a week than wrestlers in a career. This, we are told, is the reality of the sporting world, where popularity and TV viewership determine salary and sponsorship.

Except that's how sporting leagues might see sport but not how nations should. This monetary award isn't about business, it is recognition of a citizen's contribution to their nation. 

Qn. In your society, how far is equality for all a reality? (Cam. 2012)

China's booming plastic surgery market fuels a shadow industry

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Having slim calves is the latest beauty fad and this came shortly after pointed ears were the rage, with people believing that having elf-like ears would make their faces look slimmer and younger.

The heavy emphasis on beauty in the country has also resulted in women being known to participate in body challenges such as holding eggs on their collarbones, fitting into kid-sized clothing and having waists slim enough that can be covered by an A4-sized piece of paper.

the concept of beauty is increasingly twisted, particularly in first-tier cities such as Beijing where there is more pressure to adhere to a very narrow definition of beauty" like fairer skin and tiny waists.

Chinese citizens were not averse to cosmetic surgery because they were used to the concept of "staged beauty". During the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, for example, a child singer mouthed along to a pre-recorded song by another child because the original singer was deemed "not cute enough". "There isn't really a high value placed on authenticity in Chinese society...considers nips and tucks as a way to get ahead in life.

We all recognise that there is pressure to look good in China, where competition for jobs and romantic partners is stiff. We all want to stand out

For Qn below, relate to domestic abuse/marital rape; vaccination; abortion; euthanasia; sex operation to change gender; tattoos; food that we eat?; clothing?

Qn: 'People should have absolute authority over their own body,' Discuss. (NYJC Prelim 2021)

As China shifts left, the rich get nervous

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China's Gini coefficient, which measures income gap, remains high at between 0.46 and 0.47 (with 0 being complete equality and 1 complete inequality). The country's wealth gap is even higher at 0.7, with its richest 1 per cent holding 30 per cent of the country's total wealth

when the fruits of economic development are excessively concentrated in a small number of people, the masses will lose the incentive to keep striving for a better life....Earlier this year, a new phenomenon of tangping, or "lying flat", surfaced, in which young people choose to step off the rat race and live a minimalist life.

Qn: 'Life is about competition. Winning is the goal.' 

Autonomous robots check on bad behaviour in Singapore's heartland

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Acting as a tireless set of eyes, Xavier is an autonomous robot designed to weed out “undesirable social behaviours” 

these robots will be on the lookout for errant smokers, illegal hawkers, motorcycle and e-scooter riders on footpaths, and gatherings that exceed the current limits on group sizes

Equipped with cameras that have a 360-degree field of vision and can see in the dark, the robots will be able to alert public officers in real time to these offences. They will also be able to broadcast and display messages educating the public against such undesirable behaviour.

help to improve operational efficiency and reduce manpower needs for foot patrols

The name Xavier, which means “new home” in Basque

used to enforce social distancing at a foreign worker dormitory and a government quarantine facility amid the pandemic last year.

robotic swans have been gliding around reservoirs, monitoring water quality in real time

Qns: 

1) To what extent can the use of technology regulate social behaviour?

2) How far has technology helped in the fight against crime? (SAJC J2 Mid-yr 2021)

Producing 1 Pair of Jeans leads to 30kg of CO2

 

Qn: 'Fashion is always frivolous. ' What is your view? (NYJC Prelim 2021) [A good idea for fast fashion....be careful not to just list the pros and cons of fashion. Ensure that u link them to the idea of 'frivolous' for relevance.]