Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej “was one of the most respected, remembered monarchs of the modern era”, Singapore President Halimah Yacob said yesterday (Oct 26) just before attending the royal cremation ceremony.

During the ceremony, President Halimah and her husband, Mohamed Abdullah Alhabshee, laid sandalwood flowers at the royal funeral pyre, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a statement.

“His Majesty had been in power for 70 years… and during that period, he had initiated many royal development projects, and those projects have empowered many Thai people and benefited them as well,” she told Singapore media during her first overseas trip since she assumed office on Sept 14. “He is very well loved.”

Madam Halimah also said that King Bhumibol laid the foundation for the strong bilateral relationship between Singapore and Thailand.

Thailand was one of the first few countries to recognise Singapore when it became independent in 1965, she noted. Solid bilateral relations are built on economic and strategic ties, and also regular people-to-people exchanges. Thailand received more than one million visitors from Singapore last year.

“This relationship will continue to endure,” Madam Halimah said.

“We look forward to working very closely with His Majesty Maha Vajiralongkorn, and we certainly feel a deep sense of loss.”

Madam Halimah returns to Singapore today (Oct 27).

In its statement, MFA noted that King Bhumibol “worked tirelessly and was a pillar of strength for the people of Thailand”.

“His wise leadership also set a solid foundation for the strong and enduring ties between Singapore and Thailand. He will long be remembered by not only the Thai people, but also the rest of the world,” it said.

In October last year, both then-President Tony Tan Keng Yam and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made visits to Bangkok to pay respects to the late King at the Grand Palace.

Representatives from 42 countries will be attending the Royal Cremation Ceremony at Sanam Luang, where the 50-metre-tall crematorium is located. More than a dozen royals and senior officials of foreign governments would be arriving today, according to an official at the Foreign Ministry, adding that representatives of 21 countries had arrived in Thailand yesterday for the funeral.

King Jigme and Queen Jetsun with their son landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport a little before noon yesterday.

Their Majesties King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema Wangchuck of Bhutan

Their majesties were received by Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanont, who was serving as the representative of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn, and General Anantaphon Kanchanarat, Minister of Energy, as a representative of the Thai government.

The arrival of the Bhutanese monarch caught the attention of many Thais and the media, especially social media, as King Jigme has been popular in Thailand since he, as crown prince, attended King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 60th anniversary of his accession to the throne in 2006.

The Thai and Bhutanese royal families are close. King Jigme had visited Bangkok in October last year a few days after King Bhumibol passed away to pay homage to the late King.

The Bhutanese monarch has also organised special prayers in his kingdom today to honour the late Thai King. The event will be conducted at the Kuenselphodrang and His Holiness Je Khenpo will preside over the day-long special prayers.

The prayer ceremony will be attended by the members of the royal family, senior government officials, diplomatic corps, the Thai community living in Bhutan and tje general public.

King Jigme’s Facebook page said yesterday that King Bhumibol of Thailand was revered as a visionary not just in Thailand but all over the world.

The late King’s compassion and love for millions of Thai people has resulted in about 4,000 rural development projects, which have been at the forefront of innovation and continues to benefit millions of Thai to this day.

“In a lifetime of achievements, His Majesty the late King Bhumibol’s legacy of benevolence, vision and selfless persona will remain a hallmark of leadership and beacon of integrity for generations to come,” he wrote on his page.

Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini 

Other foreign royals who arrived yesterday for the Royal Cremation included their majesties King Tupou VI and Queen Nanasipau’u of Tonga, and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Her Majesty Queen Sofia of Spain

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, arrived in Thailand on Tuesday, while Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the prime minister of Bahrain, arrived on Saturday.

HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York

Representatives of foreign governments arriving in the Kingdom yesterday also included Vietnam’s Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh and South Korea’s Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Park Joo-sun. Prime Minister of Swaziland Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini arrived in Thailand on Tuesday.

US Secretary of Defence James Mattis 

Vietnam’s Deputy President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh

HM King Tupou VI and HM Queen Nanasipau’u of the Kingdom of Tonga.

Olga Epifanova, deputy chairperson of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation 

Alan Peter S. Cayetano, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines.

Their Majesties King David Mohato Bereng Seeiso Letsie III and Queen Masenate Mohato Seeiso of Lesotho

Htin Kyaw,President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and his wife Daw Su Su Lwin

Christian Wulff, Former President of the Federal Republic of Germany

Korea’s Vice National Assembly speaker Park Joo-sun 

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Fikri Isik 

Tilak Marapana, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Development Assignments of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

Indonesia’s former president Megawati Soekarnoputri

Sheikh Thani bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar

Cayetano said Trump had no intention of skipping the EAS, a forum held annually by leaders of countries in the East Asian region. Its membership has been expanded to include the US and Russia among others.

The Foreign Affairs secretary explained that Trump had been scheduled to be in Manila for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit on Nov. 12 to 13. The US president could not extend his stay up to Nov. 14.

“The decision was really that he will be here on 12th, 13th. We tried to accommodate. We tried to fix all the schedules. But since you’re dealing with more than a dozen world leaders plus the Asean, it’s very difficult to get all the schedules together,” he told reporters in an ambush interview in Manila.

“They were actually just waiting for the East Asia summit. Now that it has been finalized that the East Asia Summit will be on the 14th, it looks like his Secretary of State would be the one to attend,” he added.

“He (Trump) cannot extend another day kasi mahaba na iyong trip niya. Having said that, that’s normal,” he said.

“It would have been great if President Trump could attend all the activities but the reality is any world leader, especially of the United States, cannot spend too many days outside (their country),” he added.

“You can’t really attend everything,” Cayetano said.

He stressed, “The main signal is him coming here.”

Cayetano said Duterte and Trump would have a bilateral meeting where they would discuss issues on illegal drugs, security, terrorism, trade, and the economy.

Trump’s visit, Cayetano said, signals “a very, very strong message of friendship” with the Philippines.

The inclusion of Xi’s eponymous guiding philosophy for the nation at the end of a week-long congress could lay the foundation for him to remain China’s paramount leader far beyond his upcoming second five-year term.

Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong, and the architect of its market reforms, Deng Xiaoping, are the only other Chinese leaders to have their names in the document — and only Mao was alive when his was included.

Xi, 64, presided over the congress’s closing session where some 2,300 delegates approved the constitutional amendment to include “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”.

The concept places a heavy emphasis on the party’s role in governing every aspect of the country from the economy to what people are writing on social media.

“We must work tirelessly and forge ahead on the journey of realising the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Xi, who is due to be reappointed as party chief on Wednesday, told the congress in concluding remarks.

With his name in the constitution, Xi will have the last word on all political matters. He could stay on as the nation’s top leader even if he gives up the title of party general secretary when his second term ends in 2022, analysts said.

Xi’s predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao had their concepts included in the constitution, but without their names and only when they retired after two terms.

“China has a tradition of combining emperor and teacher, which means that the emperor is also the thought leader. Xi achieved it at the end of his first term. That’s rare in our history,” Chinese political scholar Hu Xingdou told AFP.

Xi also managed to get at least two of his cherished programmes written into the constitution: an anti-corruption campaign that has brought down 1.5 million crooked officials since 2012 and the Belt and Road initiative, the massive global trade infrastructure project intended to increase China’s influence abroad.

The congress declared the Communist Party China’s “absolute leader”, a clear sign that it intends to further tighten its grip on the country.

“Those who approve, raise your hands,” Xi said during the vote as a flurry of arms shot up in unison. When he asked if anyone was not in favour, shouts of “None!” echoed in the imposing Great Hall of the People.

“Now our country is unified, cohesive, and moving up in the world,” northeast Jilin province delegate Li Hualiang told AFP.

‘New era’

The congress also elected a new 204-member Central Committee, which included just 10 women. It will elect the party’s new ruling council, the Politburo Standing Committee, on Wednesday.

Xi is expected to secure a second five-year term as general secretary of the party and could also consolidate his power by filling the standing committee with allies, possibly without even presenting an obvious heir apparent.

A vast security apparatus was thrown around the congress, with businesses ranging from nightclubs to gyms closing to avoid any incidents and factories shuttered in what turned out to be a failed attempt to clear the city’s notorious smog.

When he opened the gathering last week, Xi declared that China had entered a “new era” with the ambitious goal of becoming a “global leader” by mid-century.

Xi has sought to portray himself as a responsible global leader while US President Donald Trump trumpets a nationalist “America First” policy and the European Union grapples with Britain’s exit.

His blueprint foresees no change in the single-party political system, and gives no sign that crackdowns on human rights activists will ease.

Some of his goals, such as building a modern military by 2035, go beyond the end of his second term, a hint that he foresees himself staying at the centre of China’s political life for years to come.

At the closing session, Xi said the congress established “the goal of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and then embarking on a journey to fully build a modern socialist China”.

‘Full control’

Despite Xi’s rising power, the composition of the Politburo Standing Committee, the body that controls power, will still be crucial to his efforts, said Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Xi and Premier Li Keqiang are expected to remain on the committee while the five other current members are supposed to step down under an informal retirement age set at 68.

There is no agreement among China-watchers about who will end up on the committee, or if anybody will emerge as a potential successor.

If the right allies are named, Lam said, it would show that “he has full control over the Politburo Standing Committee”.//AFP

Ahmad Zulfadzli Khamidi, 13, developed the app in just two weeks with training and guidance from the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creative Centre (MaGIC) at Borneo744 in Bintawa here.

He said the idea for the app came from his own experience of getting bored and sleepy quickly when studying textbooks.

“However, I faced some constraints in realising my dream. I had an idea but did not have the know-how in designing and writing the software codes for the app,” the second of four siblings told Berna­ma.

He said with this app, teachers no longer need to mark every exercise and exam paper, students do not have to bring books to schools and there would be no question of missing textbooks or insufficient stationery.

“The app is easy to use and suitable for students of all ages, whether in the primary, secondary or university level.

“For a start, it has English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathe­ma­tics and Science, but more can be added on later,” he said.

Ahmad Zulfadzli’s creation saw him winning the junior category of Hack Weekend KCH, a hacktahon held in conjunction with Tegas Youth Forum 2017 at the Borneo Convention Centre on Oct 14.

He said he was now in the process of completing his second app for small entrepreneurs in Sarawak to market their products.

“Story is something that is too human to be technologically driven.

“AI feels more like a trend than anything revolutionary. I have a hard time imagining AI influencing content, which is about how to tell a story and tell it well,” said Coffin.

“Content is aimed at human beings, so I’m not sure how stories not made by human beings will psychologically impact human beings.”

In the current content industry, distributors, including massive online platforms like Facebook, take away an excessive portion of the value created by content, according to Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of the UK foundation Nesta, which researches innovation.

Policy initiatives are under way to recycle the profits of often monopoly distributors and funnel them into production, he said.

“Some EU countries, particularly France and Germany, are strongly in favor of taxing giant distributors to fund small independents or creative production.”

How skilled jobs will be affected by new waves of technology is a “complicated but optimistic story,” Mulgan said.

“Even as some jobs are rapidly taken over by technology, the net effect will be to increase the number of labor-intensive jobs. That has been the case for the past few decades and will continue to be so for the next few.

“It’s likely there will be growth in health, education, hospitality in creative jobs — a big growth in creative jobs is likely.”

New forms of education in creative areas that encourage problem solving and fluency of ideas are essential, he said. “Most education ministries are stuck in the previous era.”

For the first time this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will be measuring how well countries encourage collaborative and creative problem solving in schools, he said.

AI is also making ripples in the Chinese content industry, said Zheng Quanzhan, head of Tencent Research Institute, which focuses on developments in the internet.

“In China, AI writes articles and even poems, and paints paintings,” said Zheng. “But in the end, AI is equipped with the algorithms and data that humans program into it.”

Tesla Inc confirmed on Monday that it is in talks with the Shanghai authorities for local production of electric vehicles.

The US firm is exploring the possibility of establishing a manufacturing facility in Shanghai to better serve the Chinese market, said a representative at its China operations referring to a statement made by the company in June. “As we have said before, we expect to more clearly define our plans for production in China by the end of the year.”

The representative declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday that Tesla has already reached a deal with the Shanghai city government and would build a wholly-owned manufacturing facility in the city’s free trade zone.

If the plans are indeed true, it would allow Tesla to slash the production and shipping costs of its cars sold to China. But since the cars would be manufactured in the city’s free trade zone, it would not get exemption from the import tax of 25 per cent.

At present, Tesla has just one manufacturing facility globally－in California, which has been facing several production bottlenecks.

The company is also looking to better expand its presence in the Chinese market, home to about 1 million new energy cars by the end of 2016.

On Monday the carmaker unveiled in Shanghai its largest charging station, which can accommodate 50 Tesla cars at the same time. So far Tesla has 700 charging posts in 170 Chinese cities.

Last week Tesla announced that it has modified the charging hardware on Tesla vehicles built for the Chinese market so that they can make use of the public charging infrastructure in the country.

If Tesla were to build a wholly-owned plant in China, it would be a major change in the country’s industrial policies which only allow foreign firms to set up joint ventures with local partners, be it inside or outside the free trade zones.

Last month the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission had said that China would further open up the new energy vehicle sector.

Yale Zhang, managing director of consulting firm Automotive Foresight, said Tesla’s localisation efforts, because of lower costs, will benefit its sales in China and the plant would also become a hub for other Asian markets.

Tesla delivered 13,500 cars in the first nine months of 2017 in China, more than double from a year earlier, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

Zhang said the move will also help boost China’s new energy car sector as a whole. “For instance, Tesla is more likely to work with local suppliers instead of shipping parts from overseas,” he said.

John Zeng, managing director of LMC Automotive Shanghai, said Tesla will set a good example for China’s new energy carmakers, most of whom are producing low-end cars.

Singapore is the best performer in Asia when it comes to providing adequate and sustainable income for retirement but there is room for improvement, said pensions expert Mercer yesterday (Oct 23).

Its annual report looked at 30 countries covering 60 per cent of the world’s population and scored pension systems on their adequacy, sustainability and integrity.

Singapore received a B rating with an overall index score of 69.4, up 2.4 points from a year earlier and well ahead of the global average of 59.9, it noted yesterday.

The higher score was down to improvements in both the adequacy and sustainability sub-indexes.

Mercer said no country got the elusive A grade, and urged “countries with unsustainable pension systems to take action now, rather than risk the need to take even more drastic action in the future”.

Singapore’s retirement income system is mainly based on the Central Provident Fund (CPF), which covers all employed citizens and permanent residents.

Garry Hawker, Mercer’s Asia zone wealth business coordinator and director of strategic research of growth markets, said in a statement: “Singapore has continued to make improvements through CPF in providing more flexibility to its members.”

Mercer noted changes to the CPF last year, including providing minimum pension top-ups for the poorest individuals, more flexibility in drawing down retirement pension amounts and increases to certain contribution rates.

Hawker added: “The overall index value for the Singaporean system could be further increased by reducing the barriers to establishing tax-approved group corporate retirement plans, opening CPF to non-residents who comprise more than one-third of the labour force, and increasing labour force participation rate (LFPR) at older ages as life expectancies rise.”

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM), which oversees the CPF scheme, welcomed the rating, noting that the “increase in Singapore’s index score reflects our continuous efforts to strengthen the CPF system to help Singaporeans improve their retirement adequacy and to provide greater flexibility to meet their retirement needs”.

As to reducing barriers to establishing tax-approved group corporate retirement plans, an MOM spokesman noted in response to Straits Times queries that the CPF system currently allows employers to supplement the retirement savings of their Singaporean employees above the mandatory CPF contributions via the CPF Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme and the Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS). It said these schemes have two advantages over corporate retirement plans.

“First, it benefits the employee as additional contributions to the CPF and SRS are fully portable unlike corporate retirement plans. Second, employers save on manpower costs by tapping the CPF and SRS as no additional hires are needed” to manage their own plans.

On labour, the MOM spokesman said Singapore currently has one of the highest LFPR rates for older workers compared to OECD countries. Singapore’s resident LFPR for workers aged 55 and over was 49.4 per cent last year, up from 36.3 per cent in 2006.

“Since July 1 this year, employers are obligated to re-employ their workers at least up to 67 years old – this is up from 65 previously.

“Based on our surveys, 98 per cent of local employees who wanted to keep working beyond the age of 62 were able to do so,” the spokesman added. “As to non-residents, the CPF system does not extend to them as their stay in Singapore is transient and they are not expected to retire here.”

This year’s index has Denmark retaining top position with an overall score of 78.9 – its sixth consecutive year on top – ahead of the Netherlands at 78.8 and Australia at 77.1.

“Denmark’s retirement income system comprises a public basic pension scheme, a means-tested supplementary pension benefit, a fully funded defined contribution scheme and mandatory occupational schemes,” said Hawker.

Dr David Knox, Mercer senior partner and the report’s author, said countries that scored well adopt a strong multi-pillar approach, even if they have different takes on pension systems.

Mercer’s president of health and wealth Jacques Goulet noted that Japan, Austria, Italy and France are among developed economies without a “sustainable model that will support current and future generations in their old age”.

He said: “If left unchanged, these systems will create societal pressures where pension benefits are not distributed equally between generations.”

A cyber attack on NIC Asia Bank, which reportedly lost millions of rupees last week in the biggest-ever cyber heist in Nepal, was imminent, as the banking institution had allowed staff of the Information Technology (IT) Department to use computers deployed for SWIFT transaction to perform tasks like checking personal e-mails, the Post has learned.This lapse left the bank’s computers vulnerable to cyber attacks, “enabling malwares”, or computer viruses, “to enter and corrupt the server”, according to sources who attended a meeting of IT heads of commercial banks called by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the banking sector regulator, on Monday. The bank, sources informed, had also given its staff remote access to server on which SWIFT system was installed, which was another Achilles’ heel of the institution.

These vulnerabilities were exploited by unidentified hackers, who reportedly stole millions of rupees from the bank on Thursday, a public holiday when the country was celebrating Laxmi Puja. The money was stolen by “issuing around 31 fake instructions” via SWIFT, the global interbank payment system.

It is not exactly known how much money is missing from the bank’s coffers, as hackers “crashed” the server on which SWIFT software was installed, leaving the financial institution with no information of the heist. However, various sources the Post talked to put the stolen amount at around Rs460 million.

Debates are now surfacing on whether the damage could have been contained had the bank filled its vacant positions of head and deputy head of the IT Department. The IT Department of the commercial bank, which has assets of over Rs101 billion, is currently being run by junior staff, as senior officials have left the company. These junior staff do not have much clue about how hackers broke into the SWIFT system, sources said. It is now being said it was SWIFT, and not the bank’s IT staff, that tipped the management about the cyber attack after unusual transactions were detected at odd hours.

SWIFT is an interface that banks and financial institutions use to send instructions for fund transfers across the globe. Today, almost every banking institution in the world has its own unique SWIFT code based on which funds are moved to another institution. It is said over 90 percent of fund transfers in the world take place through SWIFT. “SWIFT is a very secure medium for fund transfer… we don’t know how the bank’s system came under attack,” NRB Deputy Spokesperson Rajendra Pandit said.

The NRB is currently gathering forensic evidence.

“A team of the NRB visited the bank again today to take stock of the situation. We will know exactly what happened after the study is complete,” Pandit said.

So far, the NRB has not found any evidence to directly link anyone to this attack. But it has not ruled out the possibility of involvement of bank’s staff in the attack.

After the cyber attack was exposed, the NRB had written to international banks and central banks of different countries not to entertain transactions generated from NIC Asia. “Following this, the bank has gradually started recovering funds that were stolen,” Pandit said stopping short of giving the details.

The Post could not contact NIC Asia officials.

The growth cap for all passenger cars and motorcycles will be cut from 0.25 percent a year to zero with effect from February, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said.

The affluent city-state of 5.6 million people already imposes a quota on the number of vehicles sold and the number on its roads, and has avoided the massive traffic jams that choke other Asian cities.

Singapore makes it costly for those wanting to buy a vehicle, who must first get a “certificate of entitlement”, valid for 10 years — the average cost of a certificate is currently around Sg$50,000 (US$37,00).

A Toyota Corolla Altis, a five-door sedan, can cost up to around Sg$111,000 in Singapore, including the price of the certificate, or about four times what it costs in the US.

There were more than 600,000 private cars in Singapore at the end of 2016.

No timetable was given for the freeze but the number of buses and goods vehicles will be allowed to continue growing.

In a statement announcing the change Monday, the LTA said 12 percent of Singapore’s total land area was already taken up by roads and there was limited room for expansion.

However it said the government would spend Sg$28 billion over the next five years to expand and upgrade the transport system, including the metro, which has recently faced criticism for a series of breakdowns.