TOP OF THE NEWS
Jobs for security guards, waiters, retail shop assistants and cleaners proved hard to fill last year, with no takers for almost 5,000 jobs out of about 12,000, even after six months.
On the other hand, there were twice as many vacancies for professional, managerial, executive and technical jobs but these tended to be filled quickly. In all, there were fewer job vacancies last year.
TOP OF THE NEWS
South Korea and Japan have warned of a heavy price to pay if North Korea pushes ahead with a planned rocket launch soon after conducting its fourth nuclear test. China has also expressed concern, noting that North Korea's right to the peaceful use of space should be subject to UN restrictions.
WORLD
A move to designate Mr Xi Jinping (photo) as the "core" of China's Communist Party would give the Chinese President a status previously held by leaders such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The change could signal a shift in Chinese politics, which stresses collective leadership to avoid personality cults.
WORLD
Surge in child migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece
Children now make up more than a third of the migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece, says the United Nations, as Europe struggles with its biggest migration crisis since World War II. There are now more women and children crossing the border from Greece to Macedonia than adult males, marking a significant shift from last year.
OPINION
Every year, a few hundred students fail to thrive on the Integrated Programme (IP) and a number are put back on the O-level track. But no one wants to talk about these students or how they fare. Their plight is cause to review the IP track, says Senior Education Correspondent Sandra Davie.
HOME
The junior college syllabus has been revamped for the first time in a decade. Changes in subjects are aimed at getting students to apply book learning to the real world and to expose them to content that is more current.
HOME
Two men were jailed and ordered to be caned yesterday for planning a violent robbery in an Aljunied carpark in 2014, in which the son-in-law of a money changer was robbed of over $600,000. They were the second and third men to be sentenced in relation to the case.
BUSINESS
Companies here spent a record sum on research and development in 2014 despite the slowing economy, reported an annual survey. The latest National Survey of Research & Development showed that private-sector R&D spending hit a high of $5.2 billion that year.
SPORT
Embrace and develop your passion. That is the philosophy behind Forrest Li and Garena's backing of the Young Lions. The Internet and mobile platform firm will cough up the princely sum of $4 million to back the national developmental football side for two years.
LIFE
At La Belle Couture Weddings boutique, women can try on gowns without removing clothes, using FXMirror (photo), an augmented reality system involving 3D visualisation. Korean beauty brand Laneige has an app that captures a user's movement and expression so she can put on make-up without applying anything on her face.
What it should have been
Monday's article, "Student gets six months' jail over cannabis charges", reported District Judge Salina Ishak stating that she had to send a strong signal to young adults that the court would neither accept nor tolerate possession of cannabis. What she, in fact, stated was that the usual custodial sentence was appropriate to send a signal to young adults that the court would neither accept nor tolerate the recreational consumption of cannabis.
We are sorry for the error.
