The Straits Times : Weekly Overseas Edition, 14 December 2002

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Total Pages: 20
1 20 The Straits Times : Weekly Overseas Edition
  • 25 1 The Straits Times Weekly Edition PACIFIC AREA NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR Saturday, December 14,2002 Price: 551.20 (in Singapore) Elsewhere by subscription only MITA (P) 098/03/2002
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  • 507 1 Worker levies frozen and welfare payments upped to help people cope with downturn, GST hike IT WILL be a happier new year for many Singaporeans from employers and mid-dle-income householders to pensioners and people on welfare concerned about rising costs given the downturn
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  • 86 1 JOYCE FANG JOBIESS SET HP SHOP Retrenched and soon-to-be-retrenched workers set up makeshift stalls outside a Tampines market last weekend to earn some money to tide them over. It was part of a self-help effort thought up by the area’s MP, Ms Irene Ng. Shoppers crowded
    JOYCE FANG  -  86 words
  • 281 1  -  Anthony Ler had talked 15-year-old boy into killing her Bn K.C.VUAYAN HE WENT to his death the way he lived his life. Cool. Not once did 35-year-old Anthony Ler, who talked a 15-year-old boy into murdering wife Annie Leong, waver as he took the
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  • Page 1 Advertisements
    • 51 1 Singapore Suicide Bomb Plot The Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network wanted to attack foreign embassies here last year but the plan was stopped in time. PAGE 3 Comment Aussie Rethink Troubled ties with South-east Asia look set to get even more complicated as Canberra maps out its controversial anti-terror strategy. page
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    • 3 1 887 81' *****6
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  • PRIME
    • TERROR IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND BEYOND
      • 472 2  -  Nightclub blasts came after some 50 other bombings and planned attacks by the terrorist group By DERWIN PEREIRA INDONESIA CORRESPONDENT JAKARTA The devastating Bali blasts followed about 50 other bombings or attempted attacks in Indonesia, planned or carried out by the regional
        REUTERS  -  472 words
      • BRIEFS
        • 74 2 -AFP THE Australian government said on Thursday that the final Australian death toll from the Oct 12 Bali bombings was 88, and that all victims had now been identified. “As of last night, all the known Australian victims of the attack in Bali have now
          -AFP  -  74 words
        • 116 2  -  Robert Go JAKARTA A prolonged holiday break mandated by the government to rescue Bali and boost the hard-hit tourism industry has backfired on businesses in Indonesia’s big cities. Shopping centres in Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya complained about fewer shoppers. Financial activity grounded to a halt
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        • 118 2 AFP, AP ABU Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiah, had preached in Sydney about turning Australia into an Islamic state, it was reported this week. Citing an audio recording believed to feature Bashir’s voice, the Sydney Morning Herald said the cleric had told
          AFP,; AP  -  118 words
        • 75 2 -AFP ONE of the suspects in the deadly bomb attack on a McDonald’s restaurant in Makassar, Indonesia, surrendered to police yesterday. Kahar Mustafa, the alleged supplier of the detonator used in the Dec 5 bombing, surrendered in the town of Sinjai near Makassar, police said. South Sulawesi
          -AFP  -  75 words
        • 57 2 AFP INDONESIA has postponed a key privatisation project, partly because of the economic impact of the Bali bombing, a government source said yesterday. The government will delay final bids for a 51-per-cent stake in pharmaceutical firm PT Indofarma until the first quarter of next year, at the request
          AFP  -  57 words
      • 467 2  -  By DEVI ASMARANI THE STRAITS TIMES INDONESIA BUREAU JAKARTA Top leaders of the Jemaah Islamiah, including Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, proposed Bali as a bombing target at a meeting in Bangkok early this year, according to confessions wrested from
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      • 440 3 But Jemaah Islamiah plot to launch truck-bomb attacks on US, Israeli and Aussie diplomatic missions in Singapore was uncovered before it could be carried out AP, AFP SYDNEY Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorists had intended to deploy suicide bombers in their attacks
        – AP,; AFP  -  440 words
      • 404 3  - Asean moving too slowly' to deal with security risks »2. MICHAEL HO ARE ASEAN and the Asean Regional Forum are moving too slowly and ineffectively to counter security risks threatening Asia, according to the retired Com-mander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair. Long on talk and short on
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      • 533 3 AP V ,AFP, ,The Star/ Asia News Network SYDNEY The Philippines will review a proposed count-er-terrorism pact with Australia to ensure that it does not sanction Canberra’s new “pre-emptive strike” policy against other countries, a Philippine government official said last
        – APV; ,AFP,; ,The Star/; Asia News Network; ap  -  533 words
      • 262 3 SEXY sizzlers are a growing problem at Singapore post offices, where small mountains of smuggled sex aids such as pills, dildos and vibrators have been accumulating. Following the Sept 11 attacks, such gadgets are being discovered over 10 times more frequently than
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  • HOME
    • 376 4  -  Commendations go to national servicemen who were recalled to guard key areas after Sept 11 Bn JANENG WHEN K. Arul goes on a twoweek national-service stint, he tells his five-year-old daughter he is protecting the country from the bad guys. Assistant
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    • 350 4 THE terrorist threat has really put people on the alert, to the extent that a man who was taking pictures in Sembawang one Sunday morning ended up spending four hours at a police station explaining himself. The police traced Mr
      ZACROIX TAN; WONG MAYE-E  -  350 words
    • 391 4  -  Ten-year-old already paid Erice for is mischief By KARAMJIT KAITR TRANSPORT CORRESPONDENT THE police and Singapore MRT will not take any action against the boy who was dragged by a train at Bishan Station last month. Moses Tan, 10, whose right
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    • 509 5  - FREE UNIFORMS CDC helps needy pupils start school TEXTBOOKS: NTUC gets bumper crop of 120,000 Bu WONG SHER MAINE HOUSEWIFE Roslinda Yusuff, 33, picked up two white shirts and a pair of navy blue shorts for her son Mohamed Zulkarnain this week, and it did not cost her a cent.
      WONG KWAI CHOW  -  509 words
    • 215 5 A HONGKONG court has reversed its decision in a case involving a British engineer who claimed he had swallowed glass particles on a Singapore Airlines flight last year. In June, it awarded Mr Stephen Graham Olding HK553,000 (5512,300) plus costs, but yesterday, the judge dismissed
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    • 422 5  -  Raffles Town Club Case Bu SELINA LUM NEARLY 5,000 Raffles Town Club members, who recently lost their lawsuit against the club, have been asked to fork out another $lOO each to fund an appeal. The committee representing the 4,895 members plans to file an
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    • 58 5 The arrow on the right tells the tale: Fishing ground starts here, says the sign. But these anglers born sceptics, perhaps dropped their lines pointedly to the left at the Lower Peirce Reservoir. Certainly, no one can accuse them of swallowing instructions hook, line
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    • 498 6  -  il LJMHSINHIN SHIPPING coordinator Yeo Thye Whe, 44, jumped out of a second-floor window early last Wednesday morning to escape a blaze that razed a row of prewar shophouses near Jalan Sultan. “It was around 3 am. I woke up when I heard
      TAN SHZR EE  -  498 words
    • 199 6 THE Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is on a marketing blitz to draw more tourists from China. Since about a fortnight ago, STB advertisements featuring popular actress Fann Wong have been appearing on Chinese television and in major newspapers in China. This month, the 30-sec-ond
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    • 484 6  -  Donations from bank staff and proceeds from biscuit-firm sale push the total over $2-m mark *L WONG SHER MAINE A BANK and a biscuit company have helped The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund cross the $2 million mark.
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    • 109 7 REVIVING AN, AHEM, ANCIENT DANCE FORM: Seventeen-year-old Aaron Tan performs a break dance move while his friends look on. The dance was popular in the 1980 s well before their time. But it is back, and Singapore has the perfect place for these dancers
      THOM AS WHITE  -  109 words
    • 632 7 Aims to develop growth of S’pore film industry by boosting financial support, links abroad FILM-MAKERS can expect greater government support and a higher profile when the Media Development Authority (MDA) comes into being from Jan 1 next year. Giving them and others
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    • 579 7  -  New rule on recycling is to ensure nation’s water supply Bu SHARMILPAL KAUR THERE’S nothing wrong with collecting rainwater to wash your car, but building a private system to divert rainwater from the drainage system is against the rules. To make sure all
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    • 577 8  -  Often financially dependent on their husbands, they can turn to Aware’s legal clinic for help Bu KAREN HO FOR 10 years, a free legal clinic has been reaching out to a special group of women with little legal standing here. They are the foreigners
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    • 125 8 SINGAPORE Olympic fencing coach Jeffrey Lopez lunges, parries and ripostes against primary-school pupil Lim Jie, 11, at the Singapore Art Museum, where he teaches art lovers to fence. The lessons were given at 3 pm daily till Dec 12, as part of the Sugimoto
      THOMAS WHITE  -  125 words
    • 580 8  -  Changing tastes mean no one wants them, says publisher iiL NEOHUIMIN EVEN the authors did not want their books. Faced with a mountain of these Chinese literary works, publisher T. C. Yoo gave about 200,000 of them to the karung guni
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    • 401 9  -  Nature reserve recognised internationally as haven for migrating birds from Siberia Bu NEOHUIMIN WHEN millions of birds migrate 12,000 km each year to avoid wintering in Siberia, Russia, a significant number stop over at the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve to rest
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    • Article, Illustration
      52 9 Tm very sure we made the right decision in preserving this area as a nature reserve. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister of State for National Development The safe, warm transit for migratory birds that is Sungei Buloh is the first South-east Asian site in the East Asian Australasian Shorebird
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  • Page 6 Advertisements
    • 108 6 HOWTO DONATE By Cheque: Make it out to “School Pocket Money Fund”, and mail it to Singapore Press Holdings, School Pocket Money Fund, Finance Division, 1000 Toa Payoh North, Singapore *****4. By phone: Call the School Pocket Money Fund hotline on 1900-914-0005 for a $5 donation and 1900-914-0010 for a
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  • Page 9 Miscellaneous
    • 1061 9 RADIO SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL (ENGLISH) PROGRAMME SCHEDULES 1100 1400 Hours (GMT) 6015 KHz (49M BAND) 6150 KHz (49M BAND) MONDAY 1100 News 1109 Business Market Report 1115 Arts Arena 1130 News 1135 Wired Up 1145 Newsline 1200 News/Weather (AsiaPacific) 1210 E Z Beat 1230 Business Market Report 1235 The Written Word
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  • COMMENT
    • 1400 10  -  By FELIX SOH SOMETIMES tempestuous, always prickly, invariably adversarial and never comfortable. Such is the nature of Australia’s relations with countries in South-east Asia which, with perhaps the exception of Singapore, resemble a series of bumps on a winding highway. Of course, the “insensitive” utterances of politicians
      AFP  -  1,400 words

  • COMMENT/PERSPECTIVE
    • 332 11 SUNDAY December 8,2002 THE controversy is eminently understandable. Should Channel s’s Ah Beng, Phua Chu Kang, played by Gurmit Singh, have featured in the Singapore segment of the American reality TV show, The Amazing Race 3? PCK embodies characteristics that many Singaporeans love to hate about the
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    • 937 11  - ‘See S'pore Muslims in a new light By M. NIRMALA SINCE taking over as the Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs in March, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim has been pondering Singapore’s Malay-Muslim dilemma. How should a community that’s been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons conduct itself? How should it relate
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  • INSIGHT
    • 1472 12 Declining membership in clan associations is old news, as is grassroots bodies’ constant struggle to recruit new blood. So where have all the young people goneP Not necessarily where you think, as community reporter NEO Hill m finds out. MR KAPIL Sharma,
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    • 52 12 MANY of these special-interest groups, such as the Labrador and Retriever Club (above), began when tech-savw younger people went online to find others with similar interests. Even established groups like the Association of Women for Action and Research are having some success using the Net to get young
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    • 1329 13  -  THINKING ALOUD By ASAD LATIF CAN you imagine Singapore without the People’s Action Party (PAP)? The answer, I suppose, is what you mean by “Singapore” and by “the PAP”. I am not trying to fudge the issue. Two books published this year shed
      JAHAN  -  1,329 words


  • SPORTS
    • 660 14  -  Weather causes the Kenyan men’s Open champ to miss out on 1984 record by just 16 seconds S’pore Marathon Si CHIAHANKEONG THE early morning sun encouraged a turnout of about 1,500 supporters at the finishing point of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon
      DESMOND WEE  -  660 words
    • 747 14  -  Bil MATTHEW PEREIRA IN AUGUST, I decided to give the 21-km Sheares Bridge Run a shot. My wife and I breezed through it in just over two hours. That day I decided to run my first full marathon.
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    • 393 14  -  By JEFFREY LOW ONLY 16 wanting to be the men’s national champion, a shocking total of 25 walkovers and a crowd of exactly 12 at the Kallang Squash Centre on Dec 10. Such is the sorry state of Singapore squash that even the first
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  • MALAYSIA
    • 667 15  -  But disenchantment, political differences and factionalism have weakened the party, he warns By BRENDAN PEREIRA MALAYSIA CORRESPONDENT KUALA LUMPUR Here’s the good news for Malaysia’s ruling party: Ground reports suggest that the seats lost to the opposition in Perak, Pahang
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    • 240 15 KUALA LUMPUR Singapore must recognise Malaysia’s right to review the price of water being supplied to the Republic before a new round of talks can be held, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said. He was quoted in Utusan Malaysia as
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    • 426 15 The Star/Asia News Network PENANG A man spurned by his girlfriend went on a shooting rampage here which ended in the 28-year-old falling to her death. Ms Loke Bee Lin fell ffom the llth-floor apartment after she was shot in the
      The Star/Asia; News; Network; PHOTOS: THE STAR  -  426 words
    • 238 15 The Star/Asia News Network MUAR Malaysian markets are facing a serious shortage of red chillies because they are being exported to Singapore. This comes after the ceiling price was set at RM6.50 (Ss3) per kg for the festive season. Domestic Trade
      The Star/Asia; News Network  -  238 words

  • SOUTH-EAST ASIA
    • 740 16  -  Jakarta and rebels sign peace pact out thorny issues, such as independence demand, remain By DEVI ASMARANI THE STRAITS TIMES INDONESIA BUREAU JAKARTA Indonesia and separatist rebels in Aceh signed a landmark peace deal on Dec 9 to end 26
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    • 67 16 THE ancient Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat provided a breathtaking backdrop for a charity concert on Dec 6 by Spanish tenor Jose Carreras. He sang in front of an audience of 1,000, backed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The event raised about $40,000 for the Cambodian
      REUTERS  -  67 words
    • 450 16  -  B y DEVI ASMARAM THE STRAITS TIMES INDONESIA BUREAU JAKARTA A group of Muslim clerics has issued a fatwa calling for a death sentence for Indonesian Muslim scholar Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, because of a recent newspaper article they deemed blasphemous. The clerics said
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  • MONEY
    • 620 17 THE year-end lull has set in and with most major players out of the market, those who were left had neither the appetite nor the conviction to chase stock prices higher. Over the week, the Straits Times Index barely moved as it rose a
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    • 131 17 WEEK’S TOP RISES Cents Volume DBS Grp 1160 70.0 6.4 16,664,000 JMH US25C 400 620 61.3 6.0 750,800 DelGro Corp 500 221 21.0 10.5 4,211,500 B Sembawang 1080 20.0 1.9 17,000 HK Land USIOc 140 19.3 8.5 7,350,000 JSH US5c 500 258 14.0 3.2 4,277,500 Sembcorp Log 25c... 160 13.0
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    • 135 17 WEEK'S TOP RISES Cents Volume TSM Res 5c 16 33.3 4.0 1,005,000 Colex Hldgs 10c 10 25.0 2.0 10,000 Shanghai Allied 1 25.0 0.0 1,402,000 GenMag 20c 9 20.0 1.5 13,000 Xpress 5c 3 20.0 0.5 550,000 Kian Ho 10c 13 18.2 2.0 412,000 Circuits Plus WO 3.5 16.7 0.5
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    • 126 17 WEEK’S TOP FALLS Cents Volume Ch0DBeCW*****6.... 9080 -1262 -7.3 400 Creative T 25c 1310 -60.0 -4.4 1,243,700 DBS Bk 6% NCPS ***** -50.0 -0.5 13,000 GreatEast 50c 845 -50.0 -5.6 480,000 VentureCorp25c 1410 -50.0 -3.4 7,136,000 SIA 200 1050 -30.0 -2.8 36,800 SIA 50c 1050 -30.0 -2.8 5,165,000 UOB 1170
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    • 133 17 WEEK'S TOP FALLS Cents Volume Strike W*****0 0.5 -50.0 -0.5 20,000 Jacks Int 20c 11.5 -39.5 -7.5 2,000 BBRHIdgs 5c 1 -33.3 -0.5 121,000 Links Island 10c 9.5 -29.6 -4.0 5,994,000 Asia Dekor HK15c 3 -25.0 -1.8 20,896,000 El-Nets 1c 1.5 -25.0 -0.5 3,111,000 Goldtron NCCPS 5c.... 3 -25.0 -1.0
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    • 75 17 Straits fines Index The Straits Times index rose 1.9 points on the week to 1,367.5. DAY CLOSE TURNOVER Monday 1,347.92 (-17.6) 238.79m (339.18m) Tuesday 1,367.10 (♦19.2) 286.78m (410.50m) Wednesday 1,374.38 (+7.3) 242.03m (291.13m) Thursday 1,381.73 (+7.3) 245.08m (256.36m) Friday 1,367.48 (-14.3) 232.55m (238.06m) IT-SRI Index The BT-SRI
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    • 669 17  -  It will give out another 27C at a later date—hut total of97C is still far cry from the $1.55 Oei wants By UEONG CHAN TEIK andUEE SV SHY AN RESPONDING to requests from shareholders, in particular substantial stakeholder Oei Hong Leong, Nat
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    • 524 18  -  Number earning $1 million or more rose by a third to 1,435 in 2000, giving sssBm to taxman By LEE SUSHYAN COMPANIES CORRESPONDENT THE number of taxpayers earning a million dollars or more jumped by a third in the year 2000, the latest figures from the
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    • 691 18  -  By IGNATIUS LOW FINANCE CORRESPONDENT HERE is a new spin on telephone hotlines: Instead of paying an employee to man the lines, some insurance companies in Singapore actually have people paying them for the privilege to take the calls. Insurance agents are
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    • 449 18  -  They’re also more likely to come on snort stints: survey By HUGH CHOW FINANCE CORRESPONDENT THE economic downturn has not slowed the flow of expatriates to countries such as Singapore, a study has found. But they are likely to be younger singles
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  • Page 17 Advertisements
    • 27 17 Log on to check prices Readers who want to see the latest stock-price and unit-trust listings can log on to the following websites: busmess-times.asial.com.sg www.asial.com www.fundssupermart.com www.singaporeexchange.com
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  • FORUM
    • 707 19 I REFER to the article, “Streaming a painful but fruitful policy” (ST, Dec 7). It was noted that Education Minister Teo Chee Hean was convinced “more streams need to be created so that the best will not be held back”. As a student, I
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    • 232 19 I READ with interest how Singapore’s chewing-gum ban was made an issue in negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the United States (“Chewing gum sales get nod for medical reasons”; ST, Nov 20). The reported insistence of the US that Singapore
      REUTERS  -  232 words
    • 513 19 I WAS struck by the spurious argument offered by Mr Oh Wee Tong in “Some protection is better than none” (ST, Dec 3). The argument really amounts to: “We know people are going to engage in casual sex anyway, so let’s just help them
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  • 634 20  -  Like counterparts in New York, they want smaller breasts and waists, a Wacoal survey finds By GENETTE KOH HER waist is a shade under 69.49 cm and she wears a size 348 bra. That, says the lingerie company Wacoal, is
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  • 528 20  -  By LIANG HWEE TING CONVINCED that a picture is worth a thousand words, Singapore’s health authorities will, in the new school year, show 15-year-olds the horror of sex diseases. Secondary 3 students will see graphic images of body parts disfigured and distorted by
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