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CNA938 Rewind - The Wellness Hour - Breathe Right, Sleep Well, Live Longer

CNA938 Rewind - The Wellness Hour - Breathe Right, Sleep Well, Live Longer

CNA01-05-2025

The charms and plushie craze has led to a spike in scalping. Milo's new Breakfast and Breaktime sets had fans flock to supermarkets, with some taking to Carousell to cash in on the hype. And the viral $19.90 Scotch Brite EZ-Link charm is now going for double. Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin ask Associate Professor Ang Swee Hoon from NUS Business School why Singaporeans enjoy reselling.

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CNA938 Rewind - Is it easy getting air ticket refunds?
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CNA938 Rewind - Is it easy getting air ticket refunds?

CNA938 Rewind Play Customers with existing bookings on cancelled flights will be offered full refunds and might be re-accommodated on other airlines, where possible. But is it that simple to get a flight ticket refund and further to that, is it compensation enough? Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin discuss with Associate Professor Dianna Chang, School of Business, SUSS. CNA938 Rewind - Is it easy getting air ticket refunds? Customers with existing bookings on cancelled flights will be offered full refunds and might be re-accommodated on other airlines, where possible. But is it that simple to get a flight ticket refund and further to that, is it compensation enough? Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin discuss with Associate Professor Dianna Chang, School of Business, SUSS. 8 mins CNA938 Rewind - Polish President Andrzej Duda in Singapore Polish President Andrzej Duda is in Singapore for a state visit that wraps up tomorrow. It's his first visit here since taking office in 2015, and comes ahead of his second five-year term as president ending this August. Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin speak with Polish Ambassador to Singapore Tadeusz Chomicki. 14 mins CNA938 Rewind - Air India Crash: "The first 90-seconds after take-off is the most crucial" ~ analyst An Air India plane en route to Birmingham has crashed at the airport in India's western city of Ahmedabad, according to television channel reports without specifying whether there were any fatalities. Lance Alexander and Daniel Martin speak with Shantanu Gangakhedkar, Senior Consultant (Aviation), Asia-Pacific at Frost and Sullivan. 11 mins

What should I use my SkillsFuture credits on?
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time6 hours ago

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What should I use my SkillsFuture credits on?

[SINGAPORE] I discovered something last week while logging into SkillsFuture to check if a blacksmithing course I was interested in could be paid for using my credits. Yes, remember those S$500 SkillsFuture credits that were given out back in 2020? They're expiring at the end of this year. I've yet to take a single SkillsFuture course – and odds are, you haven't either. With thousands of courses available, it's hard to decide on what to pick. To help you (and, frankly, myself) figure it out, I asked a few working professionals what the skills they think actually matter in their fields – and where they'd spend their SkillsFuture credits if they were starting out. ICYMI: That one-off S$500 credit top-up was given only to Singaporeans aged 25 and above as of 2020. It's separate from the usual S$500 you get when you turn 25, which doesn't expire. 💊Pharmaceuticals & biotech Timothea Ng, 27, customer experience partner at Roche Pharmaceuticals A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 3 pm Thrive Money, career and life hacks to help young adults stay ahead of the curve. Sign Up Sign Up Working in healthcare isn't only about medical knowledge anymore. Increasingly, it's about how it goes hand-in-hand with data. 'The healthcare industry is increasingly leveraging data insights and analytics to improve engagement with customers and key stakeholders,' says Ng. Her pick for one must-have skill? Advanced data analytics. In other words, making sense of large volumes of complex data from various sources to come up with insights that companies can act on. At Roche, Ng uses analytics tools and artificial intelligence (AI) models to understand the needs of patients and healthcare professionals. For young professionals looking to break into data analysis, she recommends picking up courses in data manipulation, statistical analysis, data visualisation and data management. Courses that include hands-on practice with SQL and Python programming languages will be helpful, she adds. 🧠 Mental health & social work Ether Kum, 34, counsellor at Fei Yue Community Services Not everyone wants to code – and that's okay. (At least, that's what I think a counsellor would say.) If you're considering social work or counselling, Kum believes it's crucial to learn the qualities that help you build trust with people. They're what the profession calls microskills: empathy, active listening, paraphrasing, summarising and being fully present. 'These may seem simple, but they are the starting point of building trust with clients,' she says. And frankly, they're pretty useful in any people-facing job. Kum recommends a course like Practical Counselling (Basic), which teaches these foundational skills. 💼 Consulting Bridget Wong, head of human resources at Accenture Singapore If you want to break into consulting, knowing how to chat with ChatGPT might actually help. Wong believes that one of the most valuable skills for young professionals is digital agility – that is, being able to quickly learn and adapt to new digital tools. Equally important is 'human fluency', which entails blending technical know-how with people skills like critical thinking and communication. 'Clients look to us to help them navigate complexity with clarity and confidence—especially as generative AI and other disruptive technologies reshape industries,' she says. For a start, she recommends focusing on in-demand tech skills such as cybersecurity, critical thinking and digital literacy – particularly in areas such as generative AI. Courses such as AI, ChatGPT in Emerging Technology and One Day CyberSecurity Awareness could help teach some of these practical skills, which Accenture itself has been training its own staff, as well as a recently announced mentorship programme for students. 🏦 Banking Although I specifically asked for one skill young professionals should have, both bankers I asked didn't stick to the brief. Oddly enough, they both pointed to a growth mindset and the ability to adapt, rather than specific hard skills, like financial knowledge, that I had been expecting. Fair enough. Traditional banking jobs have evolved so much that I've seen engineering and social science grads go straight into finance. Take Muhamad Haikal Zhar, who says technical know-how wasn't the most important skill when he made the switch from being an educator to a data and business specialist at DBS. 'What made the biggest difference for me were adaptability, resourcefulness and open communication,' he says. Ernest Phang, managing director of group human resources at OCBC, thinks likewise. He says the bank values people who can adapt to change and show a willingness to learn and grow. Sure, you don't need a certificate to prove those, but if you want, there are plenty of courses on adaptability and growth mindset you can pick from. 🤷Not sure what to pick? Not to sound like a SkillsFuture shill, but their Jobs-Skills portal has lots of resources to help you find out what's in demand in different industries, once you get the hang of the website. Better yet, message someone working in the field you're curious about. You'll be surprised how many are willing to help. 💡Pro-tip: If you don't feel ready to commit to a course before your credits expire, consider using them on subscriptions to online learning platforms such as Coursera, Udemy Business and LinkedIn Learning. More details here. And who says SkillsFuture has to be about work? 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Singapore needs to embrace Bitcoin to maintain status as financial hub: Jeremy Tan
Singapore needs to embrace Bitcoin to maintain status as financial hub: Jeremy Tan

Business Times

time7 hours ago

  • Business Times

Singapore needs to embrace Bitcoin to maintain status as financial hub: Jeremy Tan

[SINGAPORE] Singapore needs to welcome Bitcoin-related businesses to maintain its status as a global financial hub, said retired businessman Jeremy Tan at an event on Wednesday (Jun 11). The 34-year-old rose to prominence last month during the general election as one of just two independent candidates, pulling in 36.16 per cent of the votes in Mountbatten SMC. He lost to the People's Action Party's Gho Sze Kee. During the nine-day campaign and on his election website, Tan promoted Bitcoin as an inflation-proof asset that Singaporeans should have. He also proposed several policies, including the creation of a Singapore dollar-denominated Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). At a fireside chat hosted by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, Tan said that he believes Singapore will have an advantage in the global economy if the government creates Bitcoin-related laws. 'We need to recognise Bitcoin as a separate entity from other forms of cryptocurrencies,' he told an audience of some 200 people, mostly males in their late teens and early 20s. 'The difference between the previous Bitcoin cycle and the current Bitcoin cycle is that the bad actors are no longer in the market.' BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up He referred to former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried as one of the se 'bad actors'. The American's crypto exchange, FTX, collapsed in 2022, and he is now serving a 25-year sentence for committing fraud; he stole US$8 billion from customers. Saad Ahmed, Asia-Pacific head at Gemini and the host of the fireside chat, pointed out the increasing institutionalisation of cryptocurrency. He said one of the key catalysts of this is the approval of Bitcoin ETFs. As at Thursday, the largest such ETF by market cap, iShares Bitcoin Trust, had a 16.57 per cent year-to-date return. Its market cap stands at US$72.6 billion. Tan said that companies trading Bitcoin earn from the cryptocurrency's volatility, adding that that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should consider investing their reserves in Bitcoin. 'If we can change the way SMEs think about Bitcoin as a treasury, then we can change the way SMEs become more productive going forward.' He also said that there is a growing market for advisory services for SMEs which wish to invest in the cryptocurrency. 'There are many companies here that want to store (their treasury) in Bitcoin, but they do not know how to structure their business to do so,' he said. He added that unless the Singapore government starts to reform its Bitcoin laws, the advisory services industry will not be able to grow.

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