Latest news with #CommunityChest
Time Out
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The best things to do in Singapore this National Day
Celebrate SG60 at Suntec City from now till August 31 with Together In Jubilee Joy – a festive showcase of heritage, hawker culture and community spirit. The Atrium (Tower 1 & 2) transforms into a hawker-inspired playground, complete with a chendol ball pit, dragon slide, and fun food-themed games like prata flipping and chicken rice stacking. Complete all challenges to redeem local-themed keepsakes. Then, take a moment to give back by donating $5 to Community Chest's SGSHARE and penning your wish on a 600-tile digital mural by local artist Kow Fong (Ah Guo). Don't miss the mallwide Step Into SG60 Trail, a series of heritage showcases by community partners, from stories of Singapore's pioneers to a tribute to hawker heritage. And on August 8 and 9, Suntec Plaza comes alive with free ice cream, live music, and a buzzing outdoor marketplace featuring homegrown brands. Find out more here.
Time Out
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Suntec City turns into a fun hawker-inspired playground for National Day
With SG60 festivities happening across Singapore, Suntec City is dialling up nostalgia with 'Together In Jubilee Joy' – a month-long extravaganza of heritage, hawker culture, and heartwarming community spirit. From now till August 31, the sprawling mall transforms into a supersized SG60-themed wonderland, decked with interactive challenge zones, nostalgic photo ops, and family-friendly activities – plus heritage showcases curated in collaboration with local community partners to celebrate six decades of Singaporean stories. From now till August 10, the Atrium (Tower 1 & 2) transforms into a larger-than-life culinary-themed playground where you can explore whimsical, interactive hawker installations. The giant Singapore Dragon Slide, inspired by the iconic Toa Payoh Dragon Playground, and the chendol-themed ball pit are suitable for kids between four and 12 years old – just remember to pull up those socks before playing at these two zones. Register for free as a Suntec+ member to join in the fun at the Food Playground Challenge, featuring four experiential game stations. Assemble a 3D puzzle in under 60 seconds at The Crabby Swing, catch at least three plush stones at Giant Lemak Stone, fulfil six chicken rice orders in just a minute at Chicky Stack, and toss pratas with an actual spatula at Prata Shot. Complete all stations to earn stamps and redeem cute local-themed keepsakes like a SG60 sticker sheet or a reusable crab straw cover while stocks last. You also stand a chance to score a Gojek voucher. While you're there, take a moment to give back by contributing to a 600-tile digital community mural designed by local illustrator Kow Fong (Ah Guo). For a $5 donation to Community Chest's SGSHARE, you'll get to pen a heartfelt wish for Singapore's future, and have it become part of a meaningful, ever-growing artwork celebrating unity and hope. The party continues at Suntec Plaza on August 8 and 9, where you'll find a lively outdoor marketplace buzzing with fun local trivia games, free ice cream, live NDP hits crooned by Ben Hum and his band, and a curated market of homegrown makers. Before you go, be sure to take on the Step Into SG60 Trail, featuring a series of meaningful, community-partnered exhibits dotted across the mall. From thought-provoking art installations to nostalgic showcases by Founders' Memorial, Children's Museum Singapore, the National Heritage Board and more, it's a self-guided journey through Singapore's rich heritage and resilient spirit. And that's not all – sign up for a free Suntec+ membership to enjoy exclusive SG60 rewards while you shop and dine. From now till August 31, spend $60 to receive $3 carpark dollars, $160 for a $5 Suntec City e-Voucher (plus an extra $5 Suntec City e-Voucher when you link your yuu account), or $200 to get a $10 Retailer's e-Voucher (Restaurant & Bar) – limited to the first 100 shoppers daily.
New York Post
20-07-2025
- New York Post
How World War II POWs rolled the dice on Monopoly to win their freedom
In the bitter winter of 1941, British military prisoners in Nazi-occupied Germany huddled around a Monopoly set, dazzled by the contents that awaited them. They didn't pluck Community Chest cards. They looked past the thimble and race-car tokens, ignored the tiny houses and phony deeds. The real treasures were hidden within the board and its packaging: tools that could be the difference between making a daring escape and staring down a firing squad. To unsuspecting captives and guards patrolling nearby, it looked like any other edition of the board game ubiquitous in homes across the United States and Europe. But for Britain's covert MI9 intelligence unit, this doctored Monopoly set was a Trojan horse — one of many that helped Allied troops break out of prisoner-of-war camps and find their way to safety during World War II. 'While Monopoly is considered a plaything . . . its role during the war belied any triviality,' writes Philip E. Orbanes in 'Monopoly X: How Top-Secret World War II Operations Used the Game of Monopoly to Help Allied POWs Escape, Conceal Spies, and Send Secret Codes' (Harper, July 15), his fourth book focused on the iconic tabletop game. 4 British army officers enjoy a game of Monopoly in 1942. Getty Images These deceptive parcels, smuggled among authentic games, often included forged identification, a miniature compass, fake uniforms, real currency and coded messages from back home. They served as 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards for thousands of Allied prisoners. 'Monopoly was selected to smuggle escape aids because its game board was large and accommodative — and because the vast majority of service men and women knew and desired it,' writes Orbanes, former head of research and development at the game's American originator, Parker Brothers. The scheme was conceived in the mind of Christopher Clayton Hutton, a World War I vet and amateur illusionist known as 'Clutty.' The MI9 operative believed anything — even a children's game — could be weaponized. Clutty realized Monopoly sets were manufactured in the same Leeds factory that produced silk maps for airmen. Since the fabric didn't crinkle or tear like paper, it was the perfect material for slipping past Nazi sentries. He teamed up with Norman Watson — head of Britain's Monopoly licensee, Waddingtons — to turn the game into a stealth survival pack. In a secure basement nicknamed 'the Beast,' workers hollowed out game boards and concealed instruments for escape. Abnormal markers, such as an errant red dot on the board's Free Parking corner, signified the package's intended destination and tipped off recipients in the know. Before deployment, Allied airmen were taught to spot doctored sets and wield the items to their advantage. The games arrived packaged with food and other rations sent to prison camps from fictitious humanitarian organizations, addressed to specific POWs trained to coordinate escape efforts and decode instructions from back home, which sometimes incorporated altered playing cards. The first true test of the loaded Monopoly kits came at the infamous German fortress Colditz Castle, a medieval Saxony prison reserved for high-flight-risk Allied captives. British Lt. Airey Neave and Dutch officer Tony Luteyn staged a high-stakes escape in 1941. The two men donned fraudulent uniforms, slipped out through a service shaft, scaled a tall wall and trudged through freezing conditions to flee the facility. Despite dangerous brushes with German authorities via public transit, they crossed Nazi Germany undetected, never looking back until they made it to Switzerland. 'Every British airman who made it home improved the morale of fellow airmen and provided further return on the £10,000 cost of his training — a substantial sum for the time,' Orbanes writes. The success of these escape aids inspired US military officials to adopt similar tactics, launching a Virginia-based intelligence agency called MIS-X in 1942. This organization purchased the classic board game in bulk, dubbing manipulated versions Monopoly X (as opposed to the unaltered Monopoly V, for 'vanilla') and coordinating their delivery to servicemen trapped behind enemy lines. One unidentified escaper, Orbanes notes, likened getaways to actual gameplay, 'avoiding the spaces with houses and hotels . . . until we reached safety.' 4 Fake documents, maps, money and other vital escape items could all be stashed within the hollowed-out Monopoly X game board — which escapees would then destroy to keep the secret safe. Philip E. Orbanes As the first British officer to roll the dice on the rigged Monopoly set and win, Neave joined MI9 to help coordinate similar underground operations across Europe. These networks comprised ordinary civilians risking it all to shuttle soldiers across international borders. Those everyday heroes included bada– women like Benoîte Jean, a French resistance fighter who disarmed men with her alluring looks and kept cooler than Swiss snowbanks when engaging in espionage. The Monopoly mademoiselle (code name: Nori, a reversal of the iron-shaped playing piece) stashed within a lipstick tube sensitive information about a crucial German bombing target. She escorted escaped airmen to Brussels en masse and hid microfilm messages for foreign officials beneath artificial fingernails. On one mission to inform an American intelligence official of traitors in the White House, Jean was intercepted by a major in Hitler's military-police unit who attempted to coerce her into accompanying him to his hotel room for sex. She played along just long enough to gain the upper hand. Then Jean mounted the Gestapo officer and drove his dagger into his neck. 'Tears filled her eyes,' Orbanes writes, recreating the act of self-preservation, 'and her breath came in spasms as he died.' 4 French resistance fighter Benoîte Jean stabbed a German officer with his own dagger. Courtesy of Waldemar van Zedtwitz For all the wartime bravery and ingenuity 'Monopoly X' uncovers, there was also a snake. Enter Harold Cole: a British army deserter loyal only to his own interests. After leading scores of stranded soldiers from Belgium to Marseille, the smooth-talking Cole became a double agent, feeding German intelligence agents information about resistance members and safe houses. 'Cole's heart was as black as a winter's night,' Orbanes writes. 'And just as cold.' Equal parts charming and deceptive, the Monopoly-obsessed turncoat (code name: Top Hat) routinely evaded capture or talked his way out of dangerous situations. His betrayal was so damaging to Allied escape missions, he was targeted in a 1944 failed assassination in Paris. The would-be shooter was a British captain and former POW who became romantically involved with Jean after she led him to freedom. But the Top Hat's demise came two years later, after he weaseled his way into the postwar American occupying forces to rip off fugitive Nazis. He was shot dead in a standoff with a French policeman who'd become hip to his treacherous track record. 'The heroics and flaws of many dissimilar people were linked by Monopoly's secrets,' Orbanes writes. Still, no one traitor could undermine Monopoly's massive success in helping liberate captured soldiers. Perhaps the operation's greatest achievement is it remained confidential, operating under the noses of Nazi guards until Germany surrendered to Allied forces in 1945. Servicemen who received the doctored sets protected the secret by stringently destroying and disposing of them after extracting their gifts. When the war ended, the classified British and American agencies that used Monopoly for spycraft destroyed records of their existence and obligated privy parties to keep quiet. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of Congress were ignorant of the operation. 'Parker Brothers — the firm that had made Monopoly a household name — would not know, until decades later, that its game was used to smuggle escape aids,' Orbanes writes. 'Something stirs the heart when contemplating how an 'innocent' means of home entertainment affected a global struggle.'
Straits Times
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Syrian Druze leader urges local fighters to confront incoming government troops
SWEIDA - A leading Druze spiritual leader accused the Syrian leadership in Damascus of bombarding the southern city of Sweida despite having reached an agreement to quell violence, and he called on fighters to confront Syrian troops entering the city. The video statement by influential Druze Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri on Tuesday poses a challenge for the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces toppled former leader Bashar al-Assad last December and is seeking to bring all of Syrian territory under centralised rule after nearly 14 years of war that had left the country divided into separate enclaves. For months, Druze leaders said they did not trust the new Syrian government and pushed back against the presence of their troops, saying they would secure Sweida with their own local fighters. Neighbouring Israel also conducted strikes on Syrian troops in Sweida and near Damascus with the stated aim of protecting the Druze minority, which is an offshoot of Islam with adherents in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. But earlier this week, a new round of heavy fighting broke out between Druze armed groups and Bedouin fighters in Sweida province, leaving dozens dead and thousands displaced. Syria's defence and interior ministries dispatched units to quell the fighting and exert control over the province. The Druze spiritual leadership said in a written statement on Tuesday morning that it would allow Syrian forces to enter Sweida city to stop the bloodshed, calling on armed groups to surrender their weapons and cooperate with incoming troops. 'TOTAL WAR OF EXTERMINATION' Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore $3b money laundering case: MinLaw acts against 4 law firms and 1 lawyer over seized properties Singapore Man charged with attempted murder of woman at Kallang Wave Mall Singapore Ex-cleaner jailed over safety lapses linked to guard's death near 1-Altitude rooftop bar Singapore Real estate firm PropNex donates $6 million to Community Chest for 25th anniversary Singapore Sengkang-Punggol LRT gets 15.8 per cent capacity boost with new trains Singapore Air India crash: SIA, Scoot find no issues with Boeing 787 fuel switches after precautionary checks Singapore $230,000 in fines issued after MOM checks safety at over 500 workplaces from April to June Multimedia From local to global: What made top news in Singapore over the last 180 years? But hours later, al-Hajri, who has been strongly opposed to the new leadership in Damascus, said the statement had been "imposed" on them by Damascus and that Syrian troops had breached the arrangement by continuing to fire on residents. "We are being subject to a total war of extermination," he said in a recorded video statement, calling on all Druze "to confront this barbaric campaign with all means available". Convoys of Syrian army tanks, trucks and motorcycles entered parts of Sweida city by mid-morning and were continuing to fire on neighbourhoods there, a Reuters reporter in Sweida said. The reporter said Israeli warplanes could be seen flying above the city, but there were no immediate reports of strikes. On Monday, Israel's military said it had carried out several strikes on tanks approaching Sweida "to prevent their arrival to the area" because they could pose a threat to Israel. Israel said earlier this year that it would not allow Syria's new army to deploy south of Damascus and that Sweida and neighbouring provinces should make up a demilitarized zone. But some of those tensions had calmed after Israel and Syria began direct talks to prevent conflict in the border region between the two longtime foes. REUTERS
Straits Times
15-07-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Real estate firm PropNex donates $6 million to Community Chest for 25th anniversary
Find out what's new on ST website and app. (From left) PropNex co-founder Alan Lim, Community Chest chairman Chew Sutat, PropNex executive chairman Ismail Gafoor and PropNex CEO Kelvin Fong at a MOU-signing ceremony on July 15. SINGAPORE – PropNex, Singapore's largest real estate agency, will make a $6 million donation to the Community Chest to commemorate SG60, in addition to contributions to other charitable initiatives, including The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund (STSPMF). The donations were announced on July 15 by the firm's executive chairman Ismail Gafoor, at a ceremony for the company's 25th anniversary celebration. The event, which was hosted at the Marina Bay Sands convention centre, was attended by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam. The $6 million donation, to be made over the span of 12 months, is the company's single largest contribution to the charity. In addition, PropNex has pledged to donate $1.5 million annually from 2025 to 2027. The property firm first started donating to Community Chest - the philanthropic arm of Singapore's National Council of Social Service - in 2013, and has given the charity over $10 million in the last 12 years. Community Chest supports children with special needs, children at-risk, and in low-income families, along with other causes. Since 2009, PropNex has been supporting organisations focused on underprivileged children and education, including Hair for Hope and Food-For-Families. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore $3b money laundering case: MinLaw acts against 4 law firms, 1 lawyer over seized properties Singapore Air India crash: SIA, Scoot find no issues with Boeing 787 fuel switches after precautionary checks Opinion What we can do to fight the insidious threat of 'zombie vapes' Singapore $230,000 in fines issued after MOM checks safety at over 500 workplaces from April to June Business 'Some cannot source outside China': S'pore firms' challenges and support needed amid US tariffs Opinion Sumiko at 61: Everything goes south when you age, changing your face from a triangle to a rectangle Multimedia From local to global: What made top news in Singapore over the last 180 years? Singapore 'Nobody deserves to be alone': Why Mummy and Acha have fostered over 20 children in the past 22 years Mr Gafoor said the firm places an emphasis on its employee volunteering. He pointed out that employees would organise events for organisations such as the Chen Su Lan Methodist Children's Home. In 2024, PropNex's employees brought the home's children to an outing at Universal Studios. 'Giving money is easy,' said Mr Gafoor. 'It must be a culture within the organisation.' Mr Chew Sutat, chairman of Community Chest, said this was an example of sustainable philanthropy, as it 'is not just about dollars and cents – it's also about time.' Separately, Mr Gafoor also announced that PropNex has set up the PropNex Foundation, a fund which would support the education needs of underprivileged students. To launch the foundation, some $254,000 in education grants will be awarded to 160 students in Singapore in 2025. At the event, Mr Gafoor said his dedication to philanthropy was inspired by his father's journey to build a better life for him and his five siblings as a newspaper delivery man. 'My dad came from nothing, no education. He's a survivor. He came to Singapore and made a difference. I wanted to bring the same ethos to everyone,' he said. PropNex executive chairman Ismail Gafoor presenting a cheque for The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund to The Straits Times associate editor Zakir Hussain on July 15. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN Those childhood stories can also be found in Mr Gafoor's new memoir, 'I Am Not Good Enough', which was also launched on July 15. Mr Gafoor said profits from the book will be donated to the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, which provides pocket money to children from low-income families. He also made an initial donation of $25,000, and presented a mock cheque to Mr Zakir Hussain, a board trustee of STSPMF and ST associate editor. At the event, Mr Gafoor also announced that he would step down as PropNex's CEO and will be the firm's executive chairman going forward. He added that deputy chief executive Kelvin Fong will take over as CEO.
