Tom Benner Reports

In a country with an 82 percent and climbing vaccination rate, and widely hailed for its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak from the earliest stages, Singapore is in a position to demonstrate how the world can transition from pandemic to endemic, and serve as a model for living with the virus. It also shows the path is not straight forward.

Published by Al Jazeera English, Sept. 20, 2021

In June, the government announced it would move towards a “living with COVID-19” strategy, focusing on tracking and treating outbreak clusters with vaccinations and hospital admissions — but without the strict lockdowns, border closures, and work-from-home orders that have been the defining feature of much of the pandemic across the world.

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Welcome to N3Magazine, the official magazine of N3Conference, a yearly gathering of the Asia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. (For the uninitiated, N3 stands for New.Now.Next.)

As N3Conference enters its 11th year, N3Magazine publishes its sixth edition — and its second in a digital-only format.

Under the Story Topics tab, you will find stories, podcasts, and video interviews related to coverage of topics including:

Reimagining News, our conference theme for this year, including a critique on cryptocurrency coverage, hot tips for climate reporting, parachute journalism, news verifications for visuals and videos, and a look back and ahead with AAJA-Asia founders Allen Cheng and Alan Ota.

Advancing News Diversity in Asia, with reports on why diversity in media matters, AAJA-Asia’s news diversity initiative, hate and hope in a post-pandemic world, advice on covering minority communities, and more.  

Media Freedom in Asia, with accounts by journalists covering China, Myanmar, Vietnam, India, Korea, Nepal, Singapore, and elsewhere in Asia.

Hong Kong and decline of the free press

Podcasts and video

Click here for the 2021 issue of N3Magazine https://n3con.com/magazine/

To coincide with this week’s N3Conference, the annual conference of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Asia chapter, a team of us have produced our latest edition of the yearly conference magazine, and it’s now available in its first new digital-only format.

You’ll find great stories about journalists on the frontlines in Asia covering everything from the coronavirus to civil unrest and authoritarian governments, stories about media freedom in Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, and other countries, and a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of N3Conference.

Please enjoy the latest effort by the N3Magazine team at https://n3con.com/magazine/

For more about the conference, see N3Conference https://www.n3con.com/2020/

With dining on site banned, food outlets set up online groups, adopt home-delivery services in bid to survive.

Published by Al Jazeera English, May 5, 2020

Hawker Melvin Chew, 42, with his mother, Lim Bee Hong, 63

By Tom Benner

Singapore – Singapore’s hawkers serve tasty, quick and inexpensive dishes which have become a magnet for locals and tourists-in-the-know. But even before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country, they were already struggling. And the partial lockdown has only made it worse.

Dining at all outlets from the fanciest restaurants to no-frills coffee shops has been banned since April 7 and is expected to continue until at least June 1.

Hawker Melvin Chew saw his business drop by two-thirds as a result of the lockdown. But Chew was matter-of-fact about it. “Government says you have to stick to your own neighbourhood, try not to go out,” he said.

So when the shutdown order came Chew decided to do something about it. He created a Facebook group called Hawkers United – Dabao 2020 – to help hawkers and customers connect to arrange takeaway food orders and home delivery. (“Dabao” is a colloquial term in the Cantonese language for takeaway). Continue reading …

The move follows the island-nation’s first two coronavirus-related deaths and a surge in cases from overseas.

Published by Al Jazeera English, March 22, 2020

By Tom Benner

Singapore – A day after Singapore confirmed its first two coronavirus-related deaths, the country said it would close its borders to short-term visitors and some foreign labourers from 11:59pm (15:59 GMT) on Monday to help the limit the spread of the disease.

The new rules mean short-term visitors will no longer be allowed to enter or transit through Singapore, while semi-skilled workers on “work passes” will not be allowed to return to the island unless their job is in sectors that provide essential services such as healthcare and transport, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a statement. Continue reading …

Public service announcements from Vietnam, Thailand, elsewhere in Asia spread awareness, go viral on social media

Published by Al Jazeera English, March 11, 2020.

By Tom Benner

Singapore – Health officials in Vietnam, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries are teaming up with local creative talents to produce public service announcements (PSAs) that urge hand-washing, social distancing, and other best practices to combat the deadly virus.

Vietnamese health officials and lyricist Khac Hung produced an animated music video called Jealous Coronavirus, based on the V-pop hit Ghen by singers Min and Erik. (Ghen means jealous in Vietnamese; the PSA song is entitled “Ghen Co Vy”, likening the coronavirus to a jealous rival).

The song’s lyrics call on viewers to wash their hands thoroughly, not touch their faces, avoid large crowds, and “push back the virus corona, corona”.

After Vietnamese dancer Quang Dang choreographed dance moves to the song, creating another viral video, dance challenges began popping up on TikTok, the hugely popular China-based video platform. Continue reading …

Asia’s largest aerospace and defence event sees drop in participants, attendance amid deadly coronavirus outbreak.

Published by Al Jazeera English, Feb. 16, 2020

By Tom Benner

Singapore – The makers of next-generation military jets and civil aircraft gather every two years at the Singapore Airshow, billed as Asia’s largest aerospace and defence event.

Suppliers and customers attending the high-profile show typically discuss cutting-edge technologies and network in the hope of making multi-million-dollar deals, while being entertained by overhead fighter jet aerobatics.

This year, however, the 7th Singapore Airshow opened on Tuesday in the shadow of the outbreak of a deadly coronavirus leading dozens of companies to pull out. Officially known as COVID-19, the virus emerged in the Central Chinese city of Wuhan in December and has since spread to more than two dozen countries around the world, with Singapore having the second-highest number of cases after China. Continue reading …

A drop in visitors from world’s largest outbound market and fears at home over coronavirus outbreak take a toll on other countries.

Published by Al Jazeera English, Feb. 8, 2020

By Tom Benner

Singapore – China is the world’s largest source of outbound tourists. But travel bans, suspended flights, and government advisories are keeping many would-be tourists from mainland China at home – with their tourist dollars.

That means regional economies with traditionally high volumes of Chinese tourists are losing a lot of what used to be steady business and, in some of those markets, such as Singapore, many in the country are staying home for fear of the spreading coronavirus – delivering a one-two punch to many local businesses.

Tourists from mainland China make up about one-fifth of all visitors to Singapore. Yet despite its strong links with China, Singapore was among the first countries to impose a travel ban on Chinese visitors following the outbreak of the virus. Continue reading …

Enhanced screening in place from Taiwan to Singapore as countries trigger responses honed by SARS experience.

Published by Al Jazeera English, Jan. 22, 2020

Singapore was hit hard after an unassuming traveller from Hong Kong brought the SARS virus to the Southeast Asian island in 2003.

The threat caused widespread public panic, prompting school closures and inflicting economic damage to business and tourism. People rushed to buy face masks or remained indoors. Some 238 people were infected and 33 died. The WHO says SARS killed about 800 people globally.

Singapore has close ties with mainland China and Changi Airport is one of the world’s busiest for international traffic. Wuhan is just four and a half hours away on a daily direct flight.

After initially screening only passengers from Wuhan, Singaporean health authorities this week began screening all inbound passengers from China, issuing them health advisory notices. Continue reading …

After US regulator banned country’s airlines from flying over Iran and Iraq, other carriers are also taking precautions.

By Tom Benner

Published by Al Jazeera English, Jan. 10, 2020

Singapore – Did a missile, or even missiles, bring down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in a Tehran suburb earlier this week, killing all 176 people on board, a few hours after Iranian forces launched attacks against military bases hosting United States forces in Iraq?

Western officials seem to be raising the possibility that a missile strike – whether intentional or not – did cause the tragedy. Iran has dismissed the comments by Canada and Ukraine suggesting a missile attack may have been responsible.

But if it was the cause, it would seem to vindicate the decision this week by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ban US carriers from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, as well as the waters between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The European Aviation Safety Agency also recommended that EU-based commercial airlines avoid Iraqi airspace, prompting many carriers to reroute or cancel operations through the region.

But those decisions, while prudent, could add to the commercial and operational problems of many Asian and European airlines whose planes have to pass over the Middle East while travelling between Asia and Europe, aviation analysts say.
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