WTC Wrap: 18 April 2026

I'm a little bit late to the party, but... the Pursuit of Jade rabbit hole. I have fallen down it.

A note before this week's wrap: the defamation suit brought by K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng against Bloomberg and their reporter was still ongoing this week, but has now been adjourned to a later date. I mentioned it in last week's wrap but have decided not to bring it up again this week because I don't feel like I have enough of significance and impact to say to make it worth trying to navigate the contempt of court minefield. All I'll say for now is that it seems like there's been quite a lot of scrutiny of the journalistic process behind the writing of the article—emails written by the journalist to sources, editors, etc.—but my impression was that defamation should be determined by what the final story actually said, since that's what went out to the public. I look forward to seeing what the court says about this, because that'll have implications on journalism and news-gathering in the future.

(1)

On Thursday morning, the Singapore Prison Service carried out its eighth execution of the year. Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj was convicted of importing 1,009g of cannabis into Singapore and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty. His wife, Maria, is in Germany with their nine-year-old daughter and they weren't able to travel to Singapore to see him. She wrote a letter to President Tharman pleading for clemency, but it was rejected. A stay application filed by Omar was also dismissed by the court the day before his execution.

(2)

Singapore is clamping down on school bullying by... inflicting violence on children who bully. The Ministry of Education has announced stricter measures to tackle misconduct and bullying in schools, which includes suspension and caning.

There are studies—like one from the University of South Australia—that show that school suspensions are "ineffective for disciplining bad behaviours" and disproportionately affect vulnerable children. “There is a distinct blind spot about how school suspensions and expulsions perpetuate wider social inequalities," Professor Anna Sullivan, the lead researcher of the Australian study, told The Educator. She was speaking in the Australian context, of course, but it stands to reason that this could be applied elsewhere, too. Just think about it: a kid from a well-to-do family who gets suspended can still have access to private tuition or education opportunities elsewhere, but a kid from a working class family that's already struggling financially will simply... miss out on schooling.

Furthermore, caning in schools is just horrific. It's a punitive measure that normalises violence. MOE might want to teach kids that bullying is wrong and bad, but using violence to 'teach' this lesson only demonstrates that it's not violence itself that is bad, but who wields this violence. It's about who holds the power, and therefore the right, to inflict violence upon others. What sort of lesson is that?

MOE does say that such measures will be "balanced" with things like counselling, but such punishment just ends up undercutting any sort of rehabilitative work that educators might want to do.

(3)

Last weekend, there was a protest against US imperialism. Hours before it began, the police and NParks put out an advisory warning against the coordinated display of symbols relating to Israel or Palestine. The organisers weren't deterred, though, nor did they have a shortage of other cases of US imperialism or warmongering to point to.

I didn't attend the protest—I've been quite out of it while stuck between getting Mekong Review's next issue to print, jet lag, and general burnout (again)—but Ng Yi-sheng has photos and a write-up on it on social media.

Ng Yi-Sheng on Instagram: “At the Stop the US War Machine protest at Hong Lim Park yesterday evening! This was a major thing—quite aside from the considerable turnout, someone noted this is probably SG’s first anti-imperialist protest since the 1970s. Ended up having a bunch of discussions w folks online & offline about the strangeness of this event & the police restrictions on @sgacadboycott: that they should “not introduce issues related to the Israel-Hamas conflict”. On one hand, that’s ludicrous—besides the fact that we can’t talk about genocide, it’s also singling out Israel among all nations as being exempt from criticism. On the other hand, this also gave the speakers an opportunity to go beyond the obvious talking points—why bother to put Netanyahu on a poster when a devil-horned Bill Clinton provokes more discussion among an already pro-Palestine crowd? Activist Sobikun Nahar & theatremaker A Yagnya kicked off the teach-in about US imperialism (including holding Obama to account, despite the fact that he was one of their childhood heroes): how it’s a country founded on settler colonialism that benefited from the power vacuum at the end of WW2, & thereafter imposed its hegemony over the rest of the world, w SG thoroughly complicit... though that stranglehold’s falling apart w the advent of dedollarisation Sukesy, a teacher, interrogated SG’s claim that we’re just a small country that can’t do anything, taking us on an imaginary tour across SG to sites that represent our cooperation w the US military: the site of Shelford House, where we offered GIs R&R on their way to the Vietnam War; Changi Naval Base & the US military lodging at Durban Road, where we still host their troops. & artist Nusha Dakshyni & Filipina-SGan Amber pointed out how SG’s been terrible at regional solidarity, never using our leverage, choosing instead to be a beneficiary of SEA poverty, claiming neutrality when in fact we’re taking the side of the oppressor. (We did some Tagalog chants, courtesy of the well-established PH movement against US military bases!) TBC below #sgactivism”

237 likes, 3 comments - yishkabob on April 12, 2026: “At the Stop the US War Machine protest at Hong Lim Park yesterday evening! This was a major thing—quite aside from the considerable turnout, someone noted this is probably SG’s first anti-imperialist protest since the 1970s. Ended up having a bunch of discussions w folks online & offline about the strangeness of this event & the police restrictions on @sgacadboycott: that they should “not introduce issues related to the Israel-Hamas conflict”. On one hand, that’s ludicrous—besides the fact that we can’t talk about genocide, it’s also singling out Israel among all nations as being exempt from criticism. On the other hand, this also gave the speakers an opportunity to go beyond the obvious talking points—why bother to put Netanyahu on a poster when a devil-horned Bill Clinton provokes more discussion among an already pro-Palestine crowd? Activist Sobikun Nahar & theatremaker A Yagnya kicked off the teach-in about US imperialism (including holding Obama to account, despite the fact that he was one of their childhood heroes): how it’s a country founded on settler colonialism that benefited from the power vacuum at the end of WW2, & thereafter imposed its hegemony over the rest of the world, w SG thoroughly complicit... though that stranglehold’s falling apart w the advent of dedollarisation Sukesy, a teacher, interrogated SG’s claim that we’re just a small country that can’t do anything, taking us on an imaginary tour across SG to sites that represent our cooperation w the US military: the site of Shelford House, where we offered GIs R&R on their way to the Vietnam War; Changi Naval Base & the US military lodging at Durban Road, where we still host their troops. & artist Nusha Dakshyni & Filipina-SGan Amber pointed out how SG’s been terrible at regional solidarity, never using our leverage, choosing instead to be a beneficiary of SEA poverty, claiming neutrality when in fact we’re taking the side of the oppressor. (We did some Tagalog chants, courtesy of the well-established PH movement against US military bases!) TBC below #sgactivism”.

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