Singapore

The Singapore Police Force says that it has detected an increase in the impersonation of agency names and the “gov.sg” SMS sender ID on major messaging platforms. Singapore’s government has ordered the U.S. tech giants Apple and Google to take steps to prevent the spoofing of government agencies on their messaging platforms, the city-state’s latest effort to protect the public from impersonation scams. In a statement on Tuesday, Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said that the Implementation Directives are aimed at preventing the spoofing of government agency names and the “gov.sg” SMS sender ID by malicious actors. The order came after the police observed impersonation scams, including more than 120 involving messages purporting to be from the local postal service SingPost. “

AI Singapore (AISG) – a national programme by the city state of Singapore to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence – has chosen to base its latest large language model on Alibaba’s Qwen, in a significant win for the Chinese technology giant as it promotes its AI services in Southeast Asia. AI Singapore, designed to enhance the city state’s national AI capabilities, had released a new model, Qwen-SEA-LION-v4, based on Alibaba’s Qwen3-32B foundation model to better address the linguistic and cultural demands of the region, Alibaba Cloud said in a statement. Alibaba Group Holding owns the South China Morning Post. An early version of the SEA-LION models was based on Llama, the open-source large language model developed by US tech giant Meta. AISG in August also rele

[BEIJING/HONG KONG] It started in Hong Kong, and then others in mainland China began jumping on the bandwagon. Over the past week, barbs and jibes in the Chinese online space clustered over Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s recent remarks on a China-Japan dispute over Taiwan, which laid out the Republic’s longstanding position on developments in East Asia. Anti-Singapore sentiment sparked by the island-state’s foreign policy stance is not new. Previous episodes range from a major online influence and disinformation campaign over the Terrex incident in 2016, a major diplomatic incident between Singapore and China when Hong Kong Customs seized Singapore’s military vehicles, to a more recent kerfuffle over Singapore’s identification of a cyber espionage group that has been l

The PAP’s war of words against the WP is a calculated approach for it to get a head start before the next election, analysts say It has been six months since the national polls concluded in Singapore, but the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is not resting on its laurels. A popular line among party faithfuls is that the PAP begins preparing for the next election the day after winning one. But a recent series of salvoes against its main opponent, the Workers’ Party (WP) and leader Pritam Singh suggests a new intensity, if not strategy. Observers point to a calculated PAP approach outside election season as its recognition that future polls in the city state will become more hotly contested and may hinge on swing voters or its supporters who may be leaning towards the middl

Singapore’s Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs co-chaired the 4th Political Consultations with Thailand, focusing on ASEAN centrality, regional stability, and sustainability. On 22 October 2025, Mr. Albert Chua, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Singapore, co-chaired the 4th Political Consultations with Ms. Eksiri Pintaruchi, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Thailand. The meeting took place following the successful conclusion of the 15th Civil Service Exchange Programme (CSEP) and reflected Singapore’s commitment to strengthening bilateral ties and regional cooperation. During the consultations, both sides discussed regional issues, including ways to enhance ASEAN centrality and intra-ASEAN integration, address geopolitical uncertainties affecting the glo

Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong has a message for the city’s flashier newcomers — tone it down. In a candid reminder that wealth alone doesn’t earn respect in the island nation, the former prime minister urged immigrants to “keep the bling down” and avoid ostentatious displays of luxury that could rub locals the wrong way. “Do not go around popping champagne, which is $20,000 a bottle with sparklers,” Lee said. “And do not zoom your Ferrari or Lotus or whatever down the middle of the road in the middle of the night just to let everybody know that you have arrived.” A delicate balance for Singapore: welcoming talent, protecting harmony Speaking at a recent event, Lee reflected on how immigration — long a cornerstone of Singapore’s success — remains a tightrope act.

Singapore’s government has reinforced its bottomline of zero tolerance for the politics of race and religion as well as foreign interference, arguing that such elements should be rejected swiftly.In parliament on Tuesday, Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh and Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam disagreed on the “timing” and “substance” of the WP in rejecting election endorsements by a self-styled Islamic preacher Noor Deros and Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) members. In April, ahead of Singapore’s May 3 general election, Noor and the PAS members endorsed WP candidate Faisal Manap over then minister-in-charge of Muslim affairs Masagos Zulkifli, as the former was seen to be more vocally supportive of the Malay-Muslim community. Masagos led the ruling P

At stake is more than national security; it is the integrity of our economic ecosystem and the trust that underpins it DISINFORMATION, defined as the deliberate creation and spread of false or misleading content with the intent to deceive and cause harm, is often framed as a matter of politics or national security. But it is also an economic risk – one that can erode trust, destabilise markets and hit businesses hard. When President Tharman Shanmugaratnam addressed Parliament last month, he placed resilience at the centre of Singapore’s response to a volatile world, warning that foreign actors will seek to spread disinformation and cause societal rifts. He stressed that Singapore would strengthen its capabilities to counter hybrid threats: harmful, coordinated activities that

Singapore's Coordinating Minister for National Security was speaking in the wake of the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, an influential ally of US President Donald Trump. There are worrying trends of politicians in Singapore playing identity politics based on race and religion, said Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Friday (Sep 12). He was speaking on the sidelines of a charity event at Laguna National Golf Resort Club, where reporters asked him about the murder of US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The Coordinating Minister for National Security said that identity politics, such as asking for votes based on a specific identity such as skin colour or religion, was a “basic fundamental of politics”. “We have seen that, and in every country there is political profit in d