why cant SG just shutdown/disband the whole of SG football. use the stadium, football area to build more flat/condo

BANGKOK: Singapore's Young Lions are on the brink of Southeast Asian (SEA) Games elimination after a 1-3 humbling at the hands of Timor-Leste on Saturday (Dec 6). Goals from Vabio Canavaro, Anizo Correia and Olagar Xavier were enough to sink Firdaus Kassim's men, who led through Amir Syafiz. To stand any chance of progressing to the semi-finals, Singapore will have to beat hosts Thailand by a significant margin on Dec 11. Thailand had already thrashed Timor-Leste 6-1 in their opening game on Wednesday.     This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners. The three countries were drawn in Group A following Cambodia’s withdrawal from the men’s football tournament at the Games.   Singapore players react after Timor-Leste scored its third goal against them during the first half of the SEA Games match at Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec 6, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long) At the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok, it was Timor-Leste which had the slight edge early on as Correia spurred a good chance in the 8th minute when a low freekick found him unmarked. Three minutes later, Timor-Leste were made to pay after the Young Lions wrestled control of the ball in the midfield, with a Jonan Tan pass sprayed out to Khairin Nadim. The striker's shot cannoned back off the post, but fell to Amir Syafiz, who slammed home. Singapore’s Young Lions celebrate after scoring against Timor-Leste in the first half of the SEA Games match at Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, on Dec 6, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long)         But the Timor-Leste heads did not drop and they were rewarded in the 19th minute.  While Young Lions goalkeeper Aizil Yazid pulled off a good stop from Tristan Arrarate, the ball rebounded to Cannavaro, who made no mistake. The dangerman for Timor-Leste was their skipper Zenivio. He came close to putting his team ahead soon after, but drilled a shot wide. The Tanjong Pagar player continued to be a thorn in the side of the Young Lions' defence, and forced Aizil into a diving stop soon after. With Timor-Leste in the ascendancy, Anizo had the freedom of the penalty box to score his side's second in the 43rd minute.         The Young Lions were reeling, and Timor-Leste got their third in first-half added time. Xavier robbed Khairin of the ball, evaded a despairing tackle and tucked home after his first shot was saved. After the interval, Singapore came within inches of a second, but Kieran Teo's shot rebounded off the post with Timor-Leste goalkeeper Egidio Lurio beaten. The Young Lions should have got their second in the 81st minute, but substitute Nicholas Beninger hit the post and Kharin scuffed his shot at Egidio.       A WOEFUL TRACK RECORD Singapore’s U-22 men’s football team have fared poorly at the Games in the past editions. The team last qualified for the semi-finals in 2013. Since then, they have been eliminated from the group stage in the next five Games. Timor-Leste celebrating their equaliser against Singapore during the first half of the SEA Games match at Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec 6, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long) Singapore’s Tan Jonan En Yuan with Amir Syafiz Abdul Rashid after the first half of the SEA Ganes match at Rajamangala National Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec 6, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long) At the last edition of the tournament, the Young Lions suffered a 0-7 drubbing at the hands of Causeway rivals Malaysia. That was Singapore's heaviest defeat at the Games since the competition became an age-group affair in 2001. Earlier this year, the Young Lions were left out of the provisional list for the Games. But the team appealed successfully, playing out two closed-door friendlies, with a win and a draw, to strengthen the case for their inclusion. Late changes to the Young Lions' Games scheduling have not been ideal for preparations.  The team were originally drawn in Group C to face champions Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines in Chiang Mai. However, after the withdrawal of Cambodia, Firdaus' men were shifted to Group A. Group B comprises Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos. The three group winners and the best second-placed team will advance to the semi-finals.     https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sport/singapore-timor-leste-sea-games-football-young-lions-5565451

If your only plans for the end of the week are staying at home and doomscrolling, it’s high time to get off your bum and shake up that sedentary routine. There’s so much happening in town on weekend nights, and no, we’re not taking cries of “it’s too far” and “I’m lazy to travel” as excuses – because CapitaLand has just launched a brand new shuttle bus service which operates between hotspots in town, CQ @ Clark Quay itself, and residential areas. Plus, with the day-to-night venue recently undergoing a massive revamp, there’s no reason why you should hole yourself up instead of exploring every corner of this vibrant precinct. It sounds almost too good to be true, but the CQ Night Shuttle is absolutely free to board, with looping pick-ups and drop-offs between the lifestyle hub and various points in town between 11pm to 3am. These include Somerset MRT, Ion Orchard, Ascott Orchard, Plaza Singapura, and Raffles City. Forget about your usual bedtime, because as long as you can easily zip around without forking out on cab fare, the night is still young as far as we are concerned.   What about getting home, then? That’s all accounted for as well, provided you stay in the east or west. After the clubs and bars in CQ have closed for the night, the shuttle bus embarks from Clarke Quay 4am with direct one-way routes to Tampines MRT station and Westgate in Jurong. Even if you don’t live in either corner of the island, having one leg of your commute covered by the shuttle’s town loop is already a win. Here’s a handy infographic charting out the CQ Night Shuttle and Home Shuttle route: Photograph: CapitaLand TIME OUT TIP In true Singaporean fashion, you might wish to queue for the shuttle buses in advance. The town shuttle is a cosy one that seats only 23 persons, while the ones dropping off at Jurong and Tampines are slightly bigger with a 45-passenger capacity. Find out more about the CQ Night Shuttle and check the exact route and bus schedule here.  

SINGAPORE – When Ms Joanne Huang picked up baking over a decade ago, she did not expect it to become her life’s work. What began as an act of love to ease her baker husband’s workload ended up taking her to the global stage. In July, the 44-year-old received the World Confectioner of the Year 2025 award at the International Union of Bakers and Confectioners Awards in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Although she sees herself as still a rookie in the industry, she is the first South-east Asian woman and first Singaporean to earn the title. Back in 2014, she learnt how to bake to help out her husband, Mr Forest Lim, 49. She watched him wake up five days a week at 2am to make curry puffs, doughnuts and egg tarts before delivering them to seven school canteens. Pregnant with their second child then, she could only help with packing and accompanying him on his delivery runs.   The couple and their eldest son, then two years old, lived in an HDB flat above Mr Lim’s family bakery – founded in 1979 as New Generation Confectionery in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 – while waiting for their own flat to be ready. Born in Taiwan, Ms Huang moved to Singapore in early 2012, after a whirlwind one-month romance with Mr Lim, whom she met while working here as a dance instructor in November 2011. She married him in May the following year and became a stay-at-home mother here. “It pained me to see my husband working so hard and I wanted to find some way to help him,” she recalls. Up till then, Ms Huang, who has a certificate of study in applied foreign languages from the Overseas Chinese University in Taichung City, had worked only as a dance teacher.   With no baking experience, she suggested creating an online platform specialising in customised cakes for special occasions, which were then becoming popular. Mr Lim handled production while she managed their Facebook marketing and orders.   “Right there and then, I knew I wanted to learn cake-making first to ease his burden,” she says. Former dance instructor Joanne Huang learnt baking out of a desire to help her baker husband. ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO Secret plan After giving birth to her second child in March 2014, she took both children to Taiwan for a month in November, telling her husband she wanted to visit her family. It was a cover for her plan: an intensive two-week cake-making course at a bakery school there.   “The timing was right. My mother was able to help look after my children while I attended classes and learnt how to make cakes. I wanted to surprise my husband when I got back.” Her first morning back in Singapore, she prepared whipped cream and decorated a cake her husband was supposed to work on. Surprised by her new skills, he supported her decision to continue attending bakery classes here and urged her to enter competitions. She eventually worked alongside him full time. Today, her creations – cakes, shio pan and sourdough loaves – sell out regularly. Winning the global award in her 11th year of baking marked a milestone she had never thought was possible, says Ms Huang, who hopes her win can serve as encouragement to younger bakers. Ms Joanne Huang was awarded World Confectioner of the Year 2025 by the International Union of Bakers and Confectioners in a ceremony held in Brazil’s Sao Paulo. ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO “I want people to know, you can be working in a neighbourhood bakery and still have the opportunity to earn global recognition, as long as you continue to have passion and believe in what you do.” Mr Lim says: “When she initially told me she wanted to learn baking to ease my workload, I didn’t expect her to progress to this level and excel in the field. “She is always finding ways to improve her baking techniques and expand her knowledge, despite our daily workload at the bakery.” Before she became a baker, Ms Huang taught hip-hop dance to adult students in Taiwan for five years. She had picked up dancing on her own and later joined a dance group. “I love dancing,” she says. “I don’t have stage fright. It has helped me have the confidence to take part in baking competitions.” Baking appealed to the same creative instincts. “I like to create and try out new ideas, and see if customers can accept them.” Becoming a Singapore citizen in 2017 strengthened Ms Huang’s resolve to make baking her career. That same year, she entered her first international competition in Taiwan, creating a pineapple tart shaped like ang ku kueh and placed third.  Bread came next in 2018. “I realised that to help my husband modernise his family’s bakery, I needed to understand bread thoroughly,” she says. It took her six months to master bread-making, beginning with the basics like proofing, kneading and shaping loaves, before she started incorporating local ingredients, such as laksa leaves and curry leaves, into the dough. Marrying trend and tradition A major renovation in 2018 transformed their 796 sq ft heritage bakery into today’s sleek-looking shop, which was renamed Cake In Action By New Generation. The couple invested $180,000 into the makeover, outfitting it with a new four-tier deck oven and industrial cake mixers. They also consolidated their online customised cake platform and physical bakery. One of the biggest hurdles was her father-in-law, who valued old-school loyalty to their long-time suppliers. Ms Huang recalls modifying their doughnut recipe using a higher-quality locally milled flour from a different supplier.  “My father-in-law questioned me on the need to use expensive flour, which cost 20 per cent more than the one he had been using for years,” she says. The matter was laid to rest after he found that the new flour rendered well-hydrated dough, resulting in moister bakes and favourable feedback from regulars. Convinced the bakery was in good hands, he handed over the reins to the couple that year. Today, the doughnuts ($1.20 for sugar-coated, $1.50 for chocolate-coated) sell out daily. Ms Joanne Huang and her husband, Mr Forest Lim, run neighbourhood bakery Cake In Action By New Generation together. ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO But some items remain unchanged. The butter cake and banana cake ($5 each) still hew to her father-in-law’s original recipes. Her attempts to introduce sourdough to the bakery took five years to succeed. In 2019, through the Singapore Bakery & Confectionery Trade Association – where she now serves as assistant secretary-general, with Mr Lim as president – she met a Swedish chef who shared his sourdough techniques generously. In June 2025, he passed her a levain (fermented dough) starter that is over 100 years old, which helped her ferment new batches of dough. Her own first attempts in 2020 failed miserably. Customers, unfamiliar with sourdough, mistakenly thought the bread had gone bad as they found it too hard and sour. After three months of poor sales and constant complaints, she took it off the menu.  She reintroduced sourdough in October this year. Her latest iteration of Sourdough Loaf ($7) uses 30 per cent levain and is made with French flour. The levain results in a moist, chewy texture, enabling the bread to stay soft for three days, though she recommends freezing it. Since June, she has also incorporated levain into the recipes for the bakery’s doughnuts, baguettes and sweet buns, resulting in more digestible breads with a moister chewiness. Ms Huang also launched her new shio pan range, made with levain – Original, Matcha and Sesame ($1.80 each) – in August. Sourdough Loaf and Shio Pan in original, matcha and sesame flavours at Cake In Action. ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO Staying grounded Her life remains centred in Ang Mo Kio, where she works and lives with her husband and their three children, aged 13, 11 and nine. She gets up every morning at 6am and is at the bakery by 6.30am, gathering and preparing ingredients for her bakes. Ms Joanne Huang starts work at 6.30am daily. ST PHOTO: HEDY KHOO Her husband prepares the children for school and reports for bakery duty by 8.30am after dropping them off.  At 1pm, Ms Huang heads home to their four-room flat to do housework as the couple do not have a domestic worker. Her day ends at 10pm after the children are put to bed.  As the bakery opens daily, they have no weekly day off. But she and her husband make it a point to take two days off monthly, which they use to run errands together. She says their love is not built on grand gestures but simple acts of thoughtfulness, such as her husband helping to mop the floor at home or taking her for a leisurely Taiwanese breakfast at one of her favourite eateries on their day off. “We see each other daily and spend nearly all our waking hours together, but we still get along and enjoy chatting with each other,” she says. Full-blown arguments are rare. “We always find some way to resolve any differences in opinion amicably.” Mr Lim says: “Having her by my side in life and in work puts my heart at ease.”   She relishes how he still issues her challenges at work. “He will ask me if I want to take on more difficult orders, such as making 3D cakes.” She remembers an early mistake in 2018, when she forgot to add yeast to a batch of dough. “After four years on the job, I should not be making such an error,” she says. “But my husband did not yell at me or get angry that we had to throw out all 30kg of dough. Instead, he suggested that when I prepare the ingredients, I should put the yeast at a prominent spot where I won’t miss it.” She has no desire to work in a fancy patisserie in town. “I have never regretted my choice to work in a neighbourhood bakery. My main aim, right from the beginning, is to help my husband,” she says.  “Many of our regulars have become our friends. They buy food for us and even give us souvenirs from their overseas trips.” “You can have lofty ideas as a baker, but at a neighbourhood bakery, being practical is key,” she says. “In the Central Business District, baked goods must be trendy to keep up with the younger working crowd. But at a neighbourhood bakery like ours, we focus on product consistency because we depend on regulars.” But she insists on using better-quality ingredients at the expense of higher profits. “I want to use high-quality ingredients, and I am willing to earn less because my goal is to give my customers baked goods they can eat with peace of mind and feel satisfied with.” Baking continues to surprise her after 11 years. “When I married a baker, I never imagined becoming one myself. I still love bread as much; I eat it every morning,” she says. “It is just like my husband. I don’t get tired of him.”