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Deep Dive - Renovation red flags: What to know from start to finish

Deep Dive

Ghosted by your interior designer, left with unfinished renovation work or stuck waiting for your furniture to be delivered? For some homeowners, creating their dream home can quickly turn into a costly nightmare. So, what can homeowners do to protect themselves from renovation woes? What red flags should they look out for before signing a contract, and what can they do when things go wrong? In this week’s Deep Dive, Steven Chia and Tiffany Ang speak with interior designer Shaun Fong and litigator Pang Khin Wee from IRB Law to unpack the risks, red flags and safeguards that every homeowner should know before embarking on a home renovation.

Steven Chia

Steven Chia

Tiffany Ang

Tiffany Ang

Resume Pause 31 min
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Deep Dive - Renovation red flags: What to know from start to finish

Ghosted by your interior designer, left with unfinished renovation work or stuck waiting for your furniture to be delivered? For some homeowners, creating their dream home can quickly turn into a costly nightmare. So, what can homeowners do to protect themselves from renovation woes? What red flags should they look out for before signing a contract, and what can they do when things go wrong? In this week’s Deep Dive, Steven Chia and Tiffany Ang speak with interior designer Shaun Fong and litigator Pang Khin Wee from IRB Law to unpack the risks, red flags and safeguards that every homeowner should know before embarking on a home renovation.

Resume Pause 31 mins
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Deep Dive - North-South Corridor delay: Was it avoidable – and can businesses survive the impact?

Another delay to the construction of the North-South Corridor means two more years of dust, noise and disruption for affected residents, businesses and pedestrians. For an engineering project of this scale and complexity, are delays simply part of the process or could more have been done to prevent them? And as businesses grapple with declining footfall and mounting losses, what can be done to help them ride out the prolonged disruption? In this week’s Deep Dive, Steven Chia speaks with Dr David Ng from The Institution of Engineers, Singapore - who has worked on major infrastructure projects from the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) to MRT lines - and business owner Alvin Lin about the challenges surrounding the Corridor project, from the engineering difficulties to the business fallouts.

Resume Pause 24 mins
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Deep Dive - Do racist comments online really reflect what Singaporeans think?

Recent controversies over the Nepal-Tibet floods and the debate over Singapore Airlines’ investment into Air India have once again put Singaporeans’ attitudes towards race and immigration in the spotlight. Does this reflect growing racist views in society, or is social media amplifying the racism of a minority? Are we also up against something more sinister, like AI bots creating divisions? Can we have meaningful discussions about hot-button immigration or social issues without resorting to racism and stereotypes? And will the new racial harmony law – which took effect on Sep 15 – put the brakes on racist commentators online, or will it drive them underground? Steven Chia and Tiffany Ang speak with Dr Mathew Mathews from the Institute of Policy Studies and associate professor Natalie Pang from the National University of Singapore about what’s driving these conversations, where the lines should be drawn and how we can do better.

Resume Pause 33 mins
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Deep Dive - Buying food from livestreamers: Can you trust what sellers claim?

A convincing livestreamer, thousands of reviews or professional-looking packaging may make an online food purchase feel safe to buy. But none of these can tell you whether the food itself is safe. With more of our shopping moving online, have we become better - or worse - at assessing the risks? Tiffany Ang and Steven Chia speak with Dr Vinayak Ghate from the department of food science and technology at NUS and Dexter Tay, executive director at the Consumers Association of Singapore, about what consumers can and cannot tell from food labels, seller claims and customer reviews.

Resume Pause 29 mins
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Deep Dive - Roxy Square incident: Have the rules changed on patting a child's head?

A pat on a child's head by an elderly man at Roxy Square, which led to a shoving incident, has ignited debate about how a gesture can be seen as friendly affection by one person but viewed as an unwanted touch by another. As social norms shift, how should adults respond when they feel that children's boundaries are crossed? Steven Chia and Tiffany Ang speak with Tey Beng Huan, psychologist at Temasek Polytechnic Centre for Applied Behavioural Sciences, and Kelly Tay, CEO of Juicy Parenting (@juicy.parenting), parent educator and author.

Resume Pause 25 mins
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