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Volunteers will go on monthly patrols around Toa Payoh East-Novena to make it safer for pedestrians who share footpaths with cyclists and users of personal mobility devices.

The volunteers will educate cyclists on responsible and gracious behaviour, as part of a new scheme launched by the constituency's grassroots organisations yesterday.

The People's Association Community Emergency Response Team, grassroots volunteers and community partners will also reach out to users of devices such as skateboards, rollerblades and kick scooters.

A law allowing bicycles and other mobility devices on footpaths is expected to be passed this year.


A Singaporean man has been sentenced to death in Vietnam for trafficking 2.5kg of heroin.

Lee Loke Dah, 40, was arrested at Ho Chi Minh's Tan Son Nhat International Airport in December 2014 with a plastic bag containing thousands of capsules. Tests confirmed that the drug was heroin, local news portal thanhniennews.com reported.

The man, who had entered the country four days earlier, told investigators that he stole the bag from a stranger in a hotel and that he was not aware of the drug.

Prosecutors rejected these claims. In Vietnam, those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600g of heroin or more than 2.5kg of methamphetamine face the death penalty.


Cambodia, which faces one of the world's fastest deforestation rates, has included another million hectares of forest land in its protected zones.

The move, which covers five new areas of forest, will bump Cambodia's conservation zones up by a fifth, bringing more than a quarter of the country's land under protection.

The new conservation areas will include parts of Prey Lang - an area where activists have long been risking their lives to expose illegal logging that has eviscerated forest cover.

The lucrative trade has contributed to the clearance of around one third of the country's forested land in the past 30 years.

- AFP.


Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to the world's biggest ivory bonfire yesterday.

He demanded a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end "murderous" trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.

"The height of the pile of ivory before us marks the strength of our resolve," Mr Kenyatta said.

Eleven giant pyres of tusks and another of rhino horns are expected to burn for days in Nairobi's national park. The pyres contain about 16,000 tusks and pieces of ivory.

Diesel and kerosene were injected though steel pipes buried in the ground leading into the heart of the pyramids to fuel the blaze.

- AFP.

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