Yah Lah But

A recent Ipsos survey of 500 Singaporeans revealed that 57% of Singaporean men agree with the statement "we have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men." Is Singapore a really sexist society? Elsewhere, Kate Middleton’s doctored Mother’s Day photo has triggered a firestorm of criticism, with international news agencies even voluntarily opting to remove the...

Over the weekend, the Italian ambassador to Singapore went on social media and called out Italian restaurant Gotti Italiano for bearing the name of an infamous mob boss and for hosting a “Hip Hop Mafioso” night. The restaurant has since publicly apologised to the ambassador and for any offence caused. Is it a reasonable expectation for the owners of a restaurant in Singapore to be sensitive to cul...

This week in Parliament, it was revealed that Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh was the one who referred the West Coast couple in the recent POFMA case to Leong Mun Wai. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua questioned his intentions in doing so before the Budget 2024 announcement, chastising the politicising of vulnerable people. Who’s playing politics here? Elsewhere, MP Tan Kiat How reve...

CHECK OUT our new Ministry of Funny website at https://www.ministryoffunny.com/! It's the world's first TRISHAW PODCAST! We’ve sped through 499 episodes of Yah Lah BUT, so for ep 500, we decided to do something wheel-y special! Harking back to our MOF roots, we took it to the streets ON A TRISHAW to bring some YLB goodness to the gentrified hipster heritage district of the East Coast. We look back...

It’s Taylor Swift Week! And alongside the buzz about her sold out series of concerts at the Sports Hub, officials in the Philippines have called out Singapore’s deal with the singer, saying it "isn't what good neighbours do." Should we be feeling bad about depriving our regional neighbours of their dose of Swift-mania? Elsewhere, NSmen’s allowances came under the spotlight in Parliament, with Oppo...

Shibani Mahtani is the Washington Post journalist who published an article last year which alleged that local Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao “now routinely echoes some of Beijing’s most strident falsehoods”. This prompted a strong rebuttal from the newspaper and even Singapore’s ambassador to the US. However, Singapore recently invoked the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act 2021 against b...

This week, we got comedian Jacky Ng in the studio to talk about his upcoming hour-long standup performance, and to contribute his thoughts on a couple of funny (OK, maybe not-SO-funny) topics. Concerns arose last week when it was revealed that schools have been teaching students about the conflict in Gaza via their Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) lessons. The slides from the lessons were...

Clarence Sim AKA @clarencesimple, the NTU scientist who went viral after highlighting filtration company Sterra’s misleading ad on tap water in Singapore, drops by the YLB studio! He talks about his journey as a science communicator, why he decided to call out Sterra, and whether the company has since reached out to him to make amends. And oh, he also talks about all the THIRSTY messages in his DM...

In response to recent rumours of a Southeast-Asia exclusivity deal, STB and the Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth (MCCY) clarified that a grant had been provided to help bring Taylor Swift’s concert to Singapore, but did not confirm if the deal was indeed exclusive. Will this news cause bad blood with Swifties in our neighbouring countries? Elsewhere, the fallout over football star Messi’s...

For the first “instalment” of the Forward SG social compact, DPM Lawrence Wong delivered Budget 2024, which leaned in on preparing workers for uncertain times ahead, and providing relief for those affected by ongoing retrenchments. In what’s becoming an annual tradition, we invited Reggie, boss of personal finance network The Financial Coconut (TFC) into our studio to help us read the tea leaves a...

This past week, NCMP and PSP leader Leong Mun Wai was issued a POFMA for publishing false information about an elderly West Coast couple who were allegedly facing financial difficulties. Was there any merit to this POFMA? Elsewhere, PUB called out water purifier firm Sterra for its “misleading” advertisements that made dubious claims about the cleanliness of Singapore tap water. Was this a POFMA-a...

The police announced that they are looking into 2 events related to the Israel-Hamas war that took place in Singapore over the last couple of weeks, including a march to deliver letters to the Istana. In light of how the rest of the world is reacting to the Middle East conflict, were these events really out of line? Elsewhere, Singaporean actress Caitanya Tan is starring in the new Ubisoft video g...

This week, PM Lee and members of the Opposition were engaged in a marathon debate about Singapore’s reserves, with PSP putting forward a motion to use more of the national reserves for the needs of the current generation of Singaporeans. Who made the better points in the debate? Elsewhere, Mr Coconut is currently caught in a bitter dispute with an ex-employee, who alleged on social media that she...

The 2023 suicide case of police officer Uvaraja Gopal and related discrimination allegations were addressed by Minister Shanmugam in Parliament this week, prompting a question by NCMP Leong Mun Wai about whether the case warranted a Committee of Inquiry. Does his point have any merit? Elsewhere, NTU announced that it will be imposing a fee on tourist groups coming to their campus in response to an...

Last week, a Singaporean businessman, Phillip Chan, became the first person to be designated a “politically significant person” under the recently implemented foreign interference law. Is this a valid use of this law? Elsewhere, Hong Kong football fans were left raging when Lionel Messi sat out of an exhibition match between Inter Miami and a local team due to injury. Is the fans’ anger valid? Fin...

TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi was grilled by US senators on his personal ties to China; one senator even asked pointedly about the status of his Singapore citizenship. Some decried the line of questioning as “racist”, but was it really? Elsewhere, the Singapore Repertory Theatre recently announced that it is changing its name to Singapore Theatre Company, to the consternation of some in the local theatr...

Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information and for Health Dr Janil Puthucheary said that young LGBTQ people should “stand up for what you believe in” in Singapore instead of leaving the country, in response to a question from Pink Dot SG spokesperson Clement Tan at a conference. Why was this response not particularly well-received by online commentators? Elsewhere, some migrant wo...

The fallout from the revelation of the CEO’s fake credentials at the AI startup Vizzio continues, with an interim CEO being appointed to take over. But who were the real victims in this web of half-truths and lies? Elsewhere, TODAY journalists uncovered that some massage parlours were accepting payments in CDC vouchers for “special services” of a sexual nature. Is this a big enough problem that wi...

A self-radicalized Chinese teenager was detained by the ISD for his white supremacist views. What caused this strange turn of events? Elsewhere, queues formed for new and fit-for-gifting notes for CNY; but why does this practice still persist? Find us here! YLB Subreddit YLB TikTok YLB IG YLB YouTube Folklory V-DAY Alert! If you’re looking for a meaningful gift, we’d love to help you create a pers...

The U-turn that came out of nowhere! Fresh from being sworn in as the Minister of Transport, Chee Hong Tat announced that the plan to transition fully to SimplyGo by 1st June would be shelved. Does this show that the authorities are listening to feedback, or is it just delaying the inevitable? Elsewhere, a viral TikTok showed that an Old Chang Kee sardine puff from the Trafalgar Square outlet sell...

A free umbrella sharing service for Joo Chiat residents to use in the event of sudden downpours was stopped because people did not return the umbrellas after using them. After deploying more than 1,180 umbrellas, the program became unsustainable, which begs the question: are Singaporeans really just an inconsiderate lot? Elsewhere, people took to social media to ridicule the CNY Dragon decor at Ch...

S Iswaran resigned from his cabinet position as Transport Minister and MP, in light of being formally charged for 27 offences including corruption on Thursday. The list of charges included details about concerts, football matches and even a private jet to Doha. What happens now? Elsewhere, a Bukit Timah resident’s fish pond was brutally ravaged for the 2nd time in just over a year by a group of ot...

This week, Donald Trump cemented his frontrunner status within the US Republican party as President Joe Biden’s most likely opponent. Why does this matter for the rest of the world? Elsewhere, the Singapore government’s BudgetMealGoWhere portal allows the public to search for budget meal options at nearby HDB coffee shops. Why did this leave a bad taste in people’s mouths? Find us here! YLB Subred...

The recent announcement that all adult commuters will have to use the SimplyGo platform for public transport payments by June sent the public into a frenzy, with many lamenting the confusing nature of the transition. Of course, it didn’t help that the SimplyGo app was overwhelmed by downloads not long after the announcement, bringing the robustness of the system into question. Why the big hoo-ha?...

In Parliament this week, WP MP Jamus Lim called the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s proposed loss-sharing framework for phishing scams “fundamentally unfair”, and suggested that scam victims should bear no more than $500 of the cost. Many rushed to call him a populist and other names, but is there any merit to his suggestion? Elsewhere, some numbers were revealed in Parliament to explain why Bus...