A 26-year-old National University of Singapore (NUS) student allegedly filmed a 23-year-old female student while she was showering in a bathroom at Raffles Hall on Saturday morning (May 11). In a statement, the police said that they were alerted to the incident at 8.08am. Joel Rasis Ismail, who resides in the same residential hall as the victim, was arrested on the same day following investigations and with the aid of CCTV footage. His laptops, mobile phones and other storage devices were seized for further investigations. The police said: "He is believed to have tried to avoid being identified by changing his attire immediately after he had allegedly committed the offences, and is also believed to be involved in other similar cases." The accused was charged on Monday (May 13) with one count each of criminal trespass and insulting the modesty of a woman. A WhatsApp message sent to Raffles Hall residents said that the university is providing the victim with "dedicated support and assistance". An NUS spokesman also told The Straits Times that the university is working closely with the police in their investigations, and will take the necessary disciplinary actions. The spokesman said that since April, the university has been enhancing security on its campuses through improved closed-circuit television (CCTV) coverage, upgrading of shower cubicles and toilet locks to make them more secure, and increased patrols by campus security officers. "All these measures are in the midst of being implemented by Raffles Hall, including the secure shower cubicles which will be installed in the coming weeks," said the director of campus security in a safety advisory e-mail to students and staff on Saturday afternoon. Joel will be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric observation and will be back in court on May 27, reported The Straits Times. If convicted of criminal trespass, he faces up to three months in jail and/or fined up to $1,500. If convicted of insulting the modesty of a woman, he faces a jail term of up to a year and/or a fine.<doc-sep>SINGAPORE - A female student at the National University of Singapore (NUS) was allegedly filmed by another student in a bathroom at one of the residence halls on Saturday morning (May 11). A police report has been made about the incident at Raffles Hall and the suspect has been apprehended by the police for further investigations, said an NUS spokesman. Police said they received a call for assistance around 8.10am, and subsequently arrested a 26-year-old NUS male student, a resident of the same residential hall, for criminal trespass. The man is also being investigated for insulting the modesty of a woman, added the police. The NUS spokesman said "the university is working closely with the police in their investigations, and will take the necessary disciplinary actions". The university is also providing the victim with "dedicated support and assistance". The spokesman said that since April, the university has been enhancing security on its campuses through improved closed-circuit television (CCTV) coverage, upgrading of shower cubicles and toilet locks to make them more secure, and increased patrols by campus security officers. "All these measures are in the midst of being implemented by Raffles Hall, including the secure shower cubicles which will be installed in the coming weeks," said the director of campus security in a safety advisory e-mail to students and staff on Saturday afternoon, as seen by The Straits Times. [[nid:444579]] In April, NUS undergraduate Monica Baey took to social media to express frustration that NUS had not done more against a fellow student who had filmed her in her hall shower in November last year. Her posts, which went viral, prompted NUS to form a review committee to take a closer look at disciplinary and support frameworks. The NUS spokesman said on Saturday that footage of the male suspect involved in the latest incident was captured via a newly installed CCTV camera, which ST understands was installed on Friday. "The university is committed to accelerating the implementation of these security enhancements, but in the meantime, we would like to urge all students to remain vigilant, and to report any suspicious activity to NUS campus security immediately," said the spokesman. The university is also developing a course to educate its community on respect and consent, added the spokesman. Ms Baey said she was filmed by fellow student Nicholas Lim at the Eusoff Hall student residence. Mr Lim was given a 12-month conditional warning from police and was suspended from school for a semester. He was also made to write an apology letter to her. Apart from forming a review committee, NUS also convened a campus town hall meeting attended by more than 600 students. NUS president Tan Eng Chye later apologised for falling short in providing support to victims of sexual misconduct, while Education Minister Ong Ye Kung called the current penalties "manifestly inadequate". NUS had said it would be working with students to tighten security in the bathrooms of all students' halls of residences. The university also said that it would introduce educational seminars on respect, consent and awareness for all students, faculty and staff when the new academic year starts. In a statement on April 28, the police said there were 25 cases of sexual offences brought before the NUS Board of Discipline during the academic years from 2015/16 to 2017/18. This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.<doc-sep>South China Morning Post China and Russia have repeated their commitment to strengthen their relationship as the White House announced the first summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin next month. The June 16 meeting is widely seen as an olive branch from the US President to his Russian counterpart and some observers said it may be another attempt by Washington to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing. In a phone conversation on Tuesday with President Xi Jinping’s top diplomatic aide Yang Jiechi, Putin said relations between the two countries were “the best in history” and said it was essential for the two leaders to maintain close contact, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Putin made similar comments a week ago when he and Xi launched via video link a project to build four new nuclear reactors in China using Russian technology. At the same event Xi also spoke highly of their “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination”. Xinhua said Putin also pledged to work with China to preserve global strategic stability and defend multilateralism – a possible veiled reference to Washington’s drive to use its relationship with its allies to target authoritarian governments. We will share space flight components with China: Russian space agency Yang, who was visiting Moscow for strategic and security talks, again stated China’s commitment to strengthening relations in the call with Putin, which touched on “several pressing global issues” according to the TASS news agency. “China is ready to work with Russia to comprehensively implement the consensus reached by the two presidents and turn the high-level political mutual trust into more results from strategic coordination,” Yang said, according to Xinhua. During his visit, Yang also co-chaired the annual bilateral strategic security consultations, a dialogue mechanism set up in 2005, along with Russian security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev on Tuesday. Analysts noted that Beijing and Moscow are edging closer together in the face of mounting pressure from the West. Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said the Geneva summit showed Washington was trying to ease tensions with Moscow. “The Biden administration has softened its stance and tried to stabilise ties with Russia since it imposed sanctions on Moscow in April. It has become apparent that Washington will be more focused on China,” he said. China’s top diplomat heads to Russia on security talks mission Beijing suspected that the previous US administration also wanted to drive a wedge between China and Russia, with Donald Trump making repeated efforts to readmit Moscow to the Group of 7. Vladimir Portyakov, deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Affairs at the Russian Academy of Sciences, also described the Biden-Putin summit as an attempt to “slow down the Russian-Chinese rapprochement, and if successful, to pull Russia and China away from each other.” “I hope that Moscow understands this and will not play ‘equidistant’ from Washington and Beijing. I would also like to believe that Beijing will stop considering relations with the United States as a ‘priority of priorities’ and will gradually reduce its importance in China’s foreign policy,” he said. But Zhu said: “Both Beijing and Moscow have a growing interest in working with each other to confront the US and other Western countries. Strengthening their coordination is their best choice, and probably the only option to some extent.” In an editorial on Wednesday, the tabloid Global Times, controlled by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, also attributed close China-Russian ties to “the US and its main allies’ suppression of the two countries”. Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University, also said both China and Russia need each other. While Moscow has increasingly leaned on Beijing economically after the Covid-19 crisis, Beijing relies on Russia when it comes to the military-strategic realm and particularly hi-end military technology. “Moreover, the position of Russia may be crucial in the event of an increasingly likely military conflict between China and the US. Strong relations with Moscow would, at a minimum, secure China’s northern and Central Asian borders – and it cannot even be ruled out that Russia would provide direct assistance to Beijing in a Sino-US war,” he said. Lukin said that the Geneva summit was likely to bring about some short-term normalisation in US-Russia relations, but deep-seated tensions and disagreements made a full rapprochement unlikely. Putin threatens to ‘knock out the teeth’ of Russia’s opponents “I don’t think Washington will be seriously trying to drive a wedge between China and Russia. The people in the Biden administration are smart enough to understand it is not going to work. “Even if they try to do that, such a policy would almost certainly fail because the Russia-China political relationship is quite robust and will remain so for the foreseeable future,” he said. But Zhu said Moscow and Beijing were unlikely to form a full alliance. “China’s top diplomatic priority is to prevent further disengagement with the US and the West. I doubt that a strategic alliance will be in Beijing’s interests or help achieve that goal,” he said.More from South China Morning Post:Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin to hold first summit in Geneva on June 16Nuclear energy: China, Russia agree to boost ties in ‘strategic priority’ areaXi and Putin to mark expansion of China-Russia nuclear power project ahead of US talksThis article China and Russia once again pledge to strengthen ties as White House announces first Putin-Biden summit first appeared on South China Morning PostFor the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2021.<doc-sep>
A spokesman for NUS said that university is working closely with the police in their investigations after the incident at Raffles Hall last Saturday, and will take the necessary disciplinary actions. SINGAPORE - A 26-year-old National University of Singapore (NUS) student who was arrested on Saturday (May 11) for allegedly filming another student in a residence hall bathroom had changed his attire immediately after committing the offences to avoid being identified, the police have said. In a statement on Monday, the police said that investigations revealed the man is also believed to be involved in other similar cases. A NUS spokesman said the incident occurred at Raffles Hall. Both the man and the 23-year-old female victim reside in the same hall, police said. The police were alerted to the case at 8.08am on Saturday. Officers from the Clementi Police Division identified the man through follow-up investigations and the use of closed-circuit television footage (CCTV), and arrested him on the same day. The man's laptops, mobile phones and other storage devices were seized for further investigations. [[nid:446366]] A spokesman for NUS earlier said that university is working closely with the police in their investigations, and will take the necessary disciplinary actions. The university is also providing the victim with "dedicated support and assistance," the spokesman added. Since April, NUS has been enhancing security on its campuses through improved CCTV coverage, upgrading of shower cubicles and toilet locks to make them more secure, and increased patrols by campus security officers. "All these measures are in the midst of being implemented by Raffles Hall, including the secure shower cubicles which will be installed in the coming weeks," said the director of campus security in a safety advisory e-mail to students and staff on Saturday afternoon, as seen by The Straits Times. The NUS spokesman said that footage of the male suspect involved in this incident was captured via a newly installed CCTV camera, which ST understands was installed on Friday. [[nid:444747]] In April, NUS undergraduate Monica Baey took to social media to express frustration that NUS had not done more against a fellow student who had filmed her in her hall shower in November last year. Her posts, which went viral, prompted NUS to form a review committee to take a closer look at disciplinary and support frameworks. Police said that the man is expected to be charged for criminal trespass and for insulting the modesty of a woman on Monday. If convicted of criminal trespass, the man could be sentenced to up to three months' jail, fined up to $1500, or both. And if convicted of insulting the modesty of a woman, he faces a jail term of up to a year, a fine, or both. This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.