Mr Kwek says he has filed court papers accusing his son Sherman of trying to take control of their real estate firm City Developments Limited (CDL). Sherman Kwek has denied the allegation.

Kwek Leng Beng, who is CDL’s executive chairman, is also seeking to fire his son, who is the chief executive.

CDL, Singapore’s biggest listed property developer, has halted trading in its shares on the financial hub’s stock exchange.

The feud has sparked comparisons with the HBO television series Succession, in which the fictional Roy family fight for control of the global media firm Waystar RoyCo.

“We intend to change the chief executive officer at the appropriate time,” Kwek Leng Beng said in a statement.

“As a father, firing my son was certainly not an easy decision.”

But the octogenarian added: “This is necessary to deal with this attempted coup at the board level and restore corporate integrity.”

If Sherman Kwek is removed as chief executive, his father said he plans to replace him on an interim basis with his cousin Kwek Eik Sheng.

The dispute centres on an email sent by CDL’s corporate secretary nominating two additional independent directors on the night of 28 January, the eve of the Lunar New Year – which marks the start of a major holiday in Singapore.

The row has attracted public attention in a part of the world in which battles over family businesses are not uncommon and have been known to end up in court.

After Wednesday’s court hearing, Kwek Leng Beng said the two new directors had agreed to not exercise any powers until further notice.

The company has said Sherman Kwek would remain in the role until the issue was resolved.

Sherman Kwek said he and the majority of CDL’s board were disappointed by what he described as extreme actions taken by his father “regarding this disagreement around the size and make-up of the CDL board.”

“To reiterate, this has never been about ousting our esteemed chairman. These steps to strengthen our board have purely been to ensure CDL has the highest standards of governance to which it has become known,” he said in a statement to the BBC.

Kwek Leng Beng, along with his father and brother, took control of then-loss-making CDL in 1971. He became the firm’s executive chairman after his father’s death in 1995.

It now has more than 160 hotel, residential and commercial properties around the world and forms part of a multi-billion dollar family empire.

“The reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as temporary and contract roles roll off over the next few years,” a DBS spokesperson told the BBC.

Permanent staff are not expected to be affected by the cuts. The bank’s outgoing chief executive Piyush Gupta also said it expects to create around 1,000 new AI-related jobs.

It makes DBS one of the first major banks to offer details on how AI will affect its operations.

The company did not say how many jobs would be cut in Singapore or which roles would be affected.

DBS currently has between 8,000 and 9,000 temporary and contract workers. The bank employs a total of around 41,000 people.

Last year, Mr Gupta said DBS had been working on AI for over a decade.

“We today deploy over 800 AI models across 350 use cases, and expect the measured economic impact of these to exceed S$1bn ($745m; £592m) in 2025,” he added.

Mr Gupta is set to leave the firm at the end of March. Current deputy chief executive Tan Su Shan will replace him.

The ongoing proliferation of AI technology has put its benefits and risks under the spotlight, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying in 2024 that it is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs worldwide.

The IMF’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva said that “in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality”.

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, told the BBC last year that AI will not be a “mass destroyer of jobs” and human workers will learn to work with new technologies.

Mr Bailey said that while there are risks with AI, “there is great potential with it”.

A post by beauty influencer Amyra Laila Ho went viral after she claimed that a couple tried to abduct her after forcing her to sniff tea leaves that left her feeling dizzy and numb.

However, police said their investigations disproved her claim, which went viral and sparked discussions about security in Johor Bahru.

Johor Bahru lies on one end of the roughly one-kilometre long causeway that links the southern tip of Malaysia to the north of Singapore. Millions cross over every day, making it one of the world’s busiest border crossings.

Ho pleaded guilty to providing false information to a police officer and was fined 1,000 ringgit ($228; £183), which she immediately paid, Singaporean and Malaysian media said.

Ho’s post where she detailed the alleged abduction attempt also appears to have been taken down from her Instagram account, which is under the name Venus Ho.

She had claimed that the abduction attempt happened after she refused to buy tea leaves from the couple.

She added that they then tried to abduct her. The man held her arm and pretended to be her husband while the woman took her bag containing 400 ringgit.

She said her alleged attackers fled and pushed her to the floor when passersby started noticing what was happening.

“Based on CCTV recordings and technical evidence, no movement involving the victim was detected at the location,” M Kumar, police chief for Johor state, which includes the city of Johor Bahru, told reporters.

Malaysian police said that after Ho posted about the alleged abduction attempt, “Social media influencers also commented on the issue, framing it as a threat to the safety of tourists visiting Johor”.

Police added that strict action would be taken against “anyone who deliberately spreads rumours or manipulates facts to cause public anxiety, particularly concerning safety issues”.

Johor Bahru lies on one end of the roughly one-kilometre long causeway that links the southern tip of Malaysia to the north of neighbouring Singapore.

About 300,000 commuters pass through the causeway daily, according to Singaporean media. Singapore and Malaysia also recently designated the area as a special economic zone, where they hope to attract more investments.

Her son Sebastian confirmed her death on an Instagram post on Wednesday, where he paid tribute to his 51-year-old mum as a “best friend and the best mother”.

The accident happened in Aspen in the US on Christmas Eve.

Ban’s family did not reveal her immediate cause of death.

In a social media post on New Year’s Eve, Ban had revealed that while skiing at the top of a mountain she had fallen and “face planted”.

As she was wearing a helmet, “it didn’t seem that bad at the time and I was able to ski to the bottom,” she had said, adding that a ski patrol officer later checked for a concussion and cleared her.

But she still had “a bit of a headache” and decided to go to a hospital, on the advice of a paramedic. She then discovered she had a brain bleed, and went for an emergency craniotomy.

“In a blink of an eye… life can change,” she had written in the post, which was accompanied by a picture of her in bed with her head partially shaved. “There’s a long road of recovery ahead but I’m a survivor.”

Born in Singapore, Ban had worked in New York, London and Paris.

Her designs have been worn by pop stars Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Cardi B and Billie Eilish, according to her website.

On Bling Empire New York in 2023, she was part of a cast of Asian American socialites who “flaunt their fortunes — and fashions — while bringing the drama and living it up in New York City”, according to Netflix.

In his tribute, Sebastian Ban said he wanted the world to know who his mum was as a person.

“She always had a smile on her face even when times are tough during her recovery process,” he said.

“She is a fighter until the end and is the strongest woman I know,” he said.

Suffering from deteriorating health and with just a week’s notice until the execution at dawn on November 29, he was unable to take on the demanding trip to see his son in person for one last time, according to reports.

Instead, the final contact between the father and son came via a long-distance phone call.

Despite a last-ditch legal challenge, Masoud was hanged on the final Friday of November, more than 14 years after he was first arrested for drug offences.Masoud, 35, became the ninth person to be hanged in Singapore this year.

“With four executions in November alone, the Singaporean government is relentlessly pursuing its cruel use of the death penalty,” said Bryony Lau, Deputy Director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.Anti-death penalty campaign groups believe that about 50 inmates are currently on death row in Singapore.

Despite opposition from prominent human rights groups and United Nations experts, Singapore claims that capital punishment has been “an effective deterrent” against drug traffickers and ensures the city-state is “one of the safest places in the world”.

A group of UN experts said in a joint statement last month that Singapore should “move from a reliance on criminal law and take a human rights-based approach in relation to drug use and drug use disorders”.

 Stories of the plight of death row inmates generally come from activists, who work tirelessly to fight for the rights of those facing the ultimate punishment.

The recent wave of executions has now left them shaken.“It’s a nightmare,” says Kokila Annamalai, a prominent anti-death penalty campaigner with the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).

Her work has led her to form a close bond with many death row prisoners.

“They’re more than just people we are campaigning for. They’re also our friends, they feel like our siblings. It’s been very difficult for us personally,” Annamalai told Al Jazeera.

Like almost all of Singapore’s prisoners on death row, Masoud was convicted for drug offences.Born in Singapore to an Iranian father and Singaporean mother, he had spent his childhood between Iran and Dubai.

At the age of 17, he returned to Singapore to complete his compulsory national service and it was during this period in his life that he was arrested on drug charges.

In May 2010, aged 20, he drove to meet a Malaysian man at a petrol station in central Singapore. Masoud took a package from the man, before driving away. He was soon stopped by the police. They searched the package and some other bags that they found in the car.

In total, officers discovered more than 31 grams of diamorphine, which is also known as heroin, and 77 grams of methamphetamine.Masoud was arrested for possessing drugs with the purpose of trafficking.

Under Singapore’s strict laws, anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin can face the death penalty.Masoud told police that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He also blamed an illegal money-lending syndicate for planting the drugs in order to frame him.

His defence did not stand up in court and he was sentenced to death in 2015.

Masoud’s sister, Mahnaz, released an open letter shortly before her brother was hanged last month. She described the pain that the death sentence had inflicted on their father.

“My dad was completely heartbroken, and he has never recovered. One of my brothers died when he was 7 years old, from appendicitis … losing another son, he couldn’t accept it,” she wrote.

Masoud had fought tirelessly to appeal his conviction, but his numerous legal challenges failed, as did a plea for clemency to Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Before his own execution, Masoud’s sister recounted how her brother had dedicated his time on death row to helping other prisoners with their own legal battles.

“He’s very invested in helping them find peace,” Mahnaz said.

“He feels it’s his responsibility to fight for his life as well as the others, and he wishes for everyone on death row to feel the same motivation, to be there for each other,” she said.

In October, Masoud was one of 13 death row prisoners who won a case against the Singapore Prison Service and the Attorney General ‘s Chambers, after they were deemed to have acted unlawfully by disclosing and requesting the private letters of prisoners.The court also found that the prisoners’ right to confidentiality had been breached.

Masoud was also due to represent a group of 31 prisoners in a constitutional challenge against a new law relating to the post-appeal process in death penalty cases. A hearing in that legal challenge is still scheduled for late January 2025, a date that is now too late for Masoud.

Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau said the fact that Masoud’s execution was carried out in advance of the upcoming high court hearing was “not relevant to his conviction or sentence”.

After a two-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, executions have ramped up in recent years in the Southeast Asian finance hub.

According to news reports, 25 prisoners have been executed in Singapore since 2022, with the authorities showing little prospect of softening their approach to capital punishment for drug traffickers.

Anti-death penalty campaigners in the city-state continue to voice their outrage at the government’s actions, using social media to amplify the personal stories of death row prisoners.

However, they have started to receive “correction orders” from government authorities, which are issued under Singapore’s controversial fake news law.

Annamalai’s TJC group has been targeted with the law – the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) – over several posts relating to death row cases.

The campaign group has been instructed to include a “correction notice” with their original posts and also share an online link to a government website, for further clarification.

“It’s always a story of a prisoner facing imminent execution that gets POFMA’d”, Annamalai said.

Describing these stories of individual prisoners as “the most powerful”, Annamalai says the group has been specifically targeted because “people start to care deeply and want to take action when they read them”.

Rights groups have hit out at the authorities’ recent targeting of activist groups.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued intimidation and climate of fear that the authorities have created around anti-death penalty activism in Singapore and demand that the harassment of activists ceases at once,” seven anti-death penalty groups said in a joint statement in October.

Elizabeth Wood, CEO of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, based in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the seven signatories to the letter, said that those fighting to end executions are being cast as “glorifying” drug traffickers.

“They announced that they would be creating a day of remembrance for the victims of drugs. That’s another means to accuse activists of glorifying and trying to humanise drug traffickers,” Wood said.

Human Rights Watch’s Lau said the “Singaporean government should not use its repressive and overly broad laws to attempt to silence anti-death penalty activists”.

In a recent statement, the Home Affairs Ministry said they “do not target, silence and harass organisations and individuals simply for speaking out against the death penalty”.

Annamalai of TJC said she will continue her activism, despite facing a POFMA correction order for a post on her personal Facebook page.

Though facing the risk of a fine or even a prison sentence, Annamalai said she will not make a correction.

“They’re aggressively and desperately trying to silence us, but they will not succeed,” she added.

The world champion was ordered to complete some “work of public interest” for the transgression, a punishment he described as “ridiculous” at the time.

Governing body the FIA said after the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that Verstappen’s duty would coincide with its prize-giving in the African country’s capital next week.

The top three drivers in the F1 world championship are required by regulation to attend the end-of-season FIA prize-giving ceremony. Verstappen’s punishment has been tagged on to the mandatory trip.

A statement said: “While in Kigali, (Verstappen) will undertake some work with junior competitors as part of the grassroots development programme organised by the Rwanda Automobile Club (RAC).

“The activity will involve an FIA affordable cross car which was built locally in Rwanda by the RAC from blueprints provided by the FIA.

“Verstappen’s penalty, along with a fine for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for a similar offence at the Mexico City Grand Prix, led the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association to publish an open letter asking the FIA to treat them like adults.

The letter also criticised the FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who has caused widespread dismay in F1 at his actions this year, for his “tone and language” when addressing the topic.