SINGAPORE – Besides two employees getting the sack over the March 22 incident, warnings were issued to staff across several grades and a number of employees on its trains’ team also had their performance downgraded, according to an email that SMRT…
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Other SMRT staff got warning letters, performance downgraded over Pasir Ris accident
Retail sales up 2.8% in June, boosted by vehicle sales
The total retail sales value in July was estimated at S$3.7 billion, higher than the estimated S$3.6 billion last year.
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'Living fossil' crabs mysteriously dying in Japan
Hundreds of horseshoe crabs – known as “living fossils” as they are among the earth’s oldest creatures – have washed ashore dead in southern Japan, confounding experts who study the alien-like sidewalkers.
Horseshoe crabs, known for their blue blood, are a regular summer visitor to tidal flats in south and western Japan including one near Kitakyushu city where they lay their eggs.
Some invariably die in the process, but this year a local conservation group noticed that the number of the precious marine arthropods that perished was unusually high, a local official told AFP on Thursday.
“The conservation group spotted about five to 10 remains every day during the egg-laying period, so they started to tally them,” said Kitakyushu city official Kenji Sato.
“In total the number of dead horseshoe crabs reached about 500,” Sato said.
The Asahi Shimbun daily reported that the amount of dead crabs was eight times higher than normal.
Sato said that local officials have sought guidance from experts but that so far a consensus on what caused the unusually high number of deaths this year has proved elusive.
A number of academics, however, point to “oxygen shortage due to higher sea water temperature, or parasite infestation or a disease peculiar to horseshoe crabs” as a possible cause, he added.
Japan’s environment ministry designates the helmet-like crabs as an “endangered species” as its population has declined sharply due to coastal habitat destruction in tandem with Japan’s economic development.
But there is no legal obligation to take concrete measures to protect the species, an environment ministry official said.
The horseshoe crab – “kabutogani” in Japanese, meaning literally “warrior helmet crab” has survived for 200 million years.
Enthusiasts established the Japan Horseshoe Crab Association in 1978, which counted up the dead creatures this summer, according to local officials.
“The biology of the horseshoe crab is still a mystery and we don’t know much about it,” Sato said.
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Thursday, September 15, 2016 – 14:46
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Thai PM defends rights record since coup ahead of UN visit
BANGKOK – Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Thursday defended his country’s rights record since he seized power in a 2014 coup, saying he acted to end months of political instability.
Thailand has faced a deepening rights crisis since the coup with political activity and peaceful gatherings banned, say activists.
Military courts have been used to try national security cases, including cases involving civilians, and relations with some western countries, including the United States, have frayed.
“Those who evoke human rights and democracy, look at what happened in the past,” Prayuth said in a speech at Bangkok’s Government House, days before he travels to New York to attend a session of the UN General Assembly.
“Foreigners have to understand what we’re going through… Every country has gone through rough times. We’re just a little late. Don’t tell us that we abuse rights, you also abuse the rights of others. You create problems too.”
Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy is slowly recovering from the events of 2014, when months of street protests and the coup almost brought economic activity to a standstill.
Since then, dozens of junta critics have been held incommunicado in military detention, although the exact number of people detained remains unknown.
During a UN Human Rights Council review of Thailand in May, foreign governments expressed concern over the deteriorating rights situation in Thailand.
Prayuth, a former army chief, said he took control of the country in an attempt to calm months of political crisis. He has repeatedly said he does not want to hold on to power longer than 2017 when a general election is expected to take place.
The military government on Monday said it will prosecute cases concerning national security and royal insult in civilian courts instead of military courts, a change a rights group said was “window dressing” before a UN review.
Thailand’s defence minister also spoke at Government House on Thursday and said bombings in Thai tourist towns last month were not linked to Muslim separatists, contradicting an earlier police statement.
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Thursday, September 15, 2016 – 14:37
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‘Socially conscious’ hawker centre at Tampines hub to open in November
The hawker centre, which will have 42 cooked food stalls and about 800 seats, will feature natural ventilation, family friendly seating, child-friendly toilets and built-in tray-return facilities at accessible locations, says NEA.
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Keeping Changi's bumboat afloat
Washed in Ubin’s mangroves and drying in the sun are wooden bumboats from the Changi Ferry Terminal. They are brought here at least three times a year to get barnacles scraped off their bodies and for a fresh coat of paint.
Running this quaint repair boatyard is 72-year-old Choo Seng Sim, who has been in the business for more than 20 years.
The former cruise service operator started repairing boats in Punggol in 1994.
He moved to Pulau Ubin in 1998, operating from a shack on the beach next to the island’s jetty. But it was not long before he moved inland, after stalls complained that the strong smell of paint used for repair works was affecting their businesses.
Now settled along Sungei Jelutong, located in the south of Pulau Ubin, Mr Choo’s boatyard has been issued a temporary occupation licence. A new licence is issued on a yearly basis and he will be able to operate at the site until an alternative space is provided elsewhere on the island in a few years’ time.
Repairing Changi’s bumboats
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Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong announced in June that the National Parks Board (NParks) will take over as the central managing agency for Pulau Ubin. Previously, Pulau Ubin was managed by 12 agencies with technical and land ownership responsibilities. The handover is being conducted in phases and is expected to be completed by mid-2017.
The boatyard offers the local bumboat operators a convenient and cheaper alternative for boat repair, as “it is a hassle to travel to Tuas”, Mr Yang Soon Tong, a ferry operator in Changi explained. The 45- year-old, who took over his father’s boat 15 years ago as a ferry operator, added: “The maintenance fee for the boats is not cheap and we don’t earn much.”
Many of the ferry operators in Changi are unwilling to go to other boatyards to repair their vessels. It is a five to six-hour boat ride to the ones in Jurong. According to Mr Choo, it would also cost them double what he charges, which is approximately $500 per repair. “Unless we are forced to a point where we have no choice, we will not go to Jurong,” said Mr Yang.
The services offered at Mr Choo’sboatyard include scraping barnacles off the boats and painting and repairing holes caused by collisions. The boatyard is operated by two local workers and a caretaker. A repair job takes about a day to complete, and ferry operators have to book the services a month in advance.
Changi ferry operators worry that Mr Choo will have to stop working some day. He has no successor. Married with five children, he does not see any of them taking over his business, although his younger brother, aged 60, occasionally helps him manage the boatyard.
The ferry operators hope someone will take over when Mr Choo retires.
“If there are people willing to wash the boats, we can still survive,” said Mr Yang. Mr Choo said that he would continue working for as long as he could. “I can’t retire unless I die,” he joked.
The future of Mr Choo’s boatyard is uncertain, but ferry operators hope that such a traditional, artisanal business can be preserved for the bumboat community in Changi. “For the sake of this ferry terminal, a space on Ubin should be left for bumboat repairs,” said Mr Kit Kau Chye, 68, who has had more than 50 years of experience out at sea.
They might be cheered by this assurance from the authorities. “(NParks) will work with the relevant agencies to help Mr Choo continue his boat repair operations,” said Mr Wong Tuan Wah, NParks’ director of conservation.
tmarcus@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on September 15, 2016.
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72-year-old who runs Pulau Ubin's only bumboat repair yard has no successors for business
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Japanese actress Maria Ozawa enraged over immigration worker's FB post
Actress Maria Ozawa turned to Facebook to express her outrage over a Bureau of Immigration (BI) worker who allegedly posted her passport, photo and confidential details on the latter’s account.
A fuming Ozawa said she was extremely disappointed after a friend texted and warned her that private details about her had been posted on Facebook.
She ignored this at first but fully understood the warning when she saw for herself her passport and [alien] ID photo posted on someone’s private account with the caption “I bet you know this girl,” followed by other private details including her whereabouts in the comments section.
As confirmed by a photo attached to her post, the person who posted her private details was identified as a female “Immigration worker” who got hold of Ozawa’s confidential details.
Ozawa opined that the BI, as a crucial government agency, is supposed to uphold high standards in ensuring the secrecy and security of confidential information of foreigners in the country.
But it appeared that a member of the bureau got too “excited” upon getting hold of Ozawa’s private details that she posted her [Ozawa’s] passport and photo on her private account and shared details about her that instantaneously drew people’s attention since she is a famous personality.
Ozawa’s disappointment was made worse as she said said she had come to love the Philippines, but that because of the incident, she was having second thoughts about her plans to stay in the country for good.
The former adult movie actress is not quite sure if she would file a legal complaint about the incident. However, her managers are already informed about the situation and she is leaving the matter on their hands.
Meanwhile, the girl who posted her details on social media is now the subject of ire by netizens.
Here’s Ozawa’s Facebook post wherein she expresses her outrage and disappointment over the matter:
“I don’t know if I should be mad or sad…or even post this but since it’s something really wrong I would like to share it with you guys. One of my friends texted me today with this picture saying my privacy might be going viral.
“At first I didn’t know what she was talking about but when I saw the picture of my ID/alien card posted saying ‘I bet you know this girl’ made me so mad and sad at the same time. This is very wrong.
“Immigration is a place where people TRUST and give their private accounts,details and look what she’s done to my privacy…Posting it on her social media.
“I LOVE this country and I’m doing my VERY best to stay here for good but how can I stay here for good when people like this really exist? How I’m I supposed to trust people?
“If this was just someone I knew or some random people posting it for fun I can understand.They are just being bastos. But people who actually work in the immigration doing stuff like this? I just cannot believe it.
“The grab/Uber incident was bad as it is and then this happens…Should I file a complaint? My managers already know about this sad incident so I will leave it up to them but it’s just too sad and depressing I had to share it with you guys.”
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Why the Emmys may no longer actually matter
Los Angeles – The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards will honour the best of American television Sunday, and networks have been inundating media and Television Academy members with pleas for their shows.
But with a legion of cable stations, streaming platforms and video on-demand services revolutionizing how Americans watch TV, analysts question whether the awards still have the cultural cachet they once boasted.
“It’s shocking just how irrelevant an Emmy win is when it comes to audiences deciding what shows to watch. People just don’t care about the award,” Jeetendr Sehdev, a celebrity branding expert at the University of Southern California, told AFP.
“The award has continued to lose its influence on TV viewers with less than one in 10 Americans being more inclined to watch a series because it has won an Emmy.”
Sehdev headed a two-year study ending last week that surveyed 2,000 Americans and found 87 per cent believed the Emmys were less significant than the Oscars, while almost three-quarters said they were not “overly excited” by the Emmys show.
Last year, the awards drew their smallest audience on record, 11.9 million, according to data tracker Nielsen, a drop of almost four million on 2014 and the nadir of a quarter-century decline.
On top of dwindling ratings, it appears that TV networks are putting less faith than they used to in the power of an Emmys nomination to give them an immediate audience boost.
Of the 14 nominees for outstanding drama and outstanding comedy series this year, only three will be showing new episodes before Christmas, according to entertainment website IndieWire.
This is in marked contrast with just five years ago, when eight of the 12 nominated series returned within two weeks of the Emmys.
September has traditionally fired the starting gun on new seasons for TV’s biggest shows, but streaming services and cable TV are challenging the notion that there should even be an on and off season.
Netflix released “Stranger Things,” one of the most talked-about series of the year, a full two weeks after voting for Emmys nominations closed, and a new season isn’t expected until next year.
“Traditional networks will become increasingly flexible when it comes to releasing shows in the future,” said Sehdev, author of the upcoming branding guide, “The Kim Kardashian Principle.”
“They’re already taking a closer look at how ratings are being calculated as viewership behaviour continues to change.”
He conceded that Emmys boost awareness of a show but said that didn’t necessarily translate into bigger ratings, with many statuettes awarded to shows that were already very well known.
“We schedule all year round. We can’t just jam everything into the time period when Emmy nominations come out,” Nick Grad, president of original programming at Fox subsidiary FX, told AFP, agreeing that awards don’t always mean ratings.
“‘Fargo’ aired a while ago and was not airing while Emmy voting was happening, but it still got 18 nominations. At the end of the day, the great shows get noticed so… we’re not really going to game the system that way.”
Another issue for the Emmys is whether Academy members can really claim to be in touch with critical opinion when it comes to handing out honors.
Reviewers have in the past berated the Academy for its tin ear when it comes to comedy and for failing to recognise excellence in drama by snubbing iconic shows like “The Wire” and “Deadwood.”
Time magazine upbraided the Emmys in 2014 for handing Jim Parsons his fourth outstanding lead comedy actor award for “The Big Bang Theory,” a show that it said was sitting “comfortably at the bottom of the barrel” of critical opinion.
The Academy was also criticised that year for honoring “Modern Family” – a show deemed well past its prime – with a fifth consecutive outstanding comedy series award.
But it’s not all bad news.
Critics have been kinder about this year’s nominations, praising the Academy for rectifying past mistakes with a shortlist heavy on innovative newcomers like “Mr Robot,” “Master of None” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson.”
It has also been given credit for nominating older series that have inexplicably missed out in the past, such as FX’s acclaimed spy drama “The Americans.”
FX has been perhaps the biggest early success story of this year’s Emmys, garnering 56 nominations, a new record for a basic cable company.
Regardless of short term ratings boosts, Grad believes an Emmy win can help a show “cut through the clutter” in “an unbelievably crowded marketplace.”
For the network as a whole, he told AFP, wins and nominations “strengthen the viewer proposition of what an FX original programme should mean to them, and I’d say that’s tremendous value.”
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Duterte ordered us to bomb mosque, kill Muslims: Ex-death squad member
A witness who claimed to be a former member of the Davao Death Squad (DDS) dropped a bombshell at the Senate on Thursday, accusing then-Davao-City-Mayor-and-now-President Rodrigo Duterte of ordering the bombing of a mosque in 1993 and the killing of Muslims.
The witness, Edgar Matobato, was presented by Senator Leila de Lima at the resumption of the hearing of the Senate committee on justice and human rights on the spate of killings in the country.
Matobato said he was a member of the Cafgu (Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit) until Duterte became Davao city mayor in 1988 and recruited him to join a group dubbed the “Lambada boys.” The group, he said, had only seven members including him.
Duterte sworn in as Philippines’ 16th president
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“Ang trabaho namin ay pumatay ng mga kriminal katulad ng drug pusher, rapist, snatcher. Ganyan ang pinapatay namin araw araw,” he said.
Motabato said they later became the DDS, the group that has long been believed responsible for extrajudicial killings in Davao City.
In 1993, Matobato said, more members joined the group, including rebel returnees and policemen.
It was also in 1993 when the Davao Cathedral Church was bombed.
“Omorder naman si Mayor Duterte na masakerin yung mga moske ng mga Muslim,” he said.
“So, mayroon kayong binomba, inutos kamo ni Mayor Duterte. Pag sinabi n’yong Mayor Duterte, yung dating mayor ng Davao?” asked De Lima.
Anti-crime blitz sweeps Philippines as Duterte comes into power
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Motabato answered “Yes,” adding that he was in the same room when Duterte ordered the bombing.
Asked again why Duterte wanted to bomb the mosque, he said: “Kasi parang gumaganti s’ya na binomba ang cathedral. Para na rin kaming terrorist, Ma’am, kasi hindi naman kasali yung bobombahin yung mga Musim.”
He said the former mayor later ordered them to arrest and kill the Muslim suspects.
“Inaabangan namin ang mga Muslim doon, pinagdudukot namin, pinagpapatay namin, nilibing namin sa mga quarry,” the witness added.
Among the people they allegedly killed was a certain Salik Makdum, whom he said they abducted from the Island City of Samal in 2002.
According to Motabato, they presented Makdum to then-Davao PAOCTF head-now-PNP Chief Ronald de la Rosa. He added that they then killed Makdum whom they buried in a quarry owned by a policeman.
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Thursday, September 15, 2016 – 13:53
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Do you … know the bloody mosquito?
First of all, mosquitoes are insects, and insects are animals. Thus, mosquitoes are animals, the most dangerous animal facing mankind.
Mosquitoes kill more humans worldwide in five minutes than sharks do in a year.
Only female mosquitoes bite. Both male and female feed mainly on fruit and plant nectar, but the female also needs the protein in blood to help her eggs develop.
There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes. Among them are the Anopheles, Culex pipiens, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito).
Myths about the Aedes mosquito and dengue
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The Anopheles is a malaria carrier, and the other three are known to spread various forms of encephalitis and dengue.
The World Health Organisation estimates that between 300 and 500 million cases of malaria occur each year – and a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.
A mosquito can drink up to three times its weight in blood. It sucks up blood through its proboscis, which is like a tube.
It would take about 1.2 million mosquito bites to drain all the blood from your body.
Female mosquitoes can lay up to 300 eggs at a time. So, they can reproduce in large numbers.
What is the Zika virus?
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The Aedes is the most dangerous in Malaysia. It is the vector for dengue, which killed 336 people in Malaysia in 2015, and Zika virus, which has caused microcephaly in close to 1,600 babies in Brazil.
The mosquito is quite unconquerable. Scientists say that like the cockroach, mosquitoes would probably survive a nuclear war.
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Thursday, September 15, 2016 – 13:34
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