Category: Singapuraku

Hero SSGT Muhammad Hafidz Receives MHA’s Star Award For Rescuing Man From Burning House

When Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Tan Kok Beng received complaints about an elderly woman cluttering a common corridor with junk in March last year, he doggedly visited her Housing and Development Board (HDB) unit in Yishun every week for a month to persuade her to clear out the items.

Even when he went out of his way and offered to help her clear out the junk, he was met with aggression and hostility.

“She kept shouting ‘Don’t throw, don’t throw!’,” said SSgt Tan. “She even threatened to burn everything and kill herself, so she was referred to the IMH (Institute of Mental Health).”

But SSgt Tan persisted in getting the lady to consent to the junk being cleared. “She eventually agreed, because she could not do anything (from the IMH),” he said.

On Thursday (Jan 8), SSgt Tan and another 65 Home Team officers were presented with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Star Service Award, which recognises officers for delivering outstanding service to the public. Another Star award recipient at the ministry’s biennial Excel Fest was Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officer SSgt Muhammad Hafidz, who had rescued a man from a burning HDB unit even though he was off duty.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO INNOVATION

The MHA’s 3i Awards were also presented on Thursday to 32 Home Team officers for their contributions towards innovation in the ministry.

One of the recipients was SCDF chief medical officer Ng Yih Yng, who devised a live, over-the-phone coaching solution for SCDF dispatchers to walk bystanders through the steps of performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on heart attack victims.

“Previously, the dispatchers would ask bystanders if they wanted to do CPR. Most would decline. Either (they were) fearful or (they) lacked experience,” said Dr Ng. “So we changed our approach by telling bystanders that they have to perform CPR.”

Every year, about 1,800 Singaporeans suffer from sudden cardiac arrest and only 3 per cent of them survive the attack. Dr Ng said the coaching solution has almost doubled the number of bystanders performing CPR on heart attack victims annually from 391 to 782. “Cardiac arrest victims could die within 10 minutes. There are so many things a bystander can do to help a heart attack victim survive. That’s what we want people to understand,” he said.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

January 9, 2015
5th Floor 5 Room Pinnacle@Duxton Flat Sold for $918,000

SINGAPORE – A second Pinnacle@Duxton unit has been sold on the resale market.

The five-room, 106 sq m flat on the fifth floor of the iconic Housing Board project at Tanjong Pagar went for $918,000 on Monday.

A 43-year-old DWG agent who handled the transaction said the buyers, who paid fully in cash, are a local couple in their 60s and their daughter who are downgrading from a private property. The sellers are a local couple in their mid-40s, who live with their two young children.

“The flat is on a very low floor, so the current owners were more realistic with the price,” said the agent, who declined to be named. “They bought the flat for under $400,000,so they are quite happy with the selling price.”

This sale comes after the five-year minimum occupation period for most home owners at the project ended last month. Last week, The Straits Times reported that a four-room flat between the 34th and 36th storeys was sold for $900,000.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

January 8, 2015
Man Impersonates Policeman To Obtain Contact Details Of Prostitutes

He wanted an excuse to obtain the contact details of prostitutes, and hopefully call them back for cheap sex at a later date.

So Yusri Abdul Wahab, who had dreamed of one day joining law enforcement, decided to impersonate a police officer and conduct checks on sex workers in Geylang.

At about 10pm on May 7 last year, he entered a room in Lorong 22 Geylang containing about 10 prostitutes, flashed a makeshift police pass, and asked to see their work permits. He made a show of checking the documents, all the while speaking into his earpiece and pretending to speak to a “colleague”.

Someone grew suspicious, and called the police.

On Wednesday, he was jailed for four months for the offence. His total term comes to eight months, after including punishment for stealing camera equipment during his real job as a pest control officer.

No restitution has been made for the thefts, which involved almost $32,000 of items and got Yusri sacked. These were committed on four occasions between January and May 8 last year, at two private homes in Swettenham Road near Queenstown.

Yusri came up with the policeman ruse after taking medical leave from his real job.

The court heard he had been inspired by a television show, in which a character had hatched a similar ploy.

To carry out the plan, Yusri bought police paraphernalia from Peninsula Shopping Centre, including a leather pass holder and various logos to attach to his polo t-shirt. He had a photograph of himself taken and inserted it into the pass holder.

District Judge Low Wee Ping called Yusri’s impersonation “shocking”, noting he had gone to the extent of buying items to perpetuate the deception.

Yusri pleaded guilty to three charges in all, with another two taken into consideration. For impersonating a police officer, he could have been jailed for up to two years and fined.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

January 8, 2015
Proof That Foreigners Are Depressing Wages

A TRE reader who works at an engineering company in Marsling sent us this job application for the position of Sales Co-ordinator. The applicant stays in JB and takes about 25 minutes to cross the causeway on bus.

After currency conversion, the reader can expect a 280% pay increase. At the same time, she would be competiting for a job with a local polytechnic graduates with 2-3 years of experience.

What do you think?

Source: www.tremeritus.com

January 8, 2015
Singapore Firm Launches “HalalTrip” App To Share Halal Culinary Discoveries From Around The World

A Singapore-based company on Wednesday launched a mobile application that enables Muslim foodies and travellers to share halal restaurant discoveries around the world.

The free “HalalTrip” app, available for Apple iOS and Android devices, enables users to take and upload photos of halal dishes, write comments and share them through social media.

Clicking on a photo gives details about the dish as well as the location of the restaurant. The app, which has English and Arabic interfaces, also uses a traveller’s location to display photos of halal dishes served in nearby restaurants.

The term halal is used for food, products and services that comply with Islamic requirements.

“Halal food is one of the biggest drivers of tourism for the Muslim market,” said Fazal Bahardeen, chief executive of HalalTrip, part of a Muslim-oriented business group called CrescentRating.

“When travelling, one of the main concerns of Muslims is halal food. What we did is to bring in a social media element into discovering halal food and making it more fun and more intuitive,” he told AFP.

Fazal predicted the Muslim travel market would be worth $192 billion a year globally by 2020, up from $140 billion in 2013.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

January 8, 2015