Being a Naval Diver, CPL Mohamed Firdauz Bin Mohamed Ali is no stranger to tough training.
This time, however, he had the added challenge of training while fasting for Ramadan.
“The first few rehearsals were tough,” said CPL Firdauz, “the only way to cool off was to pour water over my head during breaks.”
But his peers and trainers’ concern for him kept him going – they prepared additional bottles of water for him to cool off, as well as refreshments for when he breaks fast.
Source: Ng Eng Hen
The unnecessary changes to the boundaries of electoral constituencies is confirmation of PAP’s loss of confidence.
Contrary to propaganda, PAP NEVER resolved any issues because it has not addressed the root cause of our problems, ie mindless population increase to generate ‘growth’.
PAP’s ‘solution’ – increase the frequency of trains and number of buses, ramp up housing, increase CPF Minimum Sum amount and Medishield premiums, hike petrol duty after oil prices have collapsed, promise more hospital beds with a disproportionate increase of foreigners, etc. If that’s considered solving our issues, then ordinary Singaporeans can replace our ministers at a fraction of their salaries.
Instead of belatedly biting the bullet, PAP assumes it has the luxury of time to engage in propaganda, shamelessly exploit LKY’s death for sympathy votes and return tax dollars in the form of GST vouchers to buy our votes. What a joke.
PAP runs Singapore as a large corporation and is able to attract like-minded greedy candidates who are paid almost $200,000 annually for a part-time job. Loyalists are destined to become CEOs/directors of government-linked companies despite sleeping on the job or spouting half truths for years/decades. Eg, ex DPM Wong Kan Seng – chairman of Temasek-owned Ascendas-Singbridge, ex minister Lim Boon Heng – chairman of Temasek Holdings, etc.
If ex ministers (excluding Aljuneid GRC losers) did not belong to the jiak liao bee category, why can’t they stand on their own two feet and join the private sector? Why are they still dependent on tax dollars after leaving politics?
Most PAP loyalists have also been parachuted into million-dollar top management positions without any relevant experience, such as SMRT paper general CEO and (sinking) NOL paper general Ng Yat Chung. For decades, PAP has been ‘promoting’ thousands of its loyalists based more on guan xi than merit and members of the public have been taken for a ride on Singapore’s ‘meritocratic’ system.
In the real world, political affiliation has its rewards, such as PAP supporters being appointed town council agents with contracts that are worth millions. Likewise for an opposition party but on a much smaller scale. (residents are shortchanged when winning contracts is dependent on political affiliation)
When PAP wields absolute power and is unaccountable to the people, its supporters enjoy the privileges of political affiliation. But what are the consequences when the reverse happens and it no longer controls parliament? Such a thought must be giving PAP sleepless nights.
A huge loss will mean PAP will no longer be able to ‘feed’ thousands of its fair-weather supporters, many who are multi millionaires. This will eventually lead to a further decline in support followed by its eventual fall due to an unstoppable loss of confidence.
PAP did not abandon the use of propaganda and bullying tactics after the last election; it did not tackle the population issue head on. Its incompetence is now obvious to an increasing number of voters but it is still using propaganda to prevent the inevitable loss of power. The old PAP dog doesn’t seem to be able to learn any new tricks till today and isn’t even aware the clock had started ticking in 2011.
PAP fears it will be in deep trouble should opposition party members become MPs. Parliamentary questions on transparency will fly thick and fast for the first time in our 50-year history and whatever the revelations, PAP will also likely be history. The last time we saw a real debate – PM Lee and Goh Chok Tong kena grilled by JBJ and Chiam See Tong in 1988. Video link 
We need more real debates as they will benefit Singapore.
That PAP is in panic mode has been confirmed by the arbitrary redrawing of electoral boundaries. But its loss of power is inevitable because it has never addressed the root cause of our problems since 2011.
Source: https://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.com
The Defence Ministry (Mindef) is widening its use of software that can remotely disable cameras in its mobile devices and wipe out their data.
Mobile device management (MDM) technology is being tested for camera-equipped tablets that are used by civilian contractors to repair or manage more than 6,000 Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and Mindef buildings and facilities across the island.
Such gadgets are increasingly being used to perform non-core functions in the military.
If someone is found to be taking an unauthorised photo of a classified document or area with the tablet, the software can not only lock the device remotely, but also detect its location, delete its contents and disable its camera, microphone and Wi-Fi connection.
The Straits Times understands that Mindef is looking to hook up up to 520 mobile devices with the mobile device management software.
Brigadier-General Paul Chew, director of the Military Security Department, said Mindef is considering various options, including using MDM-configured mobile devices, to “strengthen governance and enhance efficiency of facilities management operations”.
Currently, MDM applications have been installed in tablets and laptops used by soldiers to access online lessons in military institutes such as the Basic Military Training Centre and Safti Military Institute.
The United States Defence Information Systems Agency has used MDM since 2013 to manage more than 97,400 users with BlackBerry, iOS and Android handsets or tablets. They include those from the army, air force and other defence agencies.
The latest move to use MDM software for facilities management-related devices will allow the SAF to ease restrictions on using camera- equipped mobile devices in camp but, at the same time, clamp down on the unauthorised use of such devices in highly sensitive areas.
Smartphones are increasing in popularity in Singapore, making up more than 70 per cent of the some 7.3 million mobiles in Singapore.
Since 2012, camera-equipped devices have been allowed in zones marked green, such as cookhouses, bunks and medical centres.
Zones marked red – such as unit operations rooms and offices with sensitive information – are no-camera-phone zones and servicemen must deposit their phones in lockers before entering them.
The DSO National Laboratories, Singapore’s largest defence research body, is among several organisations here that also use MDM software to manage mobile devices.
Mr Clement Teo, senior analyst at technology and market research company Forrester, said using technologies such as MDM is a smart and efficient way to secure and protect Mindef assets.
“You are enabling people to be as productive as they can be in the camp to get their jobs done without forcing them to change the device they use.”
Source: www.straitstimes.com
Malaysia has sent a team to the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion to determine whether debris which washed up there is from missing flight MH370.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board vanished without trace in March 2014.
Aviation experts have said the debris looks like a wing component from a 777, known as a flaperon.
Malaysia Airlines said it would be “premature” to speculate on its origin.
There were 227 passengers on the flight, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.
“Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can further confirm whether it belongs to MH370,” Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters in New York where he was attending a UN Security Council debate for a separate Malaysian jet shot down over Ukraine.
“So we have dispatched a team to investigate on this issues and we hope that we can identify it as soon as possible,” he said.
The wife of the in-flight supervisor for the missing MH370 plane, Jacquita Gonzales, told the BBC that she is torn by the news.
“A part of me hopes that it is (MH370) so that I could have some closure and bury my husband properly but the other part of me says ‘no, no, no’ because there is still hope,” she told the BBC by phone.
The two-metre-long (6ft) piece of wreckage washed up on the island, about 600km (370 miles) east of Madagascar, late on Wednesday.
The search efforts for MH370, led by Australia, are focussed on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean – some 6,000km to the east of Reunion, which is a French region.
There have been other plane crashes much closer to Reunion, but flight MH370 is the only Boeing 777 to have disappeared in the area.
An US official told the Associated Press news agency that, based on the photos, investigators had a “high degree of confidence” that the part was a flaperon unique to a Boeing 777 wing.
A flaperon is a part of the wing used to manage the lift and control the roll of an aircraft.
French authorities in Reunion are also investigating the debris and Australian investigators are reported to be in touch with manufacturers over the find.
In a statement, Australian Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss said that if the wreckage was identified as being from MH370, this “would be consistent with other analysis and modelling that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern Indian Ocean”.
Any new evidence will be used to refine search efforts, the statement added.
Experts should be able to tell fairly quickly if this is a piece of MH370. Aircraft parts have individual serial numbers on them, and the airlines should have records of all those numbers.
So in theory, investigators could check them and give a positive or negative ID. If it is part of the aircraft, it’s washed up thousands of miles from where search teams continue to look for debris at the bottom of the sea.
And realistically, although it would confirm the aircraft crashed and broke up, a piece of wing is unlikely to reveal much more about what actually happened on board the plane.
But these are all big “ifs” right now. It could still be yet another false alarm.
Follow Richard: @BBCwestcott
The tenacious deep-sea hunt for MH370
The Australian-led search teams have been focusing on a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) area off the coast of Western Australia, where the plane is believed to have crashed.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan, who heads the operation, told AP that even if the part was proven to be from MH370 it would not change the search area, as it was “entirely possible that something could have drifted from our current search area to that island”.
Confirmation the debris came from MH370 would also disprove theories that the airliner went missing somewhere in the northern hemisphere, Mr Dolan said.
8 March, 2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday 8 March (16:41 GMT, 7 March), and was due to arrive in Beijing at 06:30 (22:30 GMT). Malaysia Airlines says the plane lost contact less than an hour after takeoff. No distress signal or message was sent.
20 March: Australian search teams say they are investigating two objects spotted on satellite images in the southern Indian Ocean and sent long-range surveillance planes to the area. The objects were later revealed not to be from MH370.
24 March: The Malaysian prime minister announces that following further analysis of satellite data it was beyond doubt that the plane had gone down in this part of the ocean.
28 March: The main search area was moved 1,100km (684 miles) to the north-east and closer to Australia, following further analysis of the speed of the plane and its maximum range.
5-8 April, Australian and Chinese vessels using underwater listening equipment detected ultrasonic signals, which officials believed could be from the plane’s “black box” flight recorders. The pings appeared to be the most promising lead so far, and were used to define the area of a sea-floor search.
29 May: Australian officials announced that the search had found nothing and the area where the signals were heard could be ruled out as the final resting place of the plane.
26 June: Officials announced a new 60,000 sq km search area some 1,800 km west of Perth. This phase of the operation started in August with detailed mapping of the sea bed.
16 April, 2015: Officials from Australia, Malaysia and China say the search area would be doubled if nothing is found in the current search zone.
Source: www.bbc.com
EDIT: Okay, I wasn’t expecting so many shares. I’m sorry if this offended anyone, but I would like to say that of course the figures vary, and it CAN vary greatly. The only reason this one costs this much is because almost everything an average Malay wedding has was factored in. However, and with that being said, this infographic is NOT implying that you have to spend this amount. Of course it’s a DUH thing (common sense!) to spend within your budget. The whole point of this is to inform the uninformed that Malay weddings are definitely not $50.
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I would say 8 out of 10 non-Malays I know are often plain ignorant when it comes to the expenses involved in a Malay wedding. In fact, I have met many of such people who have this impression that a Malay wedding only costs so much. To help address this common problem as well as to educate the non-Malays, I decided to create a simple visual graphic that breaks down the expenses of a Malay wedding in Singapore.
Disclaimer: These are average figures I got from speaking to my married and about-to-get-married friends, and they do not necessarily represent the mass. Also, the figures are based on only one side of the couple. So yes you are right – multiply them by two to get the final figures for both bride and groom’s events.
To all my Malay friends, if you have any input(s)/comment(s) on this, drop me a message!
P/S: Oh, I would also like to add one more point – Malay weddings usually never expect monetary recoup. We don’t complain even if we receive $10 (common amount, honestly) after feeding your family of 8!
Source: Nur Haryanti