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Fajar Road Double Death: Mother Suffered From Post-Partum Depression When She Jumped With 2-Month Old Daughter

The deaths of a new mother and her infant daughter at a HDB block in Fajar Road last November were found to have been part of a “deliberate act of suicide”, a Coroner’s Court heard on Tuesday (9 May).

Koh Suan Ping, 29, had held on to her two-month-old daughter Jaelyn when she leapt from her 12th-floor unit on 23 November 2016 with “clear intent that they would die together”, said State Coroner (SC) Marvin Bay while delivering his findings.

Both were pronounced dead at the foot of the block at 6.58am and 6.54am, respectively. Her husband had not been aware of what happened until police officers showed up at his home.

Mounting anxiety, ominous message

The coroner’s inquiry found that Koh had appeared to be “generally well” throughout her pregnancy but, following Jaelyn’s birth, had faced mounting anxiety over her impending return to work and stress over needing to find a new domestic helper.

The sales manager was also concerned over the performance of her company and, in seeking to clear her work backlog, had voluntarily reduced her maternity leave period to two months instead of her taking up her full four-month entitlement.

According to testimonies from her husband and two colleagues, Koh was also upset about being unable to produce enough breast milk to feed her child.

SC Bay also noted how the Web history of Koh’s smartphone showed that she had looked up “What to do when there is no way out” in Chinese on 19 November 2016, just days before she died.

Koh had “avoided projecting her true emotional state, but her escalating stresses (were) evident in the messages that she had sent to her colleagues and confidants,” he said.

‘Toll on working mothers’

In his closing statements, SC Bay said that the “truly tragic circumstances” of the case highlight the “reality of post-partum depression” as well as the “toll imposed on working mothers” who have to juggle their childcare duties with taking care of their homes and meeting their professional career responsibilities.

He added that family members are the “first line of defence” when it comes to a new mother’s mental and emotional health, and encouraged employers to acknowledge the needs of working mothers with new babies while taking steps to ease their burden by “providing better work-life balance, flexible working conditions, and affordable, quality childcare”.

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

May 10, 2017
This Is The Australian Housewife Who Saved Lives Of 3 Boys At East Coast Park

Plunging into the waters off East Coast Park not once, not twice, but thrice, housewife Silvia Hajas managed to pull three schoolboys to shore before it was too late.

But the triathlete did not manage to reach one of the boys, who was struggling in the waters around Bedok Jetty and later disappeared at around noon yesterday.

Ms Hajas, 47, told The Straits Times yesterday that she arrived at the stretch of beach at East Coast Park’s Area E at noon with her eight-year-old daughter.

She snapped a panoramic picture of the sea view from the breakwater that showed seven boys, including Suhaimi, swimming about 50m away from the shoreline.

At first, Ms Hajas thought the boys were simply playing as they were making noises. But when she heard more than one of them cry out for help, she leapt into the water.

Three of the boys swam back on their own, while the others looked like they were having trouble staying afloat, said Ms Hajas, an Australian national who has lived here for six years on a dependant’s pass.

“I swam out to the closest boy and helped him to get out. And then I turned around and went out again to pull in another,” she recalled, adding that she could not touch the ground where the boys were at. She is 1.7m tall. “I was very tired at this stage – the sea was very choppy and the waves were strong.”

A couple arrived at the scene and found a rescue float nearby. The man, who was able to swim, dived into the water with Ms Hajas while his female partner called the police.

Said Ms Hajas: “By that time, the fourth boy was no longer above water. We swam and put the life buoy on one boy and pulled him out.”

The police confirmed receiving a call about a missing person in the waters off Bedok Jetty at 12.24pm, roughly 10 minutes after Ms Hajas snapped her picture. By then, Ms Hajas had returned to shore with the third boy.

“We kept looking in the horizon and looking out for the fourth boy, but he never came back up and we never saw him again,” she said.

Her daughter was being looked after by the three boys who had swum back to shore on their own.

Ms Hajas, who has taken part in triathlons, said the boys who got into trouble did not seem to know any swimming techniques and did not seem to be using their arms to tread water.

“They were just starting to play in the water when I first saw them and, five minutes later, they were much farther out, so I think the current pulled them out much farther than they expected,” she said. “It took them completely by surprise.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 9, 2017
Nasi Arab Unik Di Melaka – Nasi Kambing Kat Kubur

MELAKA: Hidangan di sebuah kedai makan yang menjual nasi Arab mungkin kedengaran agak pelik namun pasti melekat dalam ingatan.

Nasi Kambing Kat Kubur adalah salah satu menu menarik yang dijual di Kedai Sawit Corner, sebuah kedai makan yang terletak di bawah rimbunan pokok kelapa sawit di Solok Duku, Alor Gajah, Melaka.

Lokasi kedai yang bersebelahan Tanah Perkuburan Islam Mualim di Solok Duku itu mencetuskan idea kepada para pemiliknya untuk menjadikan nama hidangan unik itu sebagai satu jenama.

Kedai itu diusahakan sejak enam tahun lalu oleh Nabila Asyyiqin Marzuki, 25 tahun, dan suami, Mohamad Khairul Azwan Md Ramli, 28 tahun, selain dibantu saudara mereka, Muhammad Hayad Norazman, 25 tahun, lapor laman Berita Harian Malaysia.

Menurut mereka, keputusan untuk menjenamakan hidangan Nasi Kambing Kat Kubur itu dibuat setelah menerima banyak pertanyaan tentang lokasi kedai.

“Kami mengusahakan kedai makan ini sejak 2006 dengan menjual cucur udang, bakso, mi kari, laksa dan cendol sebelum menambah gulai kawah itik, daging dan kambing pada tahun 2009, diikuti nasi Arab pada 2011.

“Penambahan juadah dibuat supaya pelanggan mempunyai pilihan kerana bukan semua mahukan hidangan alas perut, sebaliknya yang mengenyangkan untuk perjalanan jauh,” Cik Nabilah Asyyikin memberitahu Berita Harian Malaysia.

Menurut catatan di laman Facebook Sawit Corner, Nasi Kambing Kat Kubur adalah nasi Arab yang dihidangkan dengan daging kambing berempah.

Ia turut menjadi hidangan pilihan ramai pelanggan, dengan salah seorang daripadanya menyatakan: “Kalau akak mati hari ini pun akak reda dan puas sebab akak dapat makan nasi Arab. Sedap sangat.”

Cik Nabilah Asyyikin berkata kedainya turut menyediakan Nasi Kambing Kat Kubur dengan ayam atau kambing, set dimakan seorang ataupun keluarga.

Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

May 9, 2017
This Bro Was A Street Fighter, Now He’s A Top Graduate Of Singapore Poly

Growing up, Mr Muhammad Alfiz Kambali never took an interest in his studies. Due to troubles at home, he often found himself mixing with the wrong crowd and was a fixture in street fights during his teenage years.

“Fights over various issues were common between my parents. The atmosphere was tense at home and I sought comfort in bad company,” said the former Bedok South Secondary School student. “Street fights served as a means to channel my anger.”

Mr Alfiz, now 28, has come a long way since, emerging as one of the top graduates at Singapore Polytechnic (SP) this year.

Last week, he graduated from the integrated events and project management diploma course with a perfect 4.0 grade point average (GPA), and was awarded the Tay Eng Soon Gold Medal and Cityneon Events Gold Medal.

“I am not as young as my classmates, and I knew what I wanted to achieve when I enrolled in this course,” he said. “For me, I did not have the luxury of time to repeat or go back to school again. I knew that I had to put in more effort compared with my secondary school days in order to succeed.”

Mr Alfiz left secondary school with an O-level certificate in 2006, but did not fare well at the national exam. He needed to retake some subjects in order to qualify for a polytechnic course. Finding it troublesome to do so, he decided to work instead.

For two years before his national service commitment as a firefighter, he took up various jobs such as sorting letters and parcels, as well as working part-time at a coffee shop in Beach Road. After NS, he continued to work for another year.

Desiring a better future for himself and his family, he eventually decided to go back to school.

At 22, he did a Higher Nitec course in business studies (events management) at the Institute of Technical Education, where he graduated with a perfect GPA of 4.0.

Mr Alfiz was motivated to further his studies, after seeing how hard his father worked to support the family. “I thought that I could do my part and help him,” he said.

He took up the integrated events and project management diploma course at SP in 2014, at the age of 25.

Unfortunately, his father died of an illness before Mr Alfiz could begin his polytechnic education. “It did affect me, and I was not sure if I should carry on with my further studies,” he said.

“However, my family and friends encouraged me, and I carried on.”

Despite receiving offers from Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University, Mr Alfiz plans to work first before pursuing further studies.

He said work experience is important in the events management line. “Working also allows me to better utilise the skills I have picked up in the classroom,” he added.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 9, 2017
Netanyahu Tosses Hamas Policy Paper On Israel Into Waste Bin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday symbolically tossed into a bin a Hamas policy paper published last week that set out an apparent softening of the Palestinian Islamist group’s stance toward Israel.

In a document issued last Monday, Hamas said it was dropping its longstanding call for Israel’s destruction, but said it still rejected the Jewish state’s right to exist and continued to back “armed struggle” against it.

The Israeli government has said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate.

Netanyahu, in a 97-second video clip aired on social media on Sunday, said that news outlets had been taken in by “fake news”. Sitting behind his desk with tense music playing in the background, he said that in its “hateful document”, Hamas “lies to the world”. He then pulled up a waste paper bin, crumpled the document into a ball and tossed it away.

“The new Hamas document says that Israel has no right to exist, it says every inch of our land belongs to the Palestinians, it says there is no acceptable solution other than to remove Israel… they want to use their state to destroy our state,” Netanyahu said.

Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories.

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Outgoing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Hamas’s fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called “aggressor Zionists”. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, was named on Saturday to succeed Meshaal.

Netanyahu concluded his clip by saying that “Hamas murders women and children, it’s launched tens of thousands of missiles at our homes, it brainwashes Palestinian kids in suicide kindergarten camps,” before binning the document.

Source: www.reuters.com

May 9, 2017