Raised alarm

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) will sound the annual "Important Message" signal islandwide through the public warning system at 6.20pm on Sep 15. "Do not be alarmed by the minute-long sounding exercise," SCDF said in a media release on Sunday (Sep 13). Those who have downloaded the SGSecure app will also hear the signal on their mobile phones if they are not on silent or vibration mode. The signal will end once the message is acknowledged or it will stop after 20 seconds. This will be followed by a brief text on the sounding of the public warning system. The Important Message signal, one of three signals, is sounded to alert the population to an important broadcast. Members of the public are encouraged to tune in immediately to any local radio station or free-to-air Mediacorp TV channels for a brief message. The sounding and broadcast message are part of SCDF's efforts to familiarise the public with the public warning system signals, it said, adding … [Read more...] about SCDF to sound public warning system on Sep 15

Elizabeth Cuthrell, a Manhattan-based film producer, used to work in an ergonomic office space: Comfortable desk chair, monitor at eye level, external keyboard. Then came COVID-19. During stay-at-home she worked on a laptop from a wicker chair, or sometimes on a couch with “cushions like marshmallows.” A month later she felt pain in her neck, wrist and shoulders that sent her to a chiropractor. “It’s hard to quantify, but this has been a really, really big issue for a lot of my patients,” said Karen Erickson, the chiropractor who treated Cuthrell. Chiropractors report a surge of injuries and discomfort stemming from the nationwide push to work from home, as millions of workers have spent months clacking away on sofas and beds and awkward kitchen counters. Out with ergonomics, in with hunching over laptops. According to an April Facebook survey from the American Chiropractic Association, 92 per cent of chiropractors (out of 213 respondents) said that patients report more neck … [Read more...] about The pandemic of work-from-home injuries: Causes and solutions

LONDON: After the seven weeks of lockdown, which had managed to suppress the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the British people on the evening of May 10 to explain the next steps. Restrictions were to be eased, but moves would be tentative and contingent, checking for new outbreaks at each stage, with a possible return to more stringent measures if the virus took advantage of the relaxed rules. The three biggest constraints resulting from the lockdown were to be eased: The limits on outdoor pursuits including regular exercise; not being able to get to work if you were unable to do your job from home; and school closures preventing parents leaving for work even if they wanted to. Thus “Stay at Home”, the previous headline advice, was qualified. The new slogan was “Stay Alert”, a very different sort of instruction. LISTEN: Why lifting lockdowns and easing restrictions may be the biggest COVID-19 test facing countries READ: Commentary: … [Read more...] about Commentary: From ‘stay home’ to ‘stay alert’ – confusion in Britain as COVID-19 lockdown eases

SINGAPORE: Despite knowing that social gatherings were prohibited during the "circuit breaker" period, a man went for dinner at his cousin-in-law's home and flaunted it on Facebook, writing: "We are having (an) illegal gathering ... so what?" Francis Soh Seng Chye, 38, was fined S$4,500 on Wednesday (May 20) in the first prosecution of a person breaching Regulation 6 of the COVID-19 regulations. Soh, a private-hire driver, pleaded guilty to one charge of meeting another individual not from his household for a social purpose. The court heard that Soh had a car-sharing arrangement with his cousin-in-law Lye Bao Ru, who was also a part-time private-hire car driver. Soh would drive the car in the day and hand over the vehicle to Ms Lye at night. On Apr 8, a day after the circuit breaker started, Soh met Ms Lye to pass her the keys to their shared car. Ms Lye invited Soh to dinner at her home, and he agreed, even though both of them knew it was prohibited under the circuit … [Read more...] about ‘Illegal gathering, so what’: Man fined for having dinner with cousin-in-law during circuit breaker

YANGON: Three years ago, Myanmar’s military burned the Rohingya village of Kan Kya to the ground and bulldozed over its remains. Last year, the government erased its name from official maps, according to the United Nations. About 5km from the Naf River that marks the border between Myanmar’s Rakhine state and Bangladesh, Kan Kya was home to hundreds of people before the army chased 730,000 Rohingya out of the country in 2017 in what the United Nations described as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". The Myanmar military, now facing charges of genocide, said it was conducting "clearance operations" targeting militants. READ: UN court orders Myanmar to prevent Rohingya genocide Where Kan Kya once stood, there are now dozens of government and military buildings including a sprawling, fenced-off police base, according to satellite images publicly available on Google Earth and historical images provided to Reuters by Planet Labs. The village, in a remote region in the … [Read more...] about 3 years after exodus, Myanmar erases names of Rohingya villages, UN map-makers follow suit