Huat Zai

A 32-year-old man was found dead at Dakota Crescent Block 58, on the staircase between the ninth and 10th floors. The police was alerted at 9:52am on Feb. 24. The man was found motionless and was pronounced dead at scene by an SCDF paramedic, the police said in a statement to Mothership. Police investigating According to Singapore Chinese-language media Shin Min Daily News (Shin Min), there were bloodstains on the floor and the pipe near the staircase. The deceased's sister rushed over upon hearing the news, and broke down at the scene. She declined to be interviewed by Shin Min. Multiple police cars were present at the scene, and the ninth to 12th floors were cordoned off for investigations that day by the police. The nearby drains and playground were also investigated, and a cleaner was asked to empty out the rubbish bin in search of any weapon. Deceased lived alone A resident living on the 11th floor told Shin Min that she did not hear or see anything amiss in the morning. A 76-year-old resident, surnamed Qiu, who was on friendly terms with the deceased was shocked and sad over his death. He had always greeted Qiu and even helped with her shopping. The deceased worked as a food delivery man. According to Qiu, he lived alone and has two sisters who would visit frequently despite not living nearby. When the sisters visited, she would hear some arguments at times. Qiu shared that the man had been lacking sleep, and would shout loudly at times. Cause of death remains unknown The police said that this was a case of unnatural death. "Based on preliminary investigations, the Police do not suspect foul play." they added. Investigations are ongoing. https://mothership.sg/2023/02/food-delivery-man-found-dead/

Ukraine has issued postage stamps featuring a mural by renowned UK graffiti artist Banksy to mark the first anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. The mural depicts a man resembling Russian President Vladimir Putin being flipped during a judo match with a young boy. The original art is on a house that was devastated by Russian shelling in the town of Borodyanka, near the capital Kyiv. A phrase with an abbreviated expletive addressing the Russian leader has been added to the bottom left corner of the stamps. Mr Putin is a judo black belt and an admirer of the martial art. Many Ukrainians see Banksy's mural as a metaphor of Ukraine's fierce resistance to the Russian invasion, which began on 24 February 2022. Queues were reported in Kyiv on Friday as residents rushed to buy the new stamps from the main post office, Holovposhtamt. "It's a very cool gesture for the world to understand Ukraine, that we remain in the spotlight," Maxime, 26, told the AFP news agency. She added that she was delighted to see a "first stamp from one of Banksy's works". Banksy has produced art works on buildings in several Ukrainian towns that have been among the worst-hit during the ongoing war. Borodyanka was seized by Russian troops in the first few days of the invasion. After the town was recaptured in the spring, Ukrainian officials accused the Russians of committing mass war crimes there. This followed the discovery of hundreds of bodies of Ukrainian civilians in mass graves in areas around Kyiv. Some had their hands tied and had apparently been shot at close range. Russia denies killing civilians, and - without offering any evidence - says Ukraine staged the scenes. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64774717

It was reported in Reuters on Tuesday (21 Feb 2023) that Seattle has become the first U.S. city to outlaw caste discrimination after its local council voted to add caste to the city’s anti-discrimination laws. The law prohibits caste discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas, and allows caste-oppressed people in the city to lodge complaints of discrimination. U.S. federal discrimination laws do ban ancestry discrimination but do not explicitly ban casteism at the moment. The move will impact particularly the Indian and Hindu communities in Seattle which still hold on to their age-old caste value system and practise caste discrimination against others. The caste system is a social hierarchy that divides people into rigid categories at birth. “Caste discrimination doesn’t only take place in other countries. It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country,” said Kshama Sawant, a Seattle city council member who introduced the bill. She is an American of Indian descent. Caste is especially relevant in Seattle, one of the U.S. largest tech hubs and home to major companies that employ large numbers of South Asian immigrants. In the week leading up to the vote, several people testified in public comment hearings and letters to the city council about how caste has manifested in their workplaces and other settings in Seattle. Councilor Sawant said she hoped that other cities across the country will follow Seattle’s example and institute similar measures. Caste system follows South Asian migrants into U.S. Caste discrimination was outlawed in India after its independence over 70 years ago, yet bias persists. According to several studies in recent years, people from lower castes in India were underrepresented in higher-paying jobs. Even though India has banned untouchability, Dalits who are supposed to belong to the outcast group, still face widespread abuse across India, where their attempts at upward social mobility have at times been violently put down. The caste system dates back thousands of years with roots in Hinduism in India, though it also impacts other religions and countries. It separated the priest class, the highest level, from the warrior class, merchant class and laborer class, with the Dalits, known as “untouchables”, falling even below the caste system. The caste system grants many privileges to upper castes but represses lower castes. In India, crimes against Dalits, who make up 17% of the country’s population, occurred every ten minutes in 2020. As the South Asian diaspora has grown, anti-caste discrimination groups said caste prejudice has followed to the U.S., where activist groups like Equality Labs are pushing for an end to caste discrimination. Equality Labs director Thenmozhi Soundararajan told The Washington Post her organization has received complaints from hundreds of workers alleging “caste slurs in workplaces, bullying and harassment, sexual harassment, demotion to retaliation and even firing.” In 2020, 30 Dalit women employed at Silicon Valley tech companies including Google and Apple published a statement alleging caste discrimination at work and an inability to report instances because caste was not a protected class. The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents Google parent company Alphabet Inc. employees, has urged the company to explicitly ban caste discrimination. In fact last year, Ms Soundararajan appealed directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who comes from a priest-caste family in India, to allow her to talk about caste equality in Google. But the talk was cancelled, leading some employees to conclude that Google was willfully ignoring caste bias. According to a survey conducted by Equality Labs, 67 per cent of Dalits living in the U.S. said they’ve experienced unfair treatment in their workplace, usually perpetrated by Indian immigrants of other castes. California’s state government sues Cisco In June 2020, Cisco and two of its former managers were sued by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, accusing it of discriminating against a Dalit engineer. The case is still pending. The victim, a principal engineer at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters, is an American of Indian descent. His parents were immigrants from the Dalit class. Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were from the higher castes. Former Cisco engineering managers Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella, also defendants in the lawsuit, were accused of harassment for internally enforcing the caste hierarchy in Cisco against the victim. When the victim reported Iyer to human resources for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues, Iyer allegedly retaliated. But Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and did not take up the complaint. The harassment and discrimination against the victim continued. Cisco management then reassigned and isolated the employee, rejected a raise and career opportunities as well as denied two promotions against the victim, according to the lawsuit. At the time, when the lawsuit surfaced, Cisco defended itself, “Cisco is committed to an inclusive workplace for all… we were fully in compliance with all laws as well as our own policies.” In any case, efforts to address caste discrimination have proliferated in Seattle and Silicon Valley, where there are many South Asian residents, including some who have alleged caste discrimination in the tech industry. https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/02/26/caste-system-follows-south-asian-immigrants-to-u-s-leading-seattle-to-outlaw-caste-discrimination/

Singapore’s government has been in a jam in the last few decades. Singapore is getting older, and people are not having babies. On Friday, 24 Feb 2023, it was announced that our fertility rate had hit an all-time low, so low that it even became the topic of international news. The government has been desperately trying to address the decline in the fertility rate for the longest time. We had a budget day before the announcement of the record-low fertility rate. In that budget, our Prime Minister-In- Waiting, Mr Lawrence Wong, announced that he was throwing even more money at couples if they had more children. The logic behind Mr Wong’s announcement was simple – since we, the people, say that having kids is expensive, the government will make it less expensive and so we should jolly well start reproducing. Unfortunately, Mr Wong’s solution to the problem isn’t new. If anything, it’s the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. The government has been throwing subsidies at couples to have babies, yet our fertility rates keep declining. The good news is the decline in fertility rates isn’t unique to Singapore. It’s something that is happening in just about every advanced economy on the planet. Fertility rates in the US, Western Europe, and Japan have been declining for the longest time, and now places like South Korea, Singapore, and China are following suit. It’s this simple. As economies grow, they need more workers. Hence, women who were once expected to stay at home are given opportunities to join the workforce. In cases like Singapore, they’re expected to fully participate in the workforce (my grandfather would not tolerate the idea of my grandmother working – I will stay away from a girl who won’t work). As women discover greater opportunities in the workforce, they are less likely to want to stay home and become baby-making machines. Look at the fact that a woman is most fertile (the twenties to mid-thirties) at the best time for building a career and having a life. So, if one is serious about wanting to make babies, particularly the right type of babies (in Singapore, it specifically refers to babies from graduate Chinese mothers), one has to start by asking the people equipped to have babies why they’re not making babies in the first place. Women have been fairly clear. Things like flexible hours at work and more childcare facilities have been examples of what has been asked for. However, Singapore’s government remains obsessed with the work culture that led to the problem in the first place. Instead of using Covid to restructure the economy, we rushed back to an industrial-age form on work, doing our best to get people back to the office or factory for eight hours a day. The interest of the landlords has thus far proven greater than the need of the productive population. Then, there’s the reality of children. I’m speaking as a guy who loves babies. I’ve always been fascinated by small people; after a point, I got involved with single mothers. Also ended up liking their kids more than I liked the mothers. Looking at the chubby baby gives me a shoot of joy – it’s like having an overdose of Prozac. Given that I have a soft spot for chubby cute things, one has to question why someone like me has not started a family filled with babies. The answer lies in my mother’s question: “Are you bringing them up in a world that will be better than the one you were brought up in?” I adopted the Evil Teen in 2014, so I am a parent, and her existence in my life looks at my mother’s question. Is she growing up in a world that is better than the one I grew up in? Unfortunately, I don’t think the answer is yes. Sure, new generations have opportunities that older ones don’t have. I, for example, have more access to information at a click of a button than my parents and grandparents had from access to physical libraries. If the Evil Teen has kids, my grandkids will probably have tools that make Google old-fashioned. However, it seems that opportunities are becoming harder to get by. Dad’s older brother once said all you needed to know was how to read and write, and paper qualifications didn’t matter. However, he spoke on a day when having O-Levels was a big deal. These days, a bachelor’s degree is the basic entry-level requirement to get a job, and who is to say that one may need a master’s degree to clean toilets in future? In Singapore, we take a perverse pride in having a demanding education system, where kids must spend further hours on tuition on top of basic school to pass exams. I used to hate parent-teacher meetings because the only solution the teachers ever seemed to propose was “more tuition.” Surely, there must be something wrong with the system if a child needs more teaching on top of the teaching that’s already being provided. You could argue that the regime we put our kids through is worth it if it prepares them for life. Unfortunately, despite all the rigorous training, we put them through at school, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We are told that “foreign talent” is essential to do the future jobs created by the economy. Here’s the question that nobody seems to ask – if our education system is so good, why can’t the locals do the jobs that the economy is creating? Then, there’s the fact that wages don’t seem to be rising along with cost, and we’re told that we need to be “more productive” if we want more money. When looking at all these factors, it’s easy to see why nobody wants to have babies. The lack of babies is far greater than the cost of the maternity ward. Subsidising the maternity ward is like subsidizing the cost of a car. There’s the cost of bringing the child into adulthood, and just as there’s the cost of running a car. Then, there’s the question of the end goal. Will that child have a better life than you, or will he or she have a life filled with stresses beyond reasonable? https://theindependent.sg/opinion-sporeans-are-not-having-babies-besides-high-cost-of-living-can-a-childs-future-be-truly-free-from-stresses-beyond-reasonable/

Sadly, smoke flares are not legal in Singapore without pyrotechnic licenses.

70-Year-Old Man Found Dead In Golden Mile Complex Reportedly Slept In Carpark For Months Over the years, Golden Mile Complex has been the scene of several curious incidents. However, this might be the most tragic of them all: An elderly man was found dead in the building’s carpark. Source: Shin Min Daily News The police have classified the case as an unnatural death. Man was pronounced dead at Golden Mile Complex At 9am on Saturday (25 Feb) morning, the police were alerted to an incident at Golden Mile Complex, they told Shin Min Daily News. When they arrived, they found a 70-year-old man lying motionless in the carpark. Source: Google Maps The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), who were also notified, sent paramedics down. They pronounced the elderly man dead at the scene. Eyewitnesses had reported seeing at least six police vehicles and about 10 police and SCDF officers at the Golden Mile carpark. A body covered with a white sheet lay under the staircase, with the area cordoned off from the public. Body was discovered by carpark employee Distressingly, the body was discovered by a female employee of the carpark. The woman told Shin Min that she saw the deceased lying unconscious under the staircase when she reported for work that morning. He was shirtless and lying on his back on a makeshift bed made of wooden planks, she said. Strangely, part of his body was dangling out of the “bed”, and a pillow was covering his face, she added. She called out to him twice and called the police when she didn’t get a response. The deceased had been sleeping at that spot for the past few months, noted the woman, who didn’t want to be named. Deceased’s face was swollen: Friend A friend of the deceased, who rushed down to the scene after hearing the bad news, said his friend had been suffering from an illness. When he saw the man’s face for the last time, he described it as “swollen and blue”. “It looked as though he’d suffocated to death,” said the friend, who claimed to have known the deceased since he was 18. Deceased would drink almost every night Shopkeepers at Golden Mile Complex said the deceased was a familiar face in the mall. He would drink at the bars there almost every night, they said, and used to party there with friends. Recently, however, he’d been seen drinking alone in the stairwell. Case classified as unnatural death The police have classified the case as one of unnatural death. However, preliminary investigations have ruled out the possibility of homicide. Further investigations are currently ongoing. MS News extends our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the deceased. May they find out what happened to him soon. https://mustsharenews.com/man-dead-golden-mile/

@socrates469bc KNN, what did I say about teaching others to cook?!

@HarrisY1 @ManOfTheHour @classyNfabulous @noobmaster @ExTreMisTxxx @CannotTahanLiao @canot_lidat_lah @bigliarliar82

@The_King I found your favorite kinda pet

HONG KONG, CHINA — The city of Hong Kong is in shock following the tragic murder of 28-year-old Chinese socialite and influencer, Abby Choi Tin-fung. Choi’s dismembered body was discovered on Monday in a village house located in Lung Mei Village, Tai Po. Choi, who was married to Tam Chuk-Kwan, the son of the founder of TamJai Yunnan Mixian, had previously divorced her ex-husband surnamed Kwong. Despite holding a wedding ceremony in 2016, the couple did not register their marriage. Choi hailed from a wealthy family and owned several properties, including Kadoorie Hill in Ho Man Tin and Manhattan Hill in Lai Chi Kok, with a market value of HK$45 million (US5.7 million). She had been a director of four companies and had a personal net worth of over HK$100 million. Choi had four children, two of whom belonged to her ex-husband surnamed Kwong, while the other son and daughter belonged to her present partner. It has been revealed that Choi’s ex-husband and his family had a significant financial dispute with her before her murder. Reports suggest that Choi had purchased a property in Kadoorie Hill for her ex-husband’s family to reside in, naming her ex-husband’s father as the owner. However, she later expressed her intention to sell the property, sparking a disagreement over ownership and related matters. Choi had continued to financially support her ex-husband’s family even after their divorce, including hiring her ex-husband’s brother as a private chauffeur. However, towards the end of last year, Choi expressed her intention to sell the Kadoorie Hill property, leading to further disputes over ownership and the potential misuse of funds. Concerns were raised about the safety of Choi, with some individuals even plotting to murder her to seize her considerable assets. The suspects allegedly worked together to murder Choi before mutilating her body. Her ex-husband, who is the key suspect, while his parents and elderly brother, aged 31-65, are currently in custody and will be charged with murder later. Kwong, who had been on the run, was caught by the police at the Tung Chung waterfront at around 1 pm on Saturday, according to local media. “It is possible he was waiting for a speedboat to flee the city illegally,” a source was quoted by South China Morning Post. The police have uncovered a newly rented village house unit in Lung Mei Village, Tai Po, belonging to the ex-husband’s father. On February 24th, detectives executed a warrant and found human body parts stored in the refrigerator. Left and right legs believed to belong to Choi were found in the refrigerator, but her head, torso, and hands were not found. Additionally, minced human tissue was found scattered on the ground. The residence in question had recently been rented by the ex-husband’s father and was found to contain unexpected items, including a meat slicer, chainsaw, gloves, and raincoat. The police investigation into the case is ongoing, and more information has been uncovered about the suspects. The ex-husband’s father, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the crime, had departed from the police force approximately 18 years ago, holding the rank of sergeant prior to his exit. Choi’s present partner’s family has declined to speak about the incident, but sources have disclosed that her parents are also engaged in business in the Mainland. The case has drawn attention to the issue of violence against women, sparking public outrage and protests demanding justice for Abby Choi and an end to gender-based violence as netizens conveyed their condolences on Choi’s social media platforms. Post-mortem examinations will be conducted later to ascertain the cause of death of the deceased. The police have not ruled out the possibility of more arrests and are urging anyone with information about the incident to come forward. The tragedy has sent shockwaves throughout the city and has raised concerns about the safety of women, especially those in high-profile relationships, in Hong Kong. The police and government officials have condemned the heinous crime and assured the public that they are doing everything in their power to bring those responsible to justice. https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/02/25/chinese-socialite-abby-choi-found-dismembered-in-hong-kong-village-house-ex-husband-arrested/

Not scare, plenty of and