Taking leave, booking taxis: Parents scramble to get children to PSLE amid train disruption

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Parents of Primary 6 students in Singapore made special arrangements to ensure their children arrived on time for the first day of written exams for the Primary School Leaving Examination ( PSLE ) despite the ongoing train disruption.

CNA spoke to parents at Fairfield Methodist School ( Primary ), located in Dover, and Nan Hua Primary School, which is located in Clementi, on Thursday ( Sep 26 ) afternoon. &nbsp,

Both institutions are situated close to the MRT channels that were impacted by the disturbance, which extended from Buona Vista to Jurong East. &nbsp,

On Thursday, PSLE individuals sat for their English vocabulary documents 1 and 2. Paper 1 started at 8.15am while the next sheet started at 10.30am.

Of the 41, 000 candidates who sat for the papers on Thursday, five were late due to the train disruption, said the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board ( SEAB). &nbsp,

All five arrived just before the paper’s conclusion, and they were given plenty of time to live in before sitting in their seats for the entire exam’s period.

Of the five prospects, one sat for the documents in a unique assessment heart.

Candidates should get in touch with their schools if the coach was a disturbance, according to the board, and SEAB will work with them to assist them. &nbsp,

When CNA arrived at Fairfield Methodist School ( Primary ) at about 12.20pm, a dozen parents were seen waiting outside for the Primary 6 students. &nbsp,

When she learned about the station disturbance on the news last night, Ms. Rashida Begum, whose child will be taking the PSLE this year, claimed she requested an immediate leave of absence to take her child to school.

We never anticipated the significant break because we were prepared for our child to attend college by himself and believed the collapse may resolve itself over the weekend, but it did not,” she said.

Because we are staying in Queenstown, I took leave to drop him off this night so that he would have had to transform railways and not be able to arrive on time.

She continued, adding that her husband has taken a week off to take their son to school so they can use it in case the station goes into disarray on its second day. &nbsp, &nbsp,

If the train disruptions continue until the following week, we are also reaching out to our family members to see if anyone can assist us. Hopefully that does n’t happen.

Mr. Terence Png claimed to have made an advance reservation for a car last nights despite his daughter’s attendance for the PSLE this year.

” When we found out that the trains were n’t going to run today, immediately, we thought of an alternative, which is to book a taxi or Grab way ahead of time to ensure that we had a ride in the morning”, he said.

The ride from their home in Bukit Batok to the school cost S$ 30 ( US$ 23 ), he added.

It’s unfortunate that it occurred on the day of the PSLE first paper, he said, but it ca n’t be prevented.

My girl was n’t really impacted because we covered it so as not to strain her up.

Families at Fairfield Methodist also reported that the school’s Key 1 and 2 students were receiving home-based instruction on Thursday, which might have helped to ease the traffic flow this morning. Mr. Lucas Low, whose child will be taking the PSLE this year, claimed that because he typically takes his kids to school, was not all that worried about the train’s disturbance. They left their homes at their normal times, and customers flowed as usual. &nbsp,

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No MRT service between Boon Lay and Queenstown due to power fault on East-West Line

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Online chatter between commuters about the difficulties, with one witness who wanted to be known as Mdm Tan reporting that a coach appeared to be bringing smoke into Clementi station around 9.17 am.

Other people on X cited go disruptions of between 10 to 20 minutes.

In response to a Twitter post that claimed a station was diverting from Kallang to Boon Lay, SMRT reported that western railways were being turned around at Queenstown at around 10.10am. &nbsp,

” So, &nbsp, coach rate is being regulated. We have made in-train and stop presentations. We are sad for affecting your commute”.

The tragedy on Wednesday is the next train service disruption in a little over a month. &nbsp,

A power problem on the night of Sep 17 caused a disruption to services on the Circle Line, which affected peak-hour go for scores of commuters, lasting for almost two time. &nbsp,

The next day, a fireplace at a station station suddenly disrupted Circle Line service, causing an interruption of about 15 hours. &nbsp,

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Shopping on Qoo10 effectively halted as MAS orders e-commerce platform to suspend payment services

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore ( MAS ) has mandated that the e-commerce platform Qoo10 suspend all Singaporean payment services starting Monday ( Sep 23 ) because of delays in the payment process for its customers.

Customers are currently able to make purchases on the program, despite the company’s being given an exception for operating its e-commerce system.

” Qoo10&nbsp, may need to employ a third party payment service provider for deals on this platform”, said MAS.

Between April and August, MAS and various government agencies received many consumer complaints against Qoo10 for disruptions in processing obligations to users, who are retailers on Qoo10’s system.

” Qoo10 was asked to handle these issues, and while some were resolved, others remained outstanding”, said MAS in a press release. &nbsp,

In early September, Qoo10 informed MAS that a considerable number of merchants would experience repayment difficulties. MAS engaged the product’s management about the difficulties and expressed its” major issues”.

The expert stated that MAS gave Qoo10 opportunities to address these issues and that the business had to cooperate with MAS in order to fulfill its obligations to merchants on an ongoing basis, including working with a third-party payment service provider to provide the covered services.

However, Qoo10 has to date said it lacks the” enough guarantee” it needs to fulfill its payment commitments to retailers in a timely manner.

The program was therefore given the order to end its transaction services, which are subject to the Payment Services Act, on Monday.

According to MAS, “MAS has taken into account the possible disruption the expulsion may have on Qoo10’s e-commerce system or other solutions that are integrated with the included payments services.”

” But, allowing Qoo10 to keep offering protected payment services would increase the risk of larger outstanding debts and potential losses for more stores using Qoo10’s protected payment service.

” Qoo10 may be permitted to make obligations to meet exceptional claims by like merchants, but may not take on new transaction obligations.”

In response to queries from CNA, MAS said that&nbsp, Qoo10 offered merchant consolidation, account release, private money move, cross-border money transfer and e-money issuance services.

” All five companies are suspended,” a spokeswoman for the expert said. &nbsp, &nbsp,

CNA reported earlier this month that some retailers have filed says with a judge and that police are looking into the e-commerce program.

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The weaponization of everything has begun – Asia Times

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One of those activities that many have speculated was on the sky is the use of common materials in 21st-century issues is the attack on pagers and walkie-talkies ( and possibly even solar sections ).

However, there were those who, as security researcher Mark Galeotti put it, believed this “weaponization of all” was akin to Hollywood films or cyberpunk crime thrillers.

According to them, turning pagers or phones into incendiary devices was possibly not possible both technologically and logistically. Only the most anxious person may believe that a circumstance like this could actually turn out to be true.

Yet it has today happened. And it has resulted in the deaths of 37 people, the injuries of thousands more, and the potential for severe corporate disorganization.

The ability to communicate with your troops or extremist network has always been a necessity in fighting. And as the geographical scope of conflict grows, the ability to communicate is even more crucial.

An institution needs to be able to rely on its communication devices to be trustworthy. And it is important to have faith in the real people they are speaking to, not the artificial intelligence ( a growing concern in the face of “deep fakes” )

Members of an organization also need to discover ways to prevent being heard, which is a constant worry when communication tools are continually increasing in both strength and difficulty.

Therefore, any business in the twenty-first century must be wary of the dangers of digital disruption and of the various ways that information and communication can be hacked, hacked, and manipulated.

However, the transformation of common means of communication and information into practical arms leads to a new breed of fear and paranoia.

How worried should we be?

There are many individuals who will say that the things we are seeing in Lebanon will undoubtedly be bringing to a nearby area.

In a time of “open modern innovation,” Audrey Kurth Cronin, director of the Institute for Strategy & Technology at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, has asserted that one of the biggest safety issues is the possibility of devastating development by non-state stars.

In other words, we are living in a world where more and more people and businesses can use destructive systems. The wonderful rights no longer possess the most advanced technology.

Following the attacks on September 17 and 18, the Syrian army carried out controlled blasts of mobile communications products. &nbsp, Photo: EPA-EFE via The Conversation / Wael Hamzeh

There might be world leaders who feel they can test the potential of the techniques that their thieves and technologists have been considering and experimenting with in a time of growing political tensions.

In a time when online systems are in use, two colonels in the Chinese government published a book about the resurgence of global politics and war in 1999. I discussed their ideas in my 2023 text Theorising Future Conflict: War Out to 2049.

One of their most disturbing feedback is about the possible use of everything in upcoming global wars:” These ] new idea arms did make regular people and military men very shocked that common things can also become weapons with which to engage in war.”

The situations in Lebanon does give us a sense of what these Chinese martial visionaries saw coming. Naturally, whether states are able to adapt to a constantly evolving protection landscape is still up for debate. We are in a period of rapid shift for a variety of new technology.

State with more pressing issues and limited tools might have more to worry about. Additionally, as this new era of conflict transitions from visionary speculation to terrible reality, organizations like Hezbollah may be entering a new hazard.

Geopolitical affect

We do n’t know whether more attacks will be launched in Lebanon, but the events are still ongoing. Additionally, we are unsure of the region’s potential broader political influence as a result of the attacks.

However, for the time being, it appears that there is a modern and political divide between those who will suffer from these fresh tactics in this weaponization of everything and those who will be able to launch extremely inventive attacks on individuals and organizations from a distance.

It seems doubtful that hostile nations like Russia would use any threats they discovered in the products used in daily life to fuel a global conflict, according to countries like the UK.

The different punishment strategies, such as nuclear arsenals, which involve mutually assured destruction, at least temporarily, keep a large portion of our conflict from going to war.

And we would probably have far more to worry about than exploding smartphones if political tensions did achieve a level where Vladimir Putin’s Russia considered these novel military options.

However, non-state players may not be frightened of using this kind of invasion. So we must hope they do n’t possess the serious organizational skills necessary to turn everyday objects into explosives, and we must also hope security services around the world are monitoring new threats closely.

In times of serious and fast change in AI, drones, drones and attacks, the only certainty is doubt in this complex, and often terrible, world we are living in.

Mark Lacy is senior lecturer of politics, philosophy and religion, Lancaster University

This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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