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Satays protest Straits Times’ headlines
Satays simmer with anger over ST’s use of the word ‘grilled’.
By Usad Ahdar
About 20 sticks of satay gathered at Speaker’s Corner yesterday to protest the Straits Times’ use of the word ‘grilled’ in its headlines in the past month. The main beef (with apologies to chicken and mutton) of their unhappiness appeared to be the negative association of the word with people who got into trouble with the law. Two articles in the past month featured the following headlines:
According to a spokessatay of mutton origin, comsumption of satay has declined drastically over the past one month as customers stayed away from grilled food.
“Every time people see the headlines ‘So-and-so grilled by the police’, they think, oh anything grilled must be breaking the law, so they become scared of grilled food,” the spokessatay said. “Even though we are so oily and high in chlolestrol, we never have so many people avoiding us until now.”
The spokesstay furthered claimed that the newspaper exercised selective use of the word.
“Only criminals and opposition politicians get grilled, but you never read about Ministers getting grilled in Parliament,” it said.
The spokessatay also pointed out that it was impossible to grill a person over a blog.
“It must be over a charcoal fire, that one then can be cooked, then can have the smokey chao tar tastes,” it advised.
The protest however was only attended by satays. The spokessatay claimed they had approached the grilled chicken wings to do a joint protest but the chicken wings were too… well… ‘chicken’. Kebabs and Yakitoris, of foreign origin, were not allowed by law to give a speech at Speakers’ Corner.
The event took an unusual turn after twenty minutes as police arrived and arrested the satays, despite them having registered for the protest the day before.
This reporter learnt that the satays were grilled by the police. Literally.
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If you don’t get the satire, read this for reference: “Held for ‘inciting violence’ (Straits Times.)
Community
IMDA to probe Singtel’s island-wide landline outage of 8 October
The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) is investigating Singtel’s island-wide landline outage on 8 October, emphasising its commitment to thoroughly examining any public telecommunications service interruption. A Singtel spokesperson described the outage as an “isolated incident,” adding that there is “no evidence to suggest it is a cyber-related event.”
On 8 October 2024, a significant landline outage affected Singtel customers across the island.
According to Lianhe Zaobao, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) stated that it takes any public telecommunications service interruption seriously and will investigate the incident thoroughly.
In a Facebook update at 8:25 PM on the same day, Singtel announced that its fixed voice services had been fully restored.
The telecommunications provider expressed its apologies for the disruption and the inconvenience caused to customers.
Earlier, the disruption also impacted emergency call services, affecting both the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF).
Members of the public experiencing difficulties reaching emergency numbers 995 or 999 were advised to send an SMS to SCDF at 70995 or SPF at 70999.
Both SPF and SCDF later reported on 7PM that the earlier disruption affecting the 995 and 999 emergency hotlines has been resolved.
The authorities assured the public that they could resume using these hotlines for emergencies and expressed gratitude for the public’s understanding during the outage.
Earlier that day, around noon, multiple users reported difficulties making calls through landlines on Singtel’s official Facebook page and X (formerly Twitter), including problems with office lines.
A check on Downdetector revealed a surge in outage reports for Singtel beginning around 2 PM, peaking at 2,781 complaints. By 5 PM, the number of reports had decreased to over 500.
According to the feedback on Downdetector, most of the problems faced by users pertain to landlines, which matches the responses from netizens on social media platforms.
Major institutions were also affected by the outage. KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), the National Cancer Centre, and Changi General Hospital (CGH), all under SingHealth, alerted the public to the disruption.
By approximately 6:30 PM, all three institutions confirmed that their telephone services had been restored.
Additionally, Singapore’s three local banks—DBS, UOB, and OCBC—reported similar issues with their customer service hotlines during the outage.
According to CNA, a spokesperson from Singtel described the outage as an “isolated incident” and stated that there is “no evidence to suggest it is a cyber-related event.”
Community
Emergency phone services restored following Singtel landline outage
Both the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) announced at 7 PM on 8 October that the disruption affecting 995 and 999 hotlines had been resolved. This followed Singtel’s island-wide landline outage earlier that day. The public can now resume using the hotlines for emergencies.
SINGAPORE: Both the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) announced via Facebook at around 7:00 PM on 8 October that the earlier disruption affecting the 995 and 999 emergency hotlines has been resolved.
The issue followed an island-wide outage of Singtel’s landline services, which occurred around noon.
The authorities confirmed that the public can now resume using the hotlines for emergencies and expressed their gratitude for the public’s understanding during the disruption.
At 5:07 PM, Singtel posted an update on Facebook stating that their engineers had isolated the problem affecting their fixed voice services.
The telco provider added that recovery measures were swiftly being deployed, and services were progressively being restored.
Earlier, users had taken to Singtel’s official Facebook page and X (formerly Twitter) to report difficulties making landline calls, including issues with office lines.
A check on Downdetector revealed a surge in outage reports for SingTel starting around 2 PM.
According to the feedback on Downdetector, most of the problems faced by users pertain to landlines, which matches the responses from netizens on social media platforms.
Major institutions were also affected by the outage. KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), the National Cancer Centre, and Changi General Hospital (CGH), all under SingHealth, alerted the public to the disruption.
By approximately 6:30 PM, all three institutions confirmed that their telephone services had been restored.
Additionally, Singapore’s three local banks—DBS, UOB, and OCBC—reported similar issues with their customer service hotlines during the outage.
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