When you start poking poking your pussy cat too much, it’ll bite, scratch or somehow retaliate. So, is the recent revoke of visa-free privileges a reaction to what happened in Singapore? Is it because Singapore is still having military cooperation with Taiwan? Is it because Singapore has somehow offended China in some political red tape? Or does it have anything to do with the jailed journalist?

No lah… apparently there’s speculation that it’s probably due to the China Beijing Olympics and they probably want to know who’s coming to watch them. For a start, however, they are just revoking the multi-visit visa, but Singaporeans are still allowed in for 14 days visa-free. Come 1st June 2008, all Singaporeans will require a visa to go to China.

Hmm… do I have to apply for a visa for Hong Kong then?

SINGAPOREANS planning to visit China multiple times within a short period will have to hold off their trips for a while.

The Chinese government has stopped issuing multiple-entry visas to foreigners since end March.

And although Singaporeans can still visit China for up to 14 days without a visa for business, holidays, visiting relatives and friends or transit, this may all change.

From July 1, Singaporeans will need a valid visa to enter China - but this requirement is only temporary, according to the China Embassy website on visa information.

Travel agencies said the Chinese Embassy in Singapore have sent letters to them stating that multiple-entry visas will cease until further notice.

While no reason was given, they believe the move was due to the upcoming Beijing Olympics, and the prevailing unrest in Tibet.

But single-entry and double-entry visas are still available.

Some agencies have reported cancellation of planned holidays to China or travellers changing their trips to other destinations.

Ms Ruth Lim, manager of marketing and communications at SA Tours, told The Straits Times the fallout is between 5 and 10 per cent.

Travel agents say the restricted multiple entries into China may not affect holiday-makers, but it might have an impact on people travelling in and out of the country regularly on business.

Multinational corporations said the new move will not affect their operations in China as their executives are usually stationed there on long-term postings, with work permits lasting up to a year.

Work permits are not affected by the latest change.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 17th April 2008

We usually hear of rude taxi drivers, but apparently, someone decided to go one step further to make the taxi driver look rude. In the end, the taxi driver got told off and the person who filmed got what he wanted (I guess). I haven’t watched the video yet, but it’s embedded right here so that you don’t have to go open another window.

COMFORTDELGRO has apologised to the man, who filmed a road rage incident with a Comfort taxi driver and later put it up to YouTube and sent it to STOMP.

The company said disciplinary action has been taken against the cabby, who let off a string of expletives at the man in front of MediaCorp complex on Caldecott Hill.

The man claimed that he had politely asked the taxi driver to move his cab which was parked on the wrong side of the road.

Instead of moving, the cabby swore at him with expletives and this escalated into a shouting match. Cisco officers later came to the scene to try and stop the argument.

The three-and-a-half minute video has since been uploaded by three different users on YouTube and has attracted some 9,000 hits since it was first posted on April 14.

One of the YouTube posts claimed that the original video was uploaded by andrewteo777, who is said to be the man in the video.

Ms Tammy Tan, ComfortDelGro Group Corporate Communications Officer told straitstimes.com on Thursday morning: ‘Firstly, we would like to extend our apologies to Mr Teo with regards to the actions of our taxi driver.

‘ComfortDelGro cabbies have been told to wait for booking customers at pick-up points that do not obstruct traffic. In this instance, the cabby should not have parked against the flow of traffic, and he certainly should not have behaved the way he did when confronted.

‘Cabbies have been advised to stay calm even under difficult and unpleasant situations so as not to escalate the situation. Where necessary, they are advised to alert the police to assist.’

But Netizens on straitstimes.com, which has received over 50 comments on this story, and YouTube have strongly criticised the man’s actions, saying he was the real bully and that the taxi driver should not be punished.

williampcwong said ‘the taxi driver was wrong to park or wait on the other side of the road’ but the real rude bully was the man who filmed the video clip.

tuiniasin agreed: ‘The driver had self-disciplined himself by not stepping out of his taxi and challenge the bully. He made ComfortDelGro proud.’

Some posts also called for action to be taken against the video maker, instead of the taxi driver.

‘I want action to be taken against this person making the video. He clearly thinks he is above the law, and was heard instructing the officers on what to do. His boorish behaviour cannot be condoned and is worse than the taxi driver’s,’ said yeusmarn.

What’s with these people nowadays?

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 17th April 2008

Simply Jean is running heavy duty backup and maintenance scripts currently and some lag may be experienced. Meanwhile, if you are feeling a little free, do feel free to navigate around Simply Jean and help to report any bugs? Yes, things will start feeling strange as things get patched up slowly. Hehe.. so it does turn out that 15 April 2008 is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If we don’t close it, someone will close it for us. Sigh… but we want to close it in one piece mah!

Speaking of which, we are going to do the next post on how Simply Jean was being hacked. Yes, we have forensics scientists here who can almost re-enact how the site got hacked. guess how the site got hacked.

But don’t steal the script and hack elsewhere, ok? =)

Update: I need some help. All the wordpress pages have been removed. Does anyone know how I can retrieve these pages? Or if anyone has any history of them? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Ya… not quite sure when it happened, but all the plugins got unloaded, got a lot of spam, but posts are still in tact. Restoring the whole site now. Is there something going on around blogs or some vulnerability that I do not know of?

Sian… another night burned. =(

Close blog doesn’t mean must tear down everything mah… these people so impatient! Hmmph!