Thursday, April 06, 2006

I recieved my SP-UOB Visa debit card on the 29th of March despite my application for the card on the 13th of mMarch. I'm very much disappointed with UOB's staff's incompetency in their product knowledge as well as their standards of professionalism in their course of work. The inaccurate information given not only confused me but has also unknowingly depreciated my confidence in banking with UOB.
Despite several calls to UOB's call centre to hasten the delivery of my card as well as the PIN number, I have yet to receive the PIN number required to access the ATMs.
I fully understand that I could apply for a ATM card at any of the bank's branches if I wanted to do any transactions over the bank's ATM network but I could have done that at the point of application and not now.
I was advised, by your staff at the Clementi Branch, that the SP-UOB VISA card could function as an ATM card and that application for an ATM wasn't necessary, though possible, if I could wait for 7-14 days(from the time of application) for the card to arrive.
Recognizing that many adults nowadays carry lots of cards, it was very thoughtful of her to have advised me for convenience sake.
However, I do not understand why she had to lie to a consumer, like myself, that UOB has already discontinued its passbook savings accounts just because UOB is discouraging consumers to take up passbook. Don’t consumers have a choice? Or is she just following the Bank’s SOP [Standard Operating Procedures]. If I had not known from a friend who applied for his passbook account 2 weeks after me, I would have been kept in the dark about it.
I think I have heard enough explanations about why, what, who and how things have come this far. This is by far the worst banking experience I ever encountered with our local banks. I just want to be like any other bankers-to have confidence while banking with UOB. I seriously do not want to call the call centre every2-3days to make an enquiry again.
Thanks and regards.

left @ 2:59 PM

Friday, November 11, 2005

Gunmen shot dead a lawyer working for a Saddam Hussein co-defendant in Baghdad, the second defense lawyer killed in less than three weeks.The assassination Tuesday underlined the volatile climate in Iraq and cast doubt on whether the trial of the ousted Iraqi leader and his seven co-defendants would resume as scheduled on November 28.Adel Mohammed Abbas was killed when gunmen opened fire on him and lawyer Tamer Hammud Hadi in the Adl neighborhood of Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.Raising fresh questions about Iraq's capacity to hold the trial amid a lethal insurgency, Abbas's murder followed the abduction and execution of defense lawyer Saadun Janabi one day after the historic trial opened in Baghdad on October 19.The day before he was shot down Abbas told the US magazine Time that he knew he faced death because of his work.Abbas represented former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, a member of the powerful Revolution Command Council who had been one of Saddam's closest aides.Hadi, who was rushed to hospital, helps with the defense of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a Saddam half-brother who once headed the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service.Janabi, who was found dead on October 21, represented Awad Ahmad al-Bandar, a former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam's office.All eight defendants face charges connected to the 1982 massacre of more than 140 Shiite villagers from Dujail, north of the capital. All pleaded not guilty. If convicted they could be executed.No one took responsibility for the attack but a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari implied that Saddam supporters were the culprits."The government strongly condemns this assassination and believes that the only people who benefit from this are those who want to block the course of justice and move the trial out of Iraq," Leith Kubba said.Rejecting suggestions to move the trial outside the country, Kubba said the government had offered police protection for the defense lawyers after Janabi's murder but the offer was turned down."The government is not prepared to move the trial outside of Iraq. Justice must follow its course and we must guarantee the conditions for a just and transparent trial," he said.The United Nations condemned the "cold-blooded murders" and the United States called the assault "a horrific act of violence.""We will work with the government of Iraq and security officials of Iraq to bring those responsible to justice," US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington.Following Janabi's murder, defense lawyers suspended contacts with the Iraqi high tribunal trying crimes committed by Saddam's Baath party rule.The lawyers put forward 10 conditions for ending their protest, including an independent international investigation into Janabi's killing, UN protection for meetings of the defence committee and the hiring of 15 bodyguards per lawyer to ensure their protection.The defense reiterated their suspension of contacts with the tribunal on Sunday.Meanwhile in western Iraq, at least 180 suspected terrorists were arrested Tuesday during a sweep against insurgents in the town of Husayba, near the border with Syria, the US military said.Some of the detainees "originated from various countries within Asia and Africa," the military said.Some 1,000 Iraqi and 2,500 US troops launched the offensive called Operation Steel Curtain early Saturday focusing on the Euphrates valley town in the restive Sunni Arab province of Al-Anbar.At least one US marine and 36 suspected insurgents were reported killed in the fighting.Unlike past days, no air strikes were conducted Tuesday, and the military described the resistance as "weakening."The defense ministry said Tuesday that one Iraqi soldier had been killed and one wounded, and 68 suspected insurgents been captured.One of the operation's stated goals is to shatter the Al-Qaeda network in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which responded with an Internet statement threatening to retaliate with an offensive of its own.The statement, which could not be independently verified, stressed the group's "right to defend the (Islamic) nation and avenge the honour and blood" of Iraqis.The US military said it also killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members and captured six in a raid near the Al-Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi.In other violence, 11 Iraqis, including an intelligence officer and his brother, were killed in various attacks around the country, security sources said.A top official from Jaafari's political party said that a meeting to prepare for a broad-based conference aimed at quelling Iraq's insurgency would take place in Cairo on November 19.The goal is to organize a conference early next year after a new government takes office following the December elections, said Jawad al-Maliki, deputy leader of the Dawa party, a Shiite religious faction.Maliki made the announcement after a meeting with Arab League assistant secretary general Ahmed Ben Helli, who has been in Iraq since Saturday.In Cairo, visiting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan praised the Arab League initiative."The need for reconciliation in Iraq is real. If we do not reconcile the parties in Iraq, elections alone are not going to resolve their problems," Annan told reporters.In New York, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a one-year extension of the mandate for US-led forces in Iraq.The council voted 15-0 "to extend the mandate of the multinational force" until December 2006.

left @ 11:56 AM

Thursday, November 10, 2005

A state of emergency in riot-areas of France failed to prevent a 13th night of rioting in poor city suburbs as youths torched more than 600 vehicles.But police said the violence appeared to be waning, with fewer incidents pitting rioters against the security forces and no reports of shots fired.The government Tuesday declared a state of emergency covering the worst-hit parts of the country under a decree, which came into force Wednesday after it was published in the official journal, allowing regional authorities to declare curfews to combat the violence.The first to act under the new powers, the city of Amiens north of Paris, declared an overnight curfew for unaccompanied persons under 16 and a ban on petrol sales to minors, even before the decree came into force.Mayors have already declared separate, local curfews, in Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge, both south of Paris, and in Raincy northeast of the capital.Across the country, 617 vehicles were torched overnight, compared to 1,173 on Tuesday, said Claude Gueant, a senior aide to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. He said 1,800 people had been arrested since the riots erupted.Despite the car-burnings and arrests, police said the overall situation was calmer than on recent nights, when dozens of police officers were injured, two by gunshot."There has been a marked decrease (in violence), particularly in the provinces, and the downward trend is continuing in Ile-de-France (the greater Paris region)," a national police official said.Sarkozy, visiting police Tuesday in southwestern Toulouse, a flashpoint of unrest in recent days, said there had been a "fairly significant fall" in the violence.Earlier, on the outskirts of Toulouse, police charged a gang of youths who had attacked them with stones and firebombs.A gas-powered bus exploded after it came under attack with a Molotov cocktail in the Bordeaux suburbs, also in the southwest.In southeastern France, Lyon's entire public transport network was shut down after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a train station.And around 50 youths tried, unsuccessfully, to ram their way into a supermarket in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, where 25 people were arrested and 38 vehicles and dustbins torched overnight.In Arras, in northern France, a fire ripped through a shopping centre, spreading from a furniture store to a carpet retailer next door.The situation was relatively calm in the northeast Paris suburbs where the violence began, police said, with isolated cases of arson and a dozen arrests.Meanwhile, in neighbouring Belgium, a dozen cars were set alight, although police downplayed concerns about serious violence spreading over the border.The French government's emergency measure was the toughest response to date to rioting in high-immigration suburbs which has left more than 6,000 cars burned, dozens of policemen injured and one civilian dead.It invoked a 1955 law, enacted at the start of troubles that triggered the war of independence in French-controlled Algeria, which permits the declaration of curfews, house searches and bans on public meetings.Seventy-three percent of French people support the government's curfew decision, according to a poll to appear in Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui newspaper.But some have charged that the measure recalls one of the worst moments in the country's modern history and has painful associations for Algerians, the original law's main targets.Sarkozy vowed on Tuesday that the curfews would be implemented "in a manner proportional to the threat", insisting the French people wanted the government to show "firmness".The violence, set off by the accidental deaths of two teenagers on October 27 who were electrocuted in a sub-station where they had hidden from police, spread across the Paris area and in recent days to the rest of the country.More than 1,500 people -- mainly Arab and black youngsters -- have been detained and 106 people handed firm jail sentences.The crisis has thrown into stark relief the failure of French policies for integrating millions of immigrants and their children from its former colonies.Acknowledging the hardships faced by the Arab community, the government also announced Tuesday a series of measures to ease access to the job market and stamp out racial discrimination.

left @ 9:55 PM

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

will input all those news i find interesting here~ ;)

left @ 10:18 PM

Monday, November 07, 2005

Qualcomm sues Nokia over GSM techBy Reuters Published: November 7, 2005, 5:10 AM PSTWireless technology company Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against mobile giant Nokia, accusing it of infringing a dozen patents related to the world's most widespread cell phone standard. Qualcomm said on Monday that it wants Nokia to stop selling or producing products in the United States designed for GSM mobile-phone networks and that it is demanding financial damages from the Finnish company. The suit comes just days after Nokia, the world's No. 1 cell phone maker, and five other high technology companies complained to the European Commission about Qualcomm's market practices, accusing it of stifling competition in the third-generation mobile-phone chip market. Qualcomm dominates the market for technology and chips for the CDMA technology it has invented. Lawsuit affects 11 Qualcomm patents and one owned by its SnapTrack subsidiary.Nokia, Ericsson and others say they have contributed significantly to the WCDMA standard and also expect royalties, which may be hard if Qualcomm sticks to its licensing terms, which Nokia said are "not fair and reasonable". It struggled for years to get a market share in the CDMA market equal to its share in GSM by using its own CDMA-designed chips rather than Qualcomm's, but that effort has so far failed. Virtually all its rivals in the CDMA market use Qualcomm chips.

left @ 8:30 PM