The World Health Organisation on Wednesday raised its flu alert to phase five out of six, WHO chief Margaret Chan said, signalling that a pandemic was “imminent” following the swine flu outbreak.
“I have decided to raise the influenza pandemic alert from phase four to phase five,” the WHO director general announced after an emergency meeting [...]
New Zealand and South Korea said they are investigating more suspected cases of swine flu, as hastily arranged measures designed to contain the disease’s spread in Asia are put to the test.
The region, which has had no deaths so far, has tightened already stringent screening at airports and transport hubs since the beginning of the [...]
General Motors and Chrysler are making last-ditch efforts to avert bankruptcy and keep government loans flowing by giving up big stakes in the ailing companies in exchange for debt obligations.
Chrysler, which faces a White House deadline this week for its viability plan, clinched a deal Sunday with the United Auto Workers Union that aims to [...]
Medical experts say more work needs to be done to figure out how to stop swine flu from becoming a pandemic.
What’s worrying is that the new swine flu strain could spread faster and is harder to detect compared to the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus, which caused an epidemic in 2003.
Associate Professor Leo Yee [...]
South Korea has detected a suspected case of swine flu in a woman just back from a trip to Mexico, a health agency said Tuesday, adding test results are expected within a day.
Three people who returned from Mexico were initially classified as suspected sufferers but two were ruled out after tests and one classified [...]
The swine flu virus that has killed dozens in Mexico could mutate into a “more dangerous” strain, a senior WHO official said on Sunday, adding that the UN agency will decide on Tuesday if it should raise its alert rating.
“Yes, it’s quite possible for this virus to evolve,” Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant-general for health, [...]
The government has taken another step to help companies and self-employed women with cashflow problems. From May, they can claim the government’s part of paid maternity leave earlier.
Presently, under the Paid Maternity Leave scheme, employers can seek reimbursement only after all the maternity leave has been consumed. This means if an employee maximises the 12-month [...]
Confirmation is expected this week on whether 10 New Zealand high school students have been infected by a potentially deadly new strain of swine fever, the country’s health minister said on Monday.
Ten students out of a group of 22 pupils and three teachers from an Auckland school who returned from Mexico on Saturday tested positive [...]
Asian health officials went on alert on Sunday as a flu strain that has killed dozens of people in Mexico appeared to have spread to New Zealand, underscoring warnings of a potential pandemic.
Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks [...]
A bomb killed 12 children on Saturday in a restive part of northwest Pakistan which the government has put under Islamic law as part of a shaky peace deal with the Taliban, police said.
Officials had earlier said at least four children died in the blast which came after a warning this week by the United [...]
An SAF regular serviceman, Second Warrant Officer Poh Eng Ann, died Friday night.
Mindef said on Saturday he was found unconscious on Friday evening at 6.05pm, in a flight crew room at the Paya Lebar Air Base.
This is the second death of an SAF regular serviceman in two weeks.
Mindef explained that the 36-year-old air force senior [...]
The founder of Thailand’s “Yellow Shirt” political protest movement left hospital under tight security on Saturday, just over a week after he was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt.
Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul, who led a crippling blockade of Bangkok’s airports last year, was discharged from Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn hospital and headed to his house in [...]
North Korea said Saturday it has started reprocessing spent fuel rods to make weapons-grade plutonium, in an apparent response to a UN decision to punish it for a controversial rocket launch.
The statement came hours after the United Nations slapped sanctions on three North Korean firms accused of backing missile development, in its first concrete action [...]
The National Environment Agency (NEA) says a tropical storm is the reason for the strong winds which blew into Singapore Wednesday night.
A wind speed of up to 83 kilometres per hour was recorded — the strongest in nearly nine years.
Among the damage caused – fallen trees and a broken construction crane.
Residents of private condominium [...]
The trial involving former Ren Ci Hospital CEO Shi Ming Yi and his former personal assistant, Raymond Yeung, has entered its tenth day.
On Thursday, the Buddhist monk defended his decision to lend S$50,000 to Yeung under Ren Ci’s accounts, saying that it was “lawful” and appropriate.
Raymond Yeung was – according to his former boss – [...]
Bringing Aware back to its “original cause” – that is what the new executive committee (exco) of advocacy group, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), is planning to do.
In an emotionally-charged news conference on Thursday, the new guard said AWARE has lost its focus.
They accused the old guard of steering AWARE into [...]
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lifted a state of emergency in Bangkok on Friday, saying that he wanted to foster reconciliation after violent street protests against his government.
Abhisit imposed emergency rule in the capital and five surrounding provinces on April 12 after protesters disrupted a summit of Asian leaders in the coastal city of [...]
Taliban militants on Thursday assumed control of a district in Pakistan about 100 kilometres from the capital, patrolling streets and markets, officials and witnesses said.
Hundreds of armed fighters have set up checkpoints and occupied mosques in Buner district northwest of Islamabad, sparking global concern and posing what Washington has called an “existential threat” to the [...]
The Housing and Development Board (HDB) has received 178 applications since the Lease Buyback Scheme was launched last month.
It is a scheme which helps seniors monetise their flats.
With the Lease Buyback Scheme, these seniors will now be able to receive a monthly payout of a few hundred dollars and continue living in their flats for [...]
North Korea on Sunday renewed a threat to “bolster its nuclear deterrent” while lashing out at the UN Security Council for condemning the communist state’s April 5 rocket launch.
Rodong Sinmun, the North’s ruling communist party-published newspaper, denounced the UN action as a double-standard contrary to the universal right to use space peacefully.
“(North Korea) will [...]
Philippine security forces Saturday rescued a Swiss Red Cross worker held hostage for three months by Islamic militant guerrillas, government officials said.
Andreas Notter, 38, was freed on the outskirts of the town of Indanan on Jolo island in the extreme south of the country following a joint operation by the military and local police, the [...]
A cyclone packing winds of up to 90 kilometres (56 miles) an hour lashed Bangladesh’s south-eastern coastal area, damaging houses and uprooting trees, officials said Saturday.
Cox’s Bazar police chief Motiur Rahman told AFP few casualties were reported after Cyclone Bijli weakened before making landfall late Friday.
“The cyclone was not very strong. We took precautionary measures [...]
US President Barack Obama backed Mexico’s war on its violent drug cartels in a first stop on a four-day trip to Latin America, calling for a crackdown on weapons trafficking and admitting shared responsibility.
In a first official visit to Mexico, Obama on Thursday said he would ask the US Senate to ratify a long-stalled [...]
The sixth day of the trial against former Ren Ci CEO, Shi Ming Yi, threw light on the way staff loans were granted, even though the hospital did not have a formal policy on them in place.
The court on Thursday heard that Ming Yi had approved several loans to various staff.
Among them was Dr Ong [...]
Singapore’s largest water reclamation plant in Changi will open on June 22 during the International Water Week.
The project, which costs S$3.65 billion, will be a showcase of Singapore’s water technologies to over 8,000 delegates who are expected to attend the event.
Once the water reclamation plant is fully functional, it will process 800,000 cubic metres of [...]
The Thai activist who led a blockade of the kingdom’s main airports last year was shot in the head Friday in an assassination attempt the government said was aimed at inciting fresh unrest.
Doctors said that Sondhi Limthongkul, founder of the “Yellow Shirts” royalist movement that helped topple former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, was in a serious [...]
Man Utd Vs Porto Champions League Tickets
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Man Utd Vs Porto Champions is going to be a must see Champions League match and already there is a buzz surrounding the game. A [...]
UN inspectors on Wednesday removed seals at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility a day after Pyongyang vowed to restart its nuclear weapons programme in response to UN censure of its rocket launch.
The inspectors have also switched off surveillance equipment at the site and are preparing to leave the country, a diplomat close to the International [...]
India kicks off month-long elections on Thursday, with all signs pointing to a splintered result and government by an unsteady coalition that would struggle to see out a full term.
Neither of the two main national parties – the incumbent Congress and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – is seen as capable of securing [...]
Former Ren Ci CEO Ming Yi admits to lying and covering up for his former aide Raymond Yeung over an unauthorised loan from the charity’s coffers, according to police statements produced in court on Wednesday.
Ming Yi had told the Commercial Affairs Department that he wanted to help Yeung out, but did not think of the [...]