Singapore - Singapore Airlines said Wednesday that 1,405 of its employees volunteered to take unpaid leave but it was not enough to steer the airline through the current tough times.

"We have approved 1,405 applications from staff for voluntary no-pay leave during the financial year which begins today," a company spokesman said Wednesday. "The vast majority of these come from cabin crew and are also for periods of less than one month."

Singapore - A housewife and her mother were sentenced to jail terms Tuesday after they pleaded guilty to abusing the family's Indonesian maid.

Loke Phooi Ling, 38, a permanent Singapore resident from Malaysia, was sentenced to eight and a half months while her mother, Teng Chen Lian, 67, received a four-week sentence, the Straits Times newspaper reported.

Both women changed their pleas last week midway through their trial in a Singapore district court.

Singapore - Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) Tuesday announced three initiatives to develop its options market.

The plan would enhance the existing SGX Nikkei 225 Index Options and SGX MSCI Taiwan Index Options contracts; launch the SGX MSCI Singapore Index Options contract; and introduce a web-based electronic trade registration system.

The initiatives would be implemented on 6 April 2009, the exchange said in a statement.

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Singapore  - Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday that he reshuffled his cabinet last week as part of a long process of self-renewal for the island state's political system.

Lee told reporters that Singapore has yet to fully assemble the core of its new generation of leaders and it was a critical now to identify, gather and prepare more people to take the reins of power in the city-state to assure Singapore's long-term future, according to a Channel News Asia report,

Singapore - Abdur Rouf Abdul Mannan is furious with his boss. The 26-year-old Bangladeshi earns 16 Singapore dollars, or about 11 US dollars, a day as a worker at a Singapore shipyard.

"My boss promised he'll give me 18 dollars after I finished training," Abdur Rouf said. "I passed training, but the boss didn't live up to his promise."

As the global economic downturn hits the city-state hard, conditions for about 750,000 migrant workers in Singapore, who already draw low pay, have become harsher.