Singapore - Singapore raised its flu alert level from yellow to orange and further stepped up infection control measures, although no cases of human swine flu have been confirmed in the city state so far, the Ministry of Health said in a statement Thursday.

The heightened alert came after the World Health Organisation raised the pandemic alert from phase 4 to 5.

Singapore - Singapore's unemployment rate jumped to 3.2 per cent in March, up from 2.5 per cent in December, preliminary figures released Thursday by the Ministry of Manpower showed.

The city state battles its worst recession since independence from Malaysia in 1965.

About 95,600 Singaporeans were unemployed in March, a sharp increase from 71,800 in December.

Singapore - The worst might be over for Singapore's economy, but a decisive rebound from recession is not in sight for 2009, the city-state's central bank said Wednesday. "With the current world economic downturn likely to be a prolonged one, Singapore's climb out of recession will be slow and gradual," the Monetary Authority said in a macroeconomic review.

The most intense phase of this downturn for Singapore might have already occurred, it said.

"Nonetheless, the domestic economy is not expected to stage a decisive rebound this year," the central bank said.

Singapore - Singapore stepped up measures to guard against the swine flu outbread and elevated the flu alert level from green to yellow after the World Health Organization decided to raise pandemic alert levels from phase 3 to 4.

"This is to brace ourselves to handle situations where there may be isolated imported cases but no sustained local transmission," the Ministry of Health said in statement late Tuesday night.

So far there are no human cases of swine flu in Singapore.

Singapore - Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), one of the world's leading container shippers, said Monday its cargo volume for the four weeks to April 3 slumped 22 per cent compared to the same period a year ago due to a decline in demand. From March 7-April 3, NOL moved 155,400 40-foot equivalent units (FEU), down from
198,300 FEU in the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

Average revenue per FEU fell 20 per cent to 2,347 US dollars.

Singapore - A Singapore court Monday sentenced a man who masqueraded as an informant of al-Qaeda and sent bomb hoax and terrorist-related threats to five years in jail, media reports said. Josemaria Miguel Ye Yong Qiang, 40, sent a series of e-mails threatening bomb and rocket attacks on American and European airlines, the White House, Pentagon and US embassies between September 6 and 27 last year, the online edition of Straits Times newspaper reported.