Singapore  - A Singapore minister criticized job cuts at the city-state's largest bank amid fears of more lay-offs next year, newspapers reported Saturday.

Lim Swee Say, a minister in the Prime Minister's Office and the secretary general of the 500,000-member National Trades Union Congress, said DBS Bank had not consulted with the DBS Staff Union on other alternatives to cut costs and opted for sudden job cuts.

But the listed and partially state-owned DBS defended its decision, saying the job cuts affected 3.5 per cent of its junior ranks, compared with 16 per cent of its senior management.

Singapore - Three white tigers at the Singapore Zoo attacked and killed a Malaysian worker Thursday, the zoo said.

Nordin Bin Montong, 32, jumped into the moat at the white tiger exhibit and was attacked by the three animals, the zoo said. Zookeepers distracted the tigers from the victim and pulled him out of the enclosure.

"While waiting for the ambulance, our vets attended to him," the zoo said in a statement.

However, "the worker tragically succumbed to his wounds," assistant director Biswajit Guha said.

Singapore - Singapore's Changi Airport has recorded a 3.5 per cent increase in scheduled weekly flights since the beginning of this month, despite softening of travel demand due to the global economic crisis, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said Thursday.

Weekly scheduled flights were expected to increase further in December, when a liberalization agreement, allowing low-cost airlines to operate between Singapore and Malaysia, comes into force, the CAAS said.

Singapore - In the wake of the world-wide financial crisis consumer confidence has turned pessimistic across the Asia Pacific region, according to a survey released Wednesday by MasterCard.

From India to China, and Japan to New Zealand the urban middle class were more pessimistic for the first half of 2009 than six months ago, according to the latest bi-annual Consumer Confidence survey by MasterCard Worldwide released in Singapore.

MasterCard found that only Vietnam, China, India and Singapore of the 14 markets surveyed are optimistic about the first half of next year.

Singapore - Singapore shares went through another selling spree Wednesday on reports the city state is likely to experience negative economic growth next year.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell 1.3 per cent, or 22.95 points, to 1,784.01.

The STI was down by 22.51 points at mid-day.

The Singapore Exchange closed with 250 losers against 177 gainers.

Volume totaled 1,126.4 million shares.

The market has failed to sustain mid-morning and mid-afternoon recovery attempts, analysts said.

Singapore - The Singapore government will not bail out a multi-billion-dollar casino project by financially troubled Las Vegas Sands, the Channel News Asia (CNA) reported Wednesday.

But the government is considering reviewing the timeline of the Marina Bay Integrated Resort project, which is scheduled to be completed next year, reported CNA, citing Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran.

Nevertheless, Iswaran has not ruled out involvement in the project by government-linked companies, saying these were commercial entities and it depended on their business sense.