Singapore - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Saturday exchanged views on the G20 summit with his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong and the city-state's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Rudd, in transit through Singapore after the London Summit, also discussed global challenges of the economic downturn, Singapore's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Singapore  - A Singapore court is seeking a further psychiatric report on a 40-year-old man who sent out emails threatening airlines and the US government, claiming to speak for al-Qaeda, the Straits Times reported Saturday.

The court has put off sentencing Josemaria Miguel Ye Yong Qiang whose sent emails threatening Irish Air Arann and US Delta Airlines, as well as the US embassy in Canberra.

In September 2008 he sent an email glorifying the New York terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to the White House, identifying himself as an al-Qaeda member.

Singapore  - The Singapore government has set up a task force to check malpractice by employers of foreign workers, a Channel News Asia report said Thursday.

Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said the task force, set up in January, is to detect malpractice such as failure to pay workers' salaries on time.

The unit was to consolidate and analyse information surfaced from Manpower Ministry's inspections as well as intelligence it receives.

Singapore  - S

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.