Yangon  - Myanmar's prime minister, General Thein Sein, is to visit Indonesia and Singapore shortly in response to invitations from the leaders of the two South-East Asian countries, state media reported Friday.

Singapore  - A Singapore court on Thursday sentenced a private bus driver to death by hanging for the murder of his China-born teenage stepdaughter, media reports said.

Ong Pang Siew, 46, was found guilty of strangling Ong Pan Hui, 15, on October 20, 2007, at her flat, the online edition of the Straits Times newspaper reported.

The murder came a few weeks after the girl's mother was granted a divorce from Ong with her getting custody of the girl and the son the couple bore together.

Singap

Singapore  - Driving on the West Coast Highway along Singapore's port, it's easy to see the signs of recession.

Cranes that usually move containers 24 hours a day have their booms fixed up in the air. "Hands up," the seafarers call it.

The view to the horizon, normally obstructed by huge mountains of containers, is now wide open.

As the shipping industry is hit hard by the global economic downturn, container ships from all over the world lie idle at Singapore's shores.

Singapore - Singapore's iconic merlion statue, one of the island state's most popular tourist spots, will re-open in two weeks, following some repair work after the attraction was damaged by a lightning bolt on February 28, the Singapore Tourism Board said Monday.

The 8.6-meter-tall statue, which has the body of a fish and a head of a lion, lost some parts at the top when lightning struck during a thunderstorm.

Repair work is targeted for completion by March 21, the board said in a statement.

Singapore  - Singapore will award Dutch scientist Gatze Lettinga with an award of nearly 200,000 US dollars for pioneering an environmentally-sustainable treatment of used water, the prize organizers said in a statement Monday.

Lettinga will receive the Lew Kuan Yew Water Prize 2009, named after Singapore's first prime minister and present minister mentor, in a ceremony in June.