KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN court sentenced a former flight attendant to 18 years in prison Thursday for scalding her Indonesian housemaid with hot water and an iron in one of the country's worst cases of domestic worker abuse.

Sessions Court Judge Akhtar Tahir found Yim Pek Ha guilty of using dangerous weapons to inflict injury on Nirmala Bonat at her Kuala Lumpur condominium on three separate occasions in early 2004.

LUZERN (Switzerland) - FORMER senior executives at Switzerland's biggest bank UBS have voluntarily renounced about 70 million Swiss francs (S$88 million) in bonuses and wages, the bank's chairman Peter Kurer said on Thursday.

The sum included bonuses foregone by former chairman Marcel Ospel, who together with former board members Stephan Haeringer and Marco Suter returned 33 million francs to the bank, one of the worst hit by the financial crisis.

BANGKOK - THAI Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat confirmed on Thursday that the government has imposed a state of emergency at Bangkok's two main airports after they were occupied by protesters.

'It is wrong for protesters to take the entire Thai nation hostage,' Mr Somchai said in a televised address to the nation.

TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S jailed former president ended a 16-day hunger strike on Thursday, a prison official said, a day after Taiwanese newspapers published a poem in which he hinted he was willing to die for his pro-independence views.

Lee Ta-chu, deputy head of Tucheng Jail in suburban Taipei, said Chen Shui-bian ate a small portion of porridge shortly after noon.