THE Health Ministry is expecting an almost 50 per cent increase in requests for medical financial aid this year, with the current poor economic outlook.

So it has topped up the money to be given out through Medifund - the government health safety net for the really poor - by more than $23 million for this year.

SARAJEVO - AN ALGERIAN-BORN man who has just been freed from Guantanamo Bay described the US 'war on terror' camp as the worst place on Earth, in an interview published in a Bosnian newspaper on Wednesday.

'For almost seven years, I was at the end of the world, at the worst place in the world,' Mr Mustafa Ait Idir told the Dnevni Avaz a day after arriving back in his adopted homeland of Bosnia.

WASHINGTON - TIME magazine on Wednesday named US president-elect Barack Obama its 2008 'Person of the Year.'

'For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the president-elect is Time's Person of the Year,' the newsweekly said.

OFFICIALS from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have run spot checks on financial institutions that sold Lehman-linked products to ensure investors' complaints are handled properly.

The on-site visits, conducted in consultations with the three independent parties overseeing the complaints process, appeared to be largely encouraging.