WASHINGTON - THE US economy lost 524,000 jobs in December, sending the unemployment rate to 7.2 per cent, according to official data published on Friday.

The recession-ravaged economy lost 2.6 million jobs over the course of 2008, the most since 1945, the Labor Department said. Of those, 1.9 million were lost in the past four months.

MEDIA giant MediaCorp has started a cost-cutting drive, which will see the broadcaster shutting down operations and scaling back staff benefits.

Citing the economic slowdown which has affected the company's bottom line, the measures were announced to staff in an internal email from MediaCorp chief executive Lucas Chow on Friday afternoon.

PROVING that where there's a wheel there's a way, the management of the grounded Singapore Flyer on Friday announced new back-up plans in order to get it going by Chinese New Year.

The world's giant observation wheel has been out of action since the six-hour stoppage on Dec 23. This was due to an electrical fire in the control room knocking out its operations system.

SINGAPORE will soon allow documentary and biographical party political films that are objective and do not distort facts, and an independent citizen panel will be set up to pass them.

The Government on Friday morning announced its cautious acceptance of two-thirds of the recommendations made by a council it appointed to study the impact of new media.