The Straits Times

May 14, 2009 Thursday

Updated

Straits Times Headlines

Exit polls show tight finish in India election

Oil surge could spell more pain

The man with the $15m view

Inside

Europe's Muslims all for integration

View Points

Inmates learn new strokes in art course

Indian billionaire has big plans here

SM Goh discharged

First-term MPs may head 8 of 10 GPCs

WHO probes claim that error led to virus

Beijing, HK both confirm second flu cases

Four under quarantine

Thai hotels hit by crisis up for sale

Thailand to postpone Asean meet

65% of arts fest tickets sold

Couples tying the knot off beaten track

Jailed for fake 'hurt at work' claims

$14m worth of sparkle

Breaking News

Memoir out before June 4

Profitable politics

KMT to meet Hu Jintao

HK lawmakers walk out

Sexual harassment banned

Japan's NEC to exit project **

Treasury wants control

WASHINGTON - THE Obama administration is asking Congress to extend its oversight of the financial system to include the shadowy market of derivatives, the kind of complex financial instruments that helped catapult the world into an economic crisis.

In a two-page letter sent on Wednesday to congressional leaders, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he wants to create a central electronic-based system that would track the buying and selling of derivatives.

637k new jobless claims

WASHINGTON - NEW jobless claims by American workers rose to 637,000 in the past week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, in a sign of continued caution by US business in the face of a weak economy.

The agency said new claims in the week to May 9 rose by 32,000 from the revised level of 605,000 in the previous week.

Hubble spacewalk begins

HOUSTON (Texas) - TWO astronauts from the shuttle Atlantis on Thursday began the first of five spacewalks in an ambitious bid to prolong the life of the Hubble telescope.

The spacewalk by astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel was scheduled to last for six to seven hours, and began at 1252 GMT (8.52pm Singapore time).

Govt's stand is clear

THE government's position on homosexuality is clear and it will not be pressured into changing it, said Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng on Thursday.

In response to media queries from The Straits Times arising from the recent Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) saga, Mr Wong referred to the Prime Minister's speech in Parliament in October 2007, in which PM Lee Hsien Loong had said that Singapore is basically a conservative society and the conventional family, a heterosexual stable family, is the norm and building block of society.

Tap on budget fuel shut

WEEKS after cutting back on the number of stations dispensing 92-octane petrol, Shell announced that it is turning off the supply of its budget grade fuel altogether.

Shell, Singapore's largest fuel retailer, said on Thursday it decided to do so because of consistently low demand, claiming 92-octane sales made up only about 5 per cent of sales at its network of 65 stations.