A 15-YEAR-OLD Singaporean student, studying in India, became the island's eighth case of novel H1N1 influenza, or A (H1N1).

He was also the first to be picked up by the thermal scanner at Changi Airport. The boy had been in Orlando and Atlanta in the United States on a school trip from May 17 to last Sunday.

BEIJING - CHINESE President Hu Jintao on Tuesday gave visiting US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner his stamp of approval, as Beijing pledged to work with Washington to battle the global financial crisis.

Mr Geithner met with Hu and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on the final day of a whirlwind visit aimed at winning Chinese cooperation on tackling the downturn, and reassuring Beijing that its massive investment in US bonds is safe.

DETROIT - GENERAL Motors said on Tuesday that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding to sell its Hummer brand, but didn't name the buyer or say how much money it would get for the all-SUV line.

GM, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday, said the sale was is set to close by the third quarter of this year and should secure more than 3,000 jobs in manufacturing, engineering and at Hummer dealerships around the United States.

BEIJING - ACCESS to the popular social networking service Twitter and e-mail service Hotmail was blocked across mainland China late on Tuesday afternoon, two days before the twentieth anniversary of a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square.

Indignant users filled chatrooms with protest, after access to Twitter was denied shortly after 5pm (Singapore time) on Tuesday.