CLIMATE change is one of the biggest challenges ahead for Singapore and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the country will bear its fair share of the global effort to reduce emissions.

This is despite the fact that Singapore's carbon emissions are a 'negligible' part of global output and it is not among nations which committed themselves and were obliged to make specific cuts in greenhouse gas emission levels.

WASHINGTON - US CONSUMER spending fell for the first time in five months in September after a government program boosting auto sales ran out, official data showed on Friday.

Personal consumption expenditures decreased US$47.2 billion (S$66 billion) or 0.5 per cent last month, as expected by most economists, following a revised 1.4 jump in August, the Commerce Department said.

WASHINGTON - NEW data provides the first confirmation that President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan has so far saved or created more than one million jobs, administration officials said on Friday.

The figures show 650,000 jobs were directly saved or created up until September 30. Since the survey data only accounts for half the spending during that time, officials say the true figure of jobs created is over a million.

ZOO cleaner Nordin Montong, 32, deliberately got himself mauled to death by two white tigers on Nov 13 last year, said State Coroner Victor Yeo, who recorded a verdict of suicide on Friday. Why the Malaysian ended his life was however not evident.

The night earlier, he had told his cousin, who was then also working here, that he intended to go back to Sarawak the very next day as he missed his parents.