SINGAPORE has jumped six places in a global ranking of cities with the highest quality of living, overtaking places such as Paris in France and Honolulu and San Francisco in the United States.

At 26th place, the Republic also surpassed all its Asian neighbours to be the region's best performer in the latest Worldwide Quality of Living Survey by human resource consultancy Mercer.

THREE Singaporean Chinese were arrested for suspected involvment in loanshark harassment activities during an anti-loanshark police operation on early Tuesday morning.

WORKERS should continue to brace themselves for tough times ahead as the global economy has yet to hit the bottom and more layoffs are likely, labour chief Lim Swee Say has said.

In a sombre May Day message this year, he said that the battle against the economic downturn 'is far from over'.