The Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) has agreed to extend Medifund to Singaporeans requiring HIV treatment from February 2010 saying, another S$8.5 million will be pumped in for funding help to the needy.

Since April 2008 to March 2009, institutions have received S$73.7 million in Medifund grants from MOH, which has also distributed S$59 million for needy patients.

ARA Asset Management and Qatar's Regency Group have joined hands to launch the first ever real estate investment trust in the country of Singapore, and the whole property will be made in a way that it will comply with all Islamic principles, with the investors' interest coming back to the REIT sector.

The proposed property will comprise of hotels and service apartments in Qatar, and the initial planned portfolio is about 164,000 square meters of complete floor area, as has been confirmed by AXA. The company is hoping to get the proposed REIT listed by the second half of the upcoming year.

Visitor arrivals in Singapore fell slightly in October, the Tourism Board said Tuesday, as the city-state's hotel industry continues to suffer from slumping revenues. In October, 845,000 tourists came to Singapore, down 0.5 per cent from a year ago, the board said in a statement.

The average occupancy rate climbed to 82.7 per cent, the highest so far in 2009, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to October 2008.

A study from Singapore hints, postmenopausal women by adding soy-based foods to their diet, may lessen their chances of fracturing a hip.

Dr. Woon-Puay Koh from the National University of Singapore and colleagues found, women who participated in the study were 21 to 36% less likely to suffer from fractured hips, even when they reported eating only a moderate amount of soy.

Assistant Professor J. J. Cabibihan, 33, of the Social Robotics Laboratory in the National University of Singapore (NUS), dreaming of the day when instead of a cold, hard grip, a robot will offer him a soft, warm handshake, is close to realising his dream, now that his research team has found a way to mould synthetic fingers, as soft as a human's.

Making his presentation at the Institute for Infocomm Research's seminar on robotics for health care, Prof. Cabibihan has a more immediate use for artificial skin i. e. for the creation of prosthetic limbs.

Hard disk maker Seagate Technology said Tuesday it would close its plant in Singapore by the end of 2010 and move its hard disk drive manufacturing operations out of the city-state to existing company sites in other countries.

The closing would affect about 2,000 employees, a company spokeswoman said.

Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd (OCBC Bank) said Monday that the worst might be over for the global banking sector as it posted a 10-per-cent rise in net profit for the second quarter.

Singapore's state investment company Temasek Holdings said Tuesday US businessman Charles Goodyear would not become its new chief executive due to differences over strategy, thus reversing its plan for a leadership transition announced in February.