PRESS DIGEST - Singapore newspapers - Oct 15

SINGAPORE, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The following are stories from Singapore newspapers on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories.

THE STRAITS TIMES

- The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) may guarantee all Singapore deposits, banking sources said. The sources said that while local banks have not been hurt by the global credit crunch, MAS will likely follow Hong Kong's move to guarantee bank deposits until 2010 to ensure rich Asians do not transfer their money to the former British territory.

- Prices of rice, sugar and cooking oil have fallen in recent weeks and are expected to fall further, according to supermarket and grocery store owners.

- Singapore will expand hospice care services and train more doctors and nurses to provide palliative care as the population ages, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said.

- Fewer buyers attended two art auctions held last weekend as the global financial crisis hits the city-state's once booming art market.

- The government has started contempt of court proceedings against three opposition figures for wearing t-shirts with a kangaroo dressed in a judge's robes last May.

The three wore the t-shirts in court during a defamation hearing against Singapore Democratic Party chief Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin.

BUSINESS TIMES

- Singapore banks DBS Group (DBSM.SI), United Overseas Bank (UOBH.SI) and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC.SI) will have greater flexibility in valuing their assets in line with changes to International Financial Reporting Standards. With the amendments, banks have more flexibility in deciding whether to book losses according to mark-to-market accounting rule.

- The global economic slowdown will push some shipping lines into bankruptcy as demand for commodities cools and trade slows, investor Marc Faber, who is better known as Dr Doom, said during a shipping conference in Singapore.

- Japanese specialty chemicals maker Kanto Kagaku, which is setting up a S$30 million plant and laboratory in Singapore, says the semiconductor and solar industries it supplies to will have recovered by 2009 when its new S$30 million Singapore plant and laboratory become operational.