WHAT does it take to become a world-class city?

Innovative planning projects, policies and solutions that show foresight and good governance, it seems.

These are the qualities that Singapore is looking for in a new award it is launching: the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize.

BANGKOK - THAI protesters who led riots in Bangkok last week called for a new rally this weekend, just hours after the prime minister lifted an emergency decree and said the country had return to normal on Friday.

The renewed call for protest followed a special parliamentary session that sought to heal the political divide between supporters and opponents of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. But the two marathon sessions were dominated by partisan bickering over who was to blame for the violence and did little to resolve the deepening crisis.

OVER a period of 16 months, a full-time national serviceman trailed girls as young as nine into lifts, threatened them with a penknife, then forced them to secluded spots where he sexually assaulted them.

On Friday, Huang Shiyou, 22, paid a heavy price for his crime spree in the eastern part of Singapore between April 2007 and July last year.

TAIPEI - TAIWAN and China will discuss a partial free trade agreement and sign pacts this weekend to increase economic cooperation, a senior Taiwanese negotiator said on Friday.

The statement by Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung comes amid efforts by President Ma Ying-jeou to turn the corner on his predecessor's pro-independence policies and open a new era in relations with the mainland, from which Taiwan split during a civil war in 1949.