A NEW institute to offer a more direct route for polytechnic graduates to get degrees will be set up here.

Announcing this on Monday night, President SR Nathan said in his opening address to the new session of Parliament that it will partner foreign universities in offering the degree courses.

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S ruling coalition decided on Monday not to contest a special election triggered by an opposition lawmaker's resignation, but denied it was cowed by a recent spate of electoral losses.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said his National Front coalition will sit out the May 31 by-election for a seat in a northern state's legislature - the sixth such ballot in less than a year.

ON SUNDAY morning, staff at the Singapore Buddhist Lodge, a religious welfare group, found $47,000 - in a stack of $1,000 notes - in its donation box.

They were not unduly surprised. Chairman Lee Bock Guan said the temple in Kim Yam Road has been receiving the cash donation - every month - for almost three years now.

KOBE (Japan) - THE number of swine flu cases soared in Japan on Monday and a New York teacher died of the virus, increasing the prospects of world health chiefs declaring an official pandemic at their annual meeting.

Japan shuttered more than 2,000 schools and kindergartens after it confirmed that swine flu cases had reached 129 with authorities warning that the real number of infections from (A)H1N1 could already be in the hundreds.