SINGAPORE has been voted the most popular city in the world for business meetings for the second consecutive year.

Paris and Brussels come in second and third place respectively.

The 637 meetings it hosted in 2008 represented a 36 per cent increase over the number of meetings hosted in 2007. Notable meetings include the International Thalassaemia Conference, ISNCC 15th International Conference on Cancer Nursing, the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference and the IEEE Electronics Packaging Technology Conference.

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S opposition pledged on Friday to stage a large street protest aimed at pressuring the government to scrap a law allowing imprisonment without trial.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the country's biggest opposition group, said it expected thousands of members to take part in Saturday's rally in Kuala Lumpur, despite police warnings that the planned gathering would be illegal.

WASHINGTON - THE US economy contracted at a 1.0 per cent annual pace in the second quarter, the government said on Friday in its first estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) that was better than anticipated.

The Commerce Department figure was stronger than expected by private forecasters who had called on average for a 1.5 per cent drop.

BANGKOK - THOUSANDS of supporters of deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra gathered to collect signatures on Friday for a petition seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive former leader.

They are aiming to collect as many as 5 million signatures in a campaign extending from Bangkok to the provinces, in a bid to rehabilitate Thaksin who was ousted in a 2006 military coup but remains very popular in rural Thailand.