100,000 take to the streets in biggest demonstrations for nearly 20 years but fears of crackdown grow

Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent
Tuesday September 25, 2007
Guardian 

Burma’s military rulers last night threatened to “take action’ after up to 100,000 demonstrators protesting against the regime flooded the streets of Rangoon in the biggest show of dissent in almost two decades.

Tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and pink-robed nuns led the marchers who snaked for nearly a mile through the former capital, one of several marches that slowed traffic to a crawl and prompted the closure of shops and schools.

The monks, carrying flags and banners proclaiming the peaceful nature of the demonstration, were flanked by even greater numbers of people who joined the parade, clapping and chanting in what many described as a carnival atmosphere. The mood of elation among the ranks on the sixth straight day of marches sparked by crippling fuel price rises reflected the surprise that the generals had not crushed the anti-government movement.

But in the regime’s first response to the protests, the minister for religious affairs Brigadier General Thura Myint Maung was quoted on state-owned radio as saying “actions will be taken against the monks’ protest marches according to the law if they cannot be stopped by religious teachings”. He blamed the protests on “destructive elements who do not want to see peace, stability and progress in the country”. An estimated 3,000 students and some monks were killed during the last great pro-democracy uprising in 1988, when the military cracked down on demonstrators demanding that the junta step aside.The crowd’s growing confidence was reflected yesterday when leading entertainers, including two of the country’s most famous, the comedian Zaganar and the film star Kyaw Thu, took part in the protest. The pair joined MPs who donated food to monks gathering at the rally’s starting point, the golden-domed Shwedagon pagoda, Burma’s most sacred shrine.

The Financial Times

By John Burton in Singapore

Published: September 22 2007 07:30 | Last updated: September 22 2007 07:30

Earlier this year, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s elder statesman, raised hopes among the city-state’s gay community that a long-standing law banning homosexual acts would be abolished.

Mr Lee acknowledged that some people were “genetically born a homosexual” and “can’t help it. So why should we criminalise it?”

The about-face by one of Singapore’s most powerful politicians did not seem motivated by politics, although Mr Lee’s parliamentary constituency does contain the largest number of gay bars in the city.

Instead, Mr Lee’s mellowing attitude appeared linked to Singapore’s ambition of becoming a global city with a buzz that attracts highly skilled foreign talent.

However, as it completed the most extensive revision of the country’s penal code since 1984 this week, Singapore decided to keep the Victorian-era law, inherited from British colonial rule, that makes it an offence for any male to “commit an act of gross indecency”.

The ministry of home affairs said a public consultation had found a majority of Singaporeans wanted to retain the law.

“We are generally a conservative society” and “we should let the situation evolve”, it said, although it promised it would not actively prosecute people under what is known as Section 377A.

The government has often cited public attitudes for retaining the law.

In conjunction with the ministry’s decision, the state-guided press published a survey by a local university that revealed that 69 per cent of those questioned held negative attitudes towards homosexuality.

Criticism of homosexuality has formed part of the ideology of the People’s Action party since it came to power in 1959, with “sexual deviationism” portrayed as a symbol of western decadence in contrast to Singapore’s “Asian values”.

Gay activists complain that official attitudes have hardened since Mr Lee’s son, Lee Hsien Loong, became prime minister in 2004.

Shortly after he came to power, officials cancelled what had been an officially sanctioned “gay rave” party on the resort island of Sentosa, claiming it increased the chances of spreading the HIV/Aids virus.

Authorities have enforced rules banning films seen to promote a gay lifestyle, causing HBO not to broadcast Brokeback Mountain in Singapore when it recently aired the Oscar-winning film in Asia.

Police last month cancelled a lecture by Douglas Sanders, a Canadian academic, because of concerns that he would speak on behalf of decriminalising Section 377A.

from The New York Times 

By BERNARD HOLLAND

Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian singer whose ringing, pristine sound set a standard for operatic tenors of the postwar era, died early this morning at his home in Modena, in northern Italy. He was 71.

His death was announced by his manager, Terri Robson. The cause was pancreatic cancer. In July 2006 he underwent surgery for the cancer in New York and had made no public appearances since then. He was hospitalized again this summer and released on Aug. 25.

“The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life,” said an e-mail statement that his manager sent to The Associated Press. “In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness.”

Like Enrico Caruso and Jenny Lind before him, Mr. Pavarotti extended his presence far beyond the limits of Italian opera. He became a titan of pop culture. Millions saw him on television and found in his expansive personality, childlike charm and generous figure a link to an art form with which many had only a glancing familiarity.

Early in his career and into the 1970s he devoted himself with single-mindedness to his serious opera and recital career, quickly establishing his rich sound as the great male operatic voice of his generation — the “King of the High Cs,” as his popular nickname had it.

By the 1980s he expanded his franchise exponentially with the Three Tenors projects, in which he shared the stage with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, first in concerts associated with the World Cup and later in world tours. Most critics agreed that it was Mr. Pavarotti’s charisma that made the collaboration such a success. The Three Tenors phenomenon only broadened his already huge audience and sold millions of recordings and videos.

And in the early 1990s he began staging Pavarotti and Friends charity concerts, performing side by side with rock stars like Elton John, Sting and Bono and making recordings from these shows.

Throughout these years, despite his busy and vocally demanding schedule, his voice remained in unusually good condition well into middle age.

Even so, as his stadium concerts and pop collaborations brought him fame well beyond what contemporary opera stars have come to expect, Mr. Pavarotti seemed increasingly willing to accept pedestrian musical standards. By the 1980s he found it difficult to learn new opera roles or even new song repertory for his recitals.

And although he planned to spent his final years, in the operatic tradition, performing in a grand worldwide farewell tour, he completed only about half the tour, which began in 2004. Physical ailments, many occasioned by his weight and girth, limited his movement on stage and regularly forced him to cancel performances. By 1995, when he was at the Metropolitan Opera singing one of his favorite roles, Tonio in Donizetti’s “Daughter of the Regiment,” high notes sometimes failed him, and there were controversies over downward transpositions of a notoriously dangerous and high-flying part.

Yet his wholly natural stage manner and his wonderful way with the Italian language were completely intact. Mr. Pavarotti remained a darling of Met audiences until his retirement from that company’s roster in 2004, an occasion celebrated with a string of “Tosca” performances. At the last of them, on March 13, 2004, he received a 15-minute standing ovation and 10 curtain calls. All told, he sang 379 performances at the Met, of which 357 were in fully staged opera productions. In the late 1960s and 70s, when Mr. Pavarotti was at his best, he possessed a sound remarkable for its ability to penetrate large spaces easily. Yet he was able to encase that powerful sound in elegant, brilliant colors. His recordings of the Donizetti repertory are still models of natural grace and pristine sound. The clear Italian diction and his understanding of the emotional power of words in music were exemplary.

Mr. Pavarotti was perhaps the mirror opposite of his great rival among tenors, Mr. Domingo. Five years Mr. Domingo’s senior, Mr. Pavarotti had the natural range of a tenor, leaving him exposed to the stress and wear that ruin so many tenors’ careers before they have barely started. Mr. Pavarotti’s confidence and naturalness in the face of these dangers made his longevity all the more noteworthy.

Mr. Domingo, on the other hand, began his musical life as a baritone and later manufactured a tenor range above it through hard work and scrupulous intelligence. Mr. Pavarotti, although he could find the heart of a character, was not an intellectual presence. His ability to read music in the true sense of the word was in question. Mr. Domingo, in contrast, is an excellent pianist with an analytical mind and the ability to learn and retain scores by quiet reading.

Yet in the late 1980s, when both Mr. Pavarotti and Mr. Domingo were pursuing superstardom, it was Mr. Pavarotti who showed the dominant gift for soliciting adoration from large numbers of people. He joked on talk shows, rode horses on parade and played, improbably, a sex symbol in the movie “Yes, Giorgio.” In a series of concerts, some held in stadiums, Mr. Pavarotti entertained tens of thousands and earned six-figure fees. Presenters, who were able to tie a Pavarotti appearance to a subscription package of less glamorous concerts, found him a valuable loss leader.

The most enduring symbol of Mr. Pavarotti’s Midas touch, as a concert attraction and a recording artist, was the popular and profitable Three Tenors act created with Mr. Domingo and Mr. Carreras. Some praised these concerts and recordings as popularizers of opera for mass audiences. But most classical music critics dismissed them as unworthy of the performers’ talents.

Ailments and Accusations

Mr. Pavarotti had his uncomfortable moments in recent years. His proclivity for gaining weight became a topic of public discussion. He was caught lip-synching a recorded aria at a concert in Modena, his hometown. He was booed off the stage at La Scala during 1992 appearance. No one characterized his lapses as sinister; they were attributed, rather, to a happy-go-lucky style, a large ego and a certain carelessness.

His frequent withdrawals from prominent events at opera houses like the Met and Covent Garden in London, often from productions created with him in mind, caused administrative consternation in many places. A series of cancellations at Lyric Opera of Chicago — 26 out of 41 scheduled dates — moved Lyric’s general director in 1989, Ardis Krainik, to declare Mr. Pavarotti persona non grata at her company.

A similar banishment nearly happened at the Met in 2002. He was scheduled to sing two performances of “Tosca” — one a gala concert with prices as high as $1,875 a ticket, which led to reports that the performances may be a quiet farewell. Mr. Pavarotti arrived in New York only a few days before the first, barely in time for the dress rehearsal. The day of the first performance, though, he had developed a cold and withdrew. That was on a Wednesday.

From then until the second scheduled performance, on Saturday, everyone, from the Met’s managers to casual opera fans, debated the probability of his appearing. The New York Post ran the headline “Fat Man Won’t Sing.” The demand to see the performance was so great, however, that the Met set up 3,000 seats for a closed-circuit broadcast on the Lincoln Center Plaza. Still, at the last minute, Mr. Pavarotti stayed in bed.

Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena, Italy, on Oct. 12, 1935. His father was a baker and an amateur tenor; his mother worked at a cigar factory. As a child he listened to opera recordings, singing along with tenor stars of a previous era, like Beniamino Gigli and Tito Schipa. He professed an early weakness for the movies of Mario Lanza, whose image he would imitate before a mirror.

As a teenager he followed studies that led to a teaching position; during these student days he met his future wife. He taught for two years before deciding to become a singer. His first teachers were Arrigo Pola and Ettore Campogalliani, and his first breakthrough came in 1961 when he won an international competition at the Teatro Reggio Emilia. He made his debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s “Bohème” later that year.

In 1963 Mr. Pavarotti’s international career began: first as Edgardo in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, and then in Vienna and Zurich. His Covent Garden debut also came in 1963, when he substituted for and Giuseppe di Stefano in “La Bohème.” His reputation in Britain grew even more the next year, when he sang at the Glyndebourne Festival, taking the part of Idamante in Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”

A turning point in Mr. Pavarotti’s career was his association with the soprano Joan Sutherland. In 1965 he joined the Sutherland-Williamson company on an Australian tour during which he sang Edgardo to Ms. Sutherland’s Lucia. He later credited Ms. Sutherland’s advice, encouragement and example as a major factor in the development of his technique.

Further career milestones came in 1967, with Mr. Pavarotti’s first appearances at La Scala in Milan and his participation in a performance of the Verdi Requiem under Herbert von Karajan. He came to the Metropolitan Opera a year later, singing with Mirella Freni, a childhood friend, in a production of “La Bohème.”

A series of recordings with London Records had also begun, and these excursions through the Italian repertory remain some of Mr. Pavarotti’s lasting contributions to his generation. The recordings included “L’Elisir d’Amore,” “La Favorita,” “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “La Fille du Régiment” by Donizetti; “Madama Butterfly,” “La Bohème,” “Tosca” and “Turandot” by Puccini; “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” “La Traviata” and the Requiem by Verdi; and scattered operas by Bellini, Rossini and Mascagni. There were also solo albums of arias and songs.

In 1981 Mr. Pavarotti established a voice competition in Philadelphia and was active in its operation. Young, talented singers from around the world were auditioned in preliminary rounds before the final selections. High among the prizes for winners was an appearance in a staged opera in Philadelphia in which Mr. Pavarotti would also appear.

He also gave master classes, many of which were shown on public television in the United States. Mr. Pavarotti’s forays into teaching became stage appearances in themselves, and ultimately had more to do with the teacher than those being taught.

An Outsize Personality

In his later years Mr. Pavarotti became as much an attraction as an opera singer. Hardly a week passed in the 1990s when his name did not surface in at least two gossip columns. He could be found unveiling postage stamps depicting old opera stars or singing in Red Square in Moscow. His outsize personality remained a strong drawing card, and even his lifelong battle with his circumference guaranteed headlines: a Pavarotti diet or a Pavarotti binge provided high-octane fuel for reporters.

In 1997 Mr. Pavarotti joined Sting for the opening of the Pavarotti Music Center in war-torn Mostar, Bosnia, and Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney on a CD tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales. In 2005 he was granted Freedom of the City of London for his fund-raising concerts for the Red Cross. He also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, and holds two spots in the Guinness Book of World Records — one for the greatest number of curtain calls (165), the other, held jointly with Mr. Domingo and Mr. Carreras, for the best-selling classical album of all time, the first Three Tenors album (“Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti: The Three Tenors in Concert”). But for all that, he knew where his true appeal was centered.

“I’m not a politician, I’m a musician,” he told the BBC Music Magazine in an April 1998 article about his efforts for Bosnia. “I care about giving people a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and to begin to live again. To the man you have to give the spirit, and when you give him the spirit, you have done everything.”Mr. Pavarotti’s health became an issue in the late 1990s. His mobility onstage was sometimes severely limited because of leg problems, and at a 1997 “Turandot” performance at the Met, extras onstage surrounded him and literally helped him up and down steps. In January 1998, at a Met gala with two other singers, Mr. Pavarotti became lost in a trio from “Luisa Miller” despite having the music in front of him. He complained of dizziness and withdrew. Rumors flew alleging on one side a serious health problem and, on the other, a smoke screen for Mr. Pavarotti’s unpreparedness.

The latter was not a new accusation during the 1990s. In a 1997 review for The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini accused Mr. Pavarotti of “shamelessly coasting” through a recital, using music instead of his memory, and still losing his place. Words were always a problem, and he cheerfully admitted to using cue cards as reminders.

A Box-Office Powerhouse

It was a tribute to Mr. Pavarotti’s box-office power that when, in 1997, he announced he could not or would not learn his part for a new “Forza del Destino” at the Met, the house scrapped its scheduled production and substituted “Un Ballo in Maschera,” a piece he was ready to sing.

Around that time Mr. Pavarotti also made news by leaving his wife of more than three decades, Adua, to live with his 26-year-old assistant, Nicoletta Mantovani, and filing for divorce, which was finalized in October 2002. He married Ms. Mantovani in 2003. She survives him, as do three daughters from his marriage to the former Adua Veroni: Lorenza, Christina and Giuliana; and a daughter with Ms. Mantovani, Alice.

Mr. Pavarotti had a home in Manhattan but also maintained ties to his hometown, living when time permitted in a villa outside Modena.

He published two autobiographies, both written with William Wright: “Pavarotti: My Own Story” in 1981, and “Pavarotti: My World” in 1995.

In interviews Mr. Pavarotti could turn on a disarming charm, and if he invariably dismissed concerns about his pop projects, technical problems and even his health, he made a strong case for what his fame could do for opera itself.

“I remember when I began singing, in 1961,” he told Opera News in 1998, “one person said, ‘run quick, because opera is going to have at maximum 10 years of life.’ At the time it was really going down. But then, I was lucky enough to make the first ‘Live From the Met’ telecast. And the day after, people stopped me on the street. So I realized the importance of bringing opera to the masses. I think there were people who didn’t know what opera was before. And they say ‘Bohème,’ and of course ‘Bohème’ is so good.’ ”

About his own drawing power, his analysis was simple and on the mark.

“I think an important quality that I have is that if you turn on the radio and hear somebody sing, you know it’s me.” he said. “You don’t confuse my voice with another voice.”

from The Fiji Times 

TWO judges from Malaysia were appointed to the Fiji Court of Appeal by the President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, yesterday.

Interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said Justices Dato Dr Cyrus Das, 58, and Dato Cecil Abraham, 61, had been appointed and more appointments would be made shortly.

The announcement follows the resignation of the six remaining expatriate judges from New Zealand and Australia.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said it was understood the Judicial Services Commission would make announcements in due course on the appointment of more highly qualified judges to the Court of Appeal and to the High Court.

He said Fiji was fortunate to have Justices Das and Abraham.

He said Justice Das was considered one of the finest advocates and lawyers on the Malaysian Bar.

“He has had a fine academic career, having secured a PhD in constitutional law,” he said.

Justice Das is the author of four legal books, one of which was cited by the Court of Appeal in the Chandrika Prasad case.

He said besides constitutional law, Justice Das’ expertise and interest extended to administration law, industrial relations, company law, insolvency, press freedom, negligence, commercial law, criminal law and judicial methods.

“He is a prolific contributor to legal journals around the world,” he said.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Justice Abraham graduated LL.B from Queen Mary College, London in 1968 and was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1969.

He said Justice Abraham headed a large and respected firm of advocates and solicitors in Malaysia.

“He himself is held in high regard as a trial advocate,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said. He said the help of the many jurisdictions such as Singapore and Malaysia needed to be acknowledged for their willingness to facilitate the services of high calibre judicial officers.

 from news.com.au

FIJI faces a judicial crisis after six expatriate judges, including an Australian, quit over the behaviour of the country’s military-appointed chief justice.

The six, including Queensland judge Bruce McPherson, informed Fiji’s president of their resignations yesterday.

The other five – Sir Thomas Eichelbaum, Ian Barker, Tony Ford, Peter Penlington and Robert Philip Smellie – are all from New Zealand.

A statement from the judges said Chief Justice Anthony Gates, who was controversially appointed by the military regime, had made it apparent their services were not wanted.

The judges said Justice Gates “had not consulted them about the sittings held last week and had not even had the courtesy to ask about their availability”.

“Nor had he taken up the offer made by the court’s senior judge to arrange a court in November, when the next scheduled sittings were to take place,” a statement from the group said.

Justice Gates was appointed in January after Fiji’s then chief justice, Daniel Fatiaki, was ordered to go on leave or be dismissed.

Mr Fatiaki had earlier angered the military by publicly saying on the day of last year’s coup that the judiciary would uphold the Fiji Constitution.

Judges from Australia and New Zealand are typically appointed to the Fiji Appeals Court, which sits only three times a year.

Justice Gates told the Fiji Times the judges’ decisions must be respected and thanked them for their service.

“However, the Court of Appeal will continue as it always has, though individual judges may change,” he said.

from The Washington Post 

JAKARTA, Indonesia — After hearing about dangerous Chinese products elsewhere, Indonesia this summer began testing popular Chinese-made items on its own store shelves. What it found has added to the list of horrors: mercury-laced makeup that turns skin black, dried fruit spiked with industrial chemicals, carcinogenic children’s candy.

The Chinese government called up in August saying it had a possible solution. Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib, head of Indonesia’s top food and drug safety agency, was pleased and welcomed her counterparts to her office.

But according to Husniah, the Chinese suggested Indonesia lower its safety standards. Husniah said she was “very upset and very surprised.” “I said to them, ‘I respect your standards for your country. I hope you respect ours,’ ” Husniah said.

In dealing with product safety complaints from the United States, China has sought to convince a concerned American public that it has reformed and is doing all it can to ensure the safety of its products. But its dealings with other, less-developed countries or those in vulnerable political positions are a different story, according to Husniah and officials in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Indonesian officials accuse China of pushing shoddy products and inferior standards on poor countries that have no choice but to depend on it for cheap goods, aid and investment. They say that China, in closed-door meetings, has refused to share basic information, attempted to horse-trade by insisting on discussing disparate issues as part of a single negotiation and all but threatened retaliatory trade actions. The Chinese respond that their products have been the victim of unfair trade actions.

In the Philippines in July, a state-owned Chinese company threatened to sue for defamation after the Philippine government released a public warning saying a popular brand of candy was contaminated with formaldehyde. In Hong Kong, China pushed the territory to reconsider its recall of toothpaste contaminated with a chemical that other countries said might be poisonous but that China argued was present at levels safe for human consumption. It then ordered Hong Kong to submit a report on how and why it called back the toothpaste.

In Malaysia, a ban on fungus-infested nuts and dried fruit with a carcinogenic sweetener from China was met with a Chinese alert on litchi-flavored yogurt from Malaysia that it said didn’t meet labeling requirements.

Malaysia has long had a history of food safety issues with Chinese products. With each alert from Malaysia, the Chinese Embassy requests an explanation. “When they call us, we have to accept they are coming to us,” said Abdul Rahim Mohamad, director of food safety and quality at Malaysia’s Health Ministry.

Chinese food-safety officials argue that the recalls and bans by other countries amount to technical trade barriers that attempt to legitimize what would otherwise be unfair trade practices.

“I don’t really believe that Chinese products fail to meet their basic standards. That’s not true. There is competition between Chinese products and those from their countries,” said Gao Yongfu, a law professor who is the assistant to the president of the Shanghai World Trade Organization Affairs Consultation Center.

This is a powerful argument in Asia, where many countries are not only big customers of China but also its competitors. Last week, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in a meeting in Manila, agreed to strengthen product standards by increasing communication.

The food-safety conflicts in Asia provide a window into how big a role science, or standards, play in trade politics.

“When a government starts banning things for health reasons — particularly for chemicals — you must always question whether there might be a trade issue involved. So the government can legitimately ban something, but in fact their motivation may be with trade,” said Desmond O’Toole, a member of Hong Kong’s expert committee on food safety and an adjunct professor of biology and chemistry at the City University of Hong Kong.

China’s recent conflicts with Southeast Asian countries began with the recall of White Rabbit milk candy in the Philippines in July. Sold in more than 40 countries, White Rabbit candy is one of China’s famous old brands, an honor that gives it special protection under Chinese law. In fact, when President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China in 1972, he was offered White Rabbit candy by Premier Zhou Enlai.

When Weng Mao, general manager of Guan Sheng Yuan, based in Shanghai, which makes the candy, heard about the recall, he said he couldn’t believe it. Weng said that the products must be counterfeit and that the Philippines was damaging the brand by making false accusations. He threatened to sue.

Weng said in an interview he has not filed a suit, yet, and “if the Philippines takes corrective action, we will forgive them.”

Days after the Philippines announced the problem, the Chinese government enacted its own recall of banana chips from the Philippines, saying they contained high levels of sulfur dioxide, which is used as a preservative but can be toxic at high levels. China dispatched representatives all over Asia to talk to food inspectors in other countries.

Malaysia, Singapore, India and other countries also investigated White Rabbit candy, but after seeing a report from a third-party testing service that inspected the candy at the manufacturing plants, they kept the candy in stores.

The Philippines, however, says it is still not convinced the candy is safe.

Joshua Ramos, deputy director of the Philippines Bureau of Food and Drug, said the countries have had at least three face-to-face meetings and numerous phone calls regarding the recall of White Rabbit milk candy that appeared to be contaminated with formaldehyde. He said the Philippines was asked to verify and then again to re-verify its findings and submit copies of its laboratory tests to China.

He says the defamation charges are unfounded.

“We’re not damaging their reputation,” Ramos said. “We’re just saying we have found formaldehyde in this product bearing the labels that they produce. We are not saying they deliberately used that chemical.”

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, Husniah also felt it best that Jakarta conduct its own tests on White Rabbit. They found formaldehyde, she said, so they pulled the candy off the shelves and issued a public warning.

Tensions flared during the Aug. 7 discussions in Jakarta between Husniah and Li Haiqing, a deputy director at China’s Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection, one of the lead agencies responsible with food exports. A spokeswoman at the administration said Li was not available for comment, and she did not respond to questions faxed to her as she requested.

When Husniah, a physician who is head of the National Agency of Drug and Food Control, asked for a list of products that China had recalled domestically, surmising that many of those products had likely made it illegally to Indonesia, the Chinese declined. Husniah said she was told: “Don’t worry. We don’t permit substandard or hazardous products to be exported.”

Shortly before the meeting, China had announced a ban on Indonesian seafood. Husniah said she accused the Chinese of taking retaliatory trade actions. “You banned our seafood because of our public warning about your products,” she said. She said Chinese officials denied this was the case.

At one point, Husniah remembers that she said in exasperation, “Are we sitting together to solve problems or to blame each other?”

Husniah refused the Chinese officials’ request to recommend new standards in accordance with Chinese law, and the Indonesian government is continuing its testing of Chinese products. But it is holding off from issuing any more public alerts. The idea, Husniah said, is “we cool it down first,” until the anger on both sides subsides.

var comments_url = “http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090402284_Comments.html” ; var article_id = “AR2007090402284″ ;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has jailed a prominent opposition leader for three weeks after he failed to pay a fine for trying to leave the city-state without permission from the government, as required of him as a bankrupt.

Chee Soon Juan, an outspoken critic of the government and leader of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), was fined S$4,000 ($2,621) after he tried to leave in April last year to attend a democracy conference in Turkey, his sister Chee Siok Chin said.

Under Singapore’s laws, bankrupts who leave the city-state without permission from the government may be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to two years.

Chee, who has had multiple run-ins with the Singapore government, was declared bankrupt in February 2006 after he failed to make libel payments of S$500,000 to former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.“

He did not pay because it was partly a matter of principle,” said Chee Siok Chin, also a senior SDP member. “It’s ridiculous that they even flagged a fine on a bankrupt.”

Chee Soon Juan has been jailed five times since 1999 for speaking in public without a permit, and for questioning the independence of Singapore’s judiciary.

A neuropsychologist by training, Chee was sacked from his job as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore in 1993 after he was accused of improperly using S$226 for postage.The Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine — owned by Dow Jones (DJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) — is being sued by Lee and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong after it featured Chee last year criticising the government’s handling of a pay-and-perks scandal at Singapore’s largest charity.Chee’s party did not win any parliament seats in last year’s May poll, but won 23 percent of the votes in the wards it contested.

from The New York Times

Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, shown in May, says Singapore’s strength is that it is “ideology free” and pragmatic.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 1 — Lee Kuan Yew, who turned a malarial island into a modern financial center with a first-world skyline, is peering ahead again into this city-state’s future, this time with an idea to seal it off with dikes against the rising tides of global warming.

“Let’s start thinking about it now,” he said during an interview in late August, in what could be the motto for a lifetime of nation building. Ever since Singapore’s difficult birth in 1965, when it was expelled from Malaysia, he said, the country has struggled to stay alive in a sea of economic and political forces beyond its control.

“If the water goes up by three, four, five meters, what will happen to us?” he said, laughing. “Half of Singapore will disappear.”

For all his success, Mr. Lee, 83, remains on the alert for perils that may exist only on the distant horizon: the rising role of China in the region as the United States looks the other way, the buffeting of the world economy, even climate change.

A British-educated lawyer who led Singapore for 31 years, Mr. Lee is one of Asia’s remarkable personalities, a world figure whose guest book is filled with the names of international political and financial leaders.

His creation, modern Singapore, is an economic powerhouse with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes and high-quality schools, health care and public services that have made it a magnet for global labor. Foreigners make up roughly a fifth of its 4.5 million residents.

In his office in the former headquarters of the island’s British colonial rulers, Mr. Lee sat back in a zippered blue jacket, sipping small cups of hot water and laughing often, seemingly as different as could be from the bare-knuckled political infighter he has described himself as.

“I’ve done my bit,” said Mr. Lee, who stepped down as prime minister in 1990 and now watches over the country — and occasionally takes part in political disputes — with a seat in the cabinet and the title of minister mentor. His eldest son, Lee Hsien Loong, is prime minister.

“To understand Singapore,” he said, “you’ve got to start off with an improbable story: It should not exist.”

It is a nation with almost no natural resources, without a common culture — a fractured mix of Chinese, Malays and Indians, relying on wits to stay afloat and prosper.

“We have survived so far, 42 years,” he said. “Will we survive for another 42? It depends upon world conditions. It doesn’t depend on us alone.”

This sense of vulnerability is Mr. Lee’s answer to all his critics, to those who say Singapore is too tightly controlled, that it leashes the press, suppresses free speech, curtails democracy, tramples on dissidents and stunts entrepreneurship and creativity in its citizens.

“The answer lies in our genesis,” he said. “To survive, we have to do these things. And although what you see today — the superstructure of a modern city — the base is a very narrow one and could easily disintegrate.”

Asked whether, looking back, he felt he might have gone too far in crushing his opponents, sometimes with ruinous lawsuits, sometimes with long jail terms, he answered: “No, I don’t think so. I never killed them. I never destroyed them. Politically, they destroyed themselves.”

One of his concerns now, Mr. Lee said, is that the United States has become so preoccupied with the Middle East that it is failing to look ahead and plan in this part of the world.

“I think it’s a real drag slowing down adjusting to the new situation,” he said, describing what he called a lapse that worries Southeast Asian countries that count on Washington to balance the rising economic and diplomatic power of China.

“Without this draining of energy, attention and resources for Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, there would have been deep thinking about the long-term trends — working out possible options that the U.S. could exercise to change the direction of long-term trends more in its favor,” Mr. Lee said.

As the United States focuses on the Middle East, Mr. Lee said, the Chinese are busy refining their policies and building the foundations of more cooperative long-term relationships in Asia. “They are making strategic decisions on their relations with the region,” he said.

And this is where tiny Singapore sees itself as a model for China, the world’s most-populous country. “They’ve got to be like us,” Mr. Lee said, “with a very keen sense of what is possible, and what is not.”

Every year, he said, Chinese ministers meet twice with Singaporean ministers to learn from their experience. Fifty mayors of Chinese cities visit every three months for courses in city management.

Singapore’s secret, Mr. Lee said, is that it is “ideology free.” It possesses an unsentimental pragmatism that infuses the workings of the country as if it were in itself an ideology, he said. When considering an approach to an issue, he says, the question is: “Does it work? Let’s try it, and if it does work, fine, let’s continue it. If it doesn’t work, toss it out, try another one.”

The yardstick, he said, is: “Is this necessary for survival and progress? If it is, let’s do it.”

Hoping to attract more tourists, for example, Singapore is building two huge casinos, despite Mr. Lee’s expressed distaste for them.

“I don’t like casinos,” he said, “but the world has changed and if we don’t have an integrated resort like the ones in Las Vegas — Las Vegas Sands — we’ll lose.

“So, let’s go,” he said. “Let’s try and still keep it safe and mafia-free and prostitution-free and money-laundering-free. Can we do it? I’m not sure, but we’re going to give it a good try.”

Even on social issues on which he has tended to seem inflexible, Mr. Lee sounded almost mellow.

“I think we have to go in whatever direction world conditions dictate if we are to survive and to be part of this modern world,” he said. “If we are not connected to this modern world, we are dead. We’ll go back to the fishing village we once were.”

For example, on the issue of homosexuality, he said, “we take an ambiguous position. We say, O.K., leave them alone, but let’s leave the law as it is for the time being, and let’s have no gay parades.”

Although gay sex remains technically illegal in Singapore, the government has indicated it will not actively enforce the law.

China, Hong Kong and Taiwan already have more liberal policies regarding gays, he noted. “It’s a matter of time,” he said. “But we have a part Muslim population, another part conservative older Chinese and Indians. So, let’s go slowly. It’s a pragmatic approach to maintain social cohesion.”

As for people’s adherence to the “Asian values” — hierarchy, respect and order — that Singapore is founded on, he said: “It’s already diluted, and we can see it in the difference between the generations. It’s inevitable.”

In his own family, generational values are changing. From father to children to grandchildren, he said, command of the Chinese language has weakened, along with the culture it embodies.

“They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values,” he said of his children, two sons and a daughter. “Not my grandchildren.”

One grandson has just begun studies at M.I.T., he said; the other is heading to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

This well-educated younger generation reflects the social dichotomy of Singapore, Mr. Lee said, in which the top 20 percent of the population is as cosmopolitan as any, surfing the Internet and traveling the world without constraint. “This is not a closed society,” he insisted.

But at the same time, he said, the government must protect the less affluent, less educated people from information that might upset or confuse them. These are people “who are not finding it so comfortable to suddenly find the world changed, their world, their sense of place, their sense of position in society.”

They are the ones who he said had to be pulled into the future as he seeks to make Singapore “a first-world oasis in a third-world region.”

“We built up the infrastructure,” he said. “The difficult part was getting the people to change their habits so that they behaved more like first-world citizens, not like third-world citizens spitting and littering all over the place.”

So Singapore embarked on what Mr. Lee called “campaigns to do this, campaigns to do that.”

Do not chew gum. Do not throw garbage from rooftops. Speak good English. Smile. Perform spontaneous acts of kindness.

Paradoxically, he said, if Singapore had not been so poor it might never have transformed itself and prospered as it has. His warnings about vulnerability and collapse are a constant theme to persuade his people to accept limits on their freedoms.

“Supposing we had oil and gas, do you think I could get the people to do this?” Mr. Lee said. “No. If I had oil and gas, I’d have a different people, with different motivations and expectations.

“It’s because we don’t have oil and gas and they know that we don’t have, and they know that this progress comes from their efforts,” he said. “So please do it and do it well.”