TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent A mysterious letter sent to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Istana on Monday sparked a massive security scare with several Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers being dispatched to the Istana to carry out tests on the letters. According to the Straits Times, a police spokesman said yesterday that SCDF officers did not find any traces of hazardous materials on the letter after conducting the tests, but did not comment on what made it suspicious that there is a need to activate so many SCDF and security personnel at the scene. The letter has been sent to the DSO National Laboratories for further checks. There were no immediate comments from the Prime Minister's Office. This is probably the first time that a letter sent to the Prime Minister has triggered a security scare. Its sender and contents remain unknown.  Read More →

By Loretta Chao from Wall Street Journal BEIJING—Google Inc.'s decision to reroute its Chinese users to a search site in Hong Kong that the company isn't censoring was met with a mixture of resentment and confusion in China, as users, employees and partners braced for potential fallout from the move. Chinese authorities Tuesday didn't prevent users in mainland China from reaching the Hong Kong site, Google.com.hk, but the extensive filtering mechanisms the government uses against overseas Web content blocked users within China from seeing most results for politically sensitive search terms on Google's Hong Kong site. In addition to blocking entire Internet addresses, China also restricts Web pages containing objectionable terms. It appears to do so with filtering technology that looks for prohibited terms in Web pages, including the sites that display search-engine results. Thus, a user in China searching for, say, "1989 student protest" might be temporarily locked out of using search sites or have links to certain results blocked. Chinese officials maintained their barrage of criticism against Google. At a regular briefing Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang dismissed the notion that the Google case had harmed China's reputation, adding, "The one whose reputation has been harmed isn't China, rather it is Google." Google's decision was met with relief by some of its Chinese staff, who have waited in limbo since the U.S. company first vowed more than two months ago to stop obeying Chinese censorship rules. "There is a lot of relief at having some answers, after all the speculation as to what would happen," said a Google China employee about the atmosphere at the Internet giant's Beijing office, which was heavily guarded on Tuesday to keep out a swarm of journalists. Read rest of article here.  Read More →

From The Washington Times Monday, March 22, 2010 Sol Sanders ANALYSIS/OPINION: The last time I saw my old friend, she had finally given up on her magazine dedicated to what we used to call "upcountry" householders. She lamented the passing of "paradise," a Thailand she and I had known in the late 1940s when I was a young reporter for a local Bangkok English-language newspaper. "Rice in the paddy and shrimp in the klong (canal)," as the old saying put it, and all was right with the world. "Modernity" with all its problems had come to the devoutly Buddhist land, preindustrial but with abundant resources. Rites of passage once required young men to spend months in the wat (temple) with their begging bowls. Every morning, my friend along with most other housewives — seeking to "make merit" toward a future existence through charity — were at their doorsteps dishing out rice and Thai curries to them. But now the klongs in sea-level Bangkok are filled — originally by a corrupt French contractor — which produces continual flooding. The stench of diesel replaces cardamom drifting from night markets with the worlds most exotic menu. One might have eaten in Yaowarat, sarcastically called "Chinatown." For since the advent of cheap ocean passage after the opening of the Suez Canal in the mid-19th century, Bangkok was a Sino-Thai city, flooded with South Chinese immigrants. Modernization, of course, had its benefits. Health standards improved. The arid northeast no longer survived by sending migrants to the capital. In recent years, investors saw Thailand as Southeast Asias auto manufacturing center, not just the world's top rice exporter. Thai-processed delicacies were snapped up by housewives worldwide. And Thailand became a destination for sophisticated European tourists, replacing the '60s backpackers who came just for pot and sex. But all this is threatened by a social breakdown. Several decades in the making, it reached a crescendo in 2006 with the fall of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ironically, the billionaire politician was brought down by his neighbors, the Singaporeans. Singaporean "Mentor Minister" Lee Kuan Yew — who styles himself as leader of a squeaky-clean regime — does not follow the adage admonishing Caesars wife to be above suspicion. For it was his daughter-in-laws Singaporean sovereign fund, Temasek, that blew up Mr. Thaksin. Temasek, moving away from funding of Singapores manufacturing base — eroded in no small part by China — has gone farther afield. In Bangkok, Madam Ho Ching, the wife of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is Lee Kuan Yew's son, negotiated an under-the-table $2-billion-plus deal for Mr. Thaksins telecommunications empire.When Mr. Thaksin and his family escaped paying any taxes on the deal, it was too much for Bangkoks Sino-Thai professional elite, fed up with unlimited corruption. They supported a military takeover. When Mr. Thaksin won another election, he was ousted again. But Mr. Thaksin had long since won over the rural population through a populist program that included medical services. Gone is the old division of labor — Bangkok Sino-Thai families dominating the bureaucracy but rural ethnic Thai rising through the military. (Mr. Thaksin, unlike yesteryears Sino-Thai, makes no bones about his Chinese origins, even going on a traditional kowtow to South China to his grandfathers grave.) Out of office but not out of money — even though a court recently seized $1.5 billion, about half his formal Thai holdings — Mr. Thaksin has been encouraging his supporters from exile. Clashes between his Red Shirts followers and their Yellow Shirts opponents — far too reminiscent of Germany on the eve of Hitlers takeover — threaten law and order. The beloved but aging King Bhumibol Adulyadej is increasingly powerless to play his traditional referee role. During the Vietnam War, a prominent Thai general told me his country could successfully continue to assimilate Chinese immigrants if the U.S. assured regional security. But now, not only is there a threat in the south where Muslim Malay ethnics link with internationalist jihadists, but Chinese no longer arrive only by sea and air. More and more, the Chinese export juggernaut is plowing into Thailands markets — with trade growing 20 percent annually. The old political isolation along the northern border with southern China is disappearing as Beijing pushes communications and development south along the Mekong River. Destructive violence — billions of dollars in tourist revenue already have been lost since 38 countries issued travel warnings — could spell disaster. The Thais have a cautionary tale in neighboring Myanmar. There military thugs for decades have squandered human and material resources. Myanmar's repressive regime is Beijings ally to which it supplies weapons and a market for oil. And Washington is no longer Southeast Asias big brother. An Obama administration preoccupied with domestic troubles and two wars seeks only accommodation with Myanmar, as it has with other old antagonists. Thailand, like so much of the rest of the world, is now adrift in a welter of conflicting domestic and world currents. Long gone are the days of the national leitmotif "mai pen rai" — "Never mind, it is not important." • International Business Editor Sol Sanders, veteran foreign correspondent and analyst, writes weekly on the convergence of international politics and business-economics. Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/22/sanders-snarls-in-the-land-of-smiles/  Read More →