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Most of Malaysia's mainstream media are controlled by or closely linked to the ruling coalition parties.

Wee Meng Chee, 24, has been widely criticized by political leaders from Malaysia's ethnic Malay Muslim majority after he highlighted this multicultural society's ethnic differences in a video clip posted on YouTube last month. In the six-minute clip, Wee blended the national anthem with a rap song blasting discrimination faced by ethnic Chinese. Wee apologized last week for his video, but Malaysian government ministers have said the attorney general was still investigating the matter to decide whether to prosecute him for sedition, which carries a jail term of up to three years. (AP)

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Strong Earthquake Strikes Eastern Indonesia

A strong undersea earthquake struck eastern Indonesia on Friday, the US Geological Survey said. No tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.The tremor had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and hit 230 kilometers (145 miles) southeast of Ambon, the capital of Maluku province, said an official at Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysics Agency.The USGS said the quake struck 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the Banda Sea.Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. (AP)

Cambodia Destroys Stocks of Drug-making Chemicals

Officials began destroying Cambodia's largest seizure of drug-making chemicals Thursday, while acknowledging that the country has moved from being a transit point to a producer of illegal drugs.Interior Minister Sar Kheng led Cambodian and UN drug officials in launching the destruction of almost 5 tons of chemicals, including nearly 3 tons of highly hazardous thionyl chloride used to produce amphetamine. Authorities seized the substances during a raid in April on a laboratory on an isolated farm 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Phnom Penh. It was Cambodia's first discovery of a laboratory producing synthesized drugs, Sar Kheng said. Lars Pedersen, the representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Cambodia, said Cambodia received US $60,000 each from Australia and the United States to help destroy the chemicals, and will need greater assistance from the international community to deal with drug problems. (AP)

Three Miners Killed in Northern Vietnam

Three miners were killed when part of the tunnel shaft of the mine they were working in collapsed in northern Vietnam, police said Friday. It took police and rescuers more than 10 hours to pull the bodies of two men and a woman following the incident Thursday in Trang Da village in Tuyen Quang province, 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Hanoi, a village police officer said, declining to give his name citing policy. The officer said there were more than 10 miners working in the mine at the time of the incident. The others escaped unhurt, he added.

The zinc mine was developed by French colonialists in the 1940s but was abandoned following the French defeat in 1954. Some villagers found zinc at the mine a year ago, sparking a rush. The local government has tried to stop the practice, but villagers continue to try to extract the metal from the mine. (AP)

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Two Die in Rangoon Factory Fire

Two people died and eight were injured when fire swept through a clothing factory in Rangoon’s Hlaing Thayar Township Industrial Zone 2 on Wednesday. The state-run newspaper Kyemon (The Mirror) reported that the fire started in the factory’s kitchen. Firemen took two hours to douse the blaze. One fireman was among the injured.

Cambodia Bans Imports of Pigs and Pork from Neighboring Countries

Cambodia is banning imports of live pigs and pork from neighboring countries to prevent the spread of disease and protect local farmers, officials said Thursday. The ban was imposed to prevent the spread of a disease that occurred in Vietnam, said Kao Phal, director of the Agriculture Ministry's animal health department. He said there has been no outbreak of the disease—porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome—among pigs in Cambodia but called the ban a necessary precaution. Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the ban in a statement Monday. He said imports of pork and pigs from unspecified neighboring countries were "anarchical" and could trigger an outbreak of the disease in the country. He ordered government agencies and border guards to stop all imports of live pigs and pork.