Appeal hearing on Monday for Malaysian drug mule facing gallows in Singapore

The final appeal for Yong Vui Kong, the convicted Malaysian drug trafficker facing a death sentence in Singapore, will be heard on Monday, according to The Online Citizen, an alternative news website that has been following Yong's story closely. (Background here)

Andrew Loh of TOC has written a powerful piece looking at Yong's story. Here's a brief extract:

He found a friend in prison – a 22-year-old from Malaysia, who also received the death penalty for drug trafficking. The boy would die just three months before Vui Kong’s scheduled execution. He was a trembling mess the day before the hanging. Vui Kong would later tell his brother that he stayed up all night comforting his friend, urging him to meditate so he could face his final moments with inner peace.

The next morning, the boy had to be dragged from his cell to the execution chamber, crying, wailing and begging to be freed and to be forgiven.

 

Temasek's Malaysian governance problem: what happened next

One of the joys of blogging is that you can follow up on stories, as opposed to the fire-and-forget approach of conventional journalism.

Back in January, I wrote about the problems that Temasek, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, was facing at a Malaysian bank called Alliance Bank, of which Temasek owns 29%.

Alliance Bank's chief executive Bridget Lai, who was headhunted by Temasek, had gone on leave pending an investigation by the board of directors into a corporate governance issue believed to be related to refurbishment contracts.

Since then, the company has announced that Lai will resign on April 1 "in view of the differences of opinion between the board of directors and Lai that have arisen over the last few months".

Alliance Bank made no mention of the outcome of its months-long investigation and stressed that Lai's departure was the result of a mutual decision and was "not in any way a reflection of Lai".

Shim Kon Teck, the bank's chief operating officer, who was also under investigation, will also resign on April 1, with no further explanation provided.

A "sourced" story in Malaysia's Business Times earlier this month claimed that Lai would not be receiving any compensation, which is hardly surprising in the circumstances.

Whatever transpired, both the company and the outgoing executives obviously felt it was in their mutual interests to maintain radio silence.

All very mysterious and not very reassuring for any investors who are concerned with governance issues.

In an amusing but all-too-typical example of self-censorship, Singapore's Business Times newspaper neglected to mention in its 402-word story on Lai's resignation that Temasek owned a key stake in Alliance Bank, had a number of directors on the board and had handpicked Lai to lead the bank. (Sadly, the story is only available to subscribers)

Proof, it it were needed, that the whole unsavoury episode leaves just a big of egg on the face of Temasek.

An article in The Edge Malaysia (also not availalbe online) noted that Lai isn't the only chief executive of a Temasek-backed Asian bank to have suddenly departed recently, pointing to the exit of Sebastian Paredes from Indonesian's Bank Danamon and G S Sundararajan from the Fullerton India Credit Company.

The magazine went on to speculate that Temasek may look to roll up its various Asian banking assets under one umbrella, namely that of Singapore's DBS Bank. It is an interesting idea as I'm sure Temasek would like the idea of creating a unified, large Asian banking giant, with reduced overheads and increased influence.

 

 

Rupert Murdoch looking to invest in Indonesia?

In his speech in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch made an intriguing reference to a recent dinner he had with Mari Elka Pangestu, the Indonesian trade minister, where she told him of her desire to double the size of her nation's creative industries.

It's hard to imagine that Murdoch and Mari merely bumped into each other in the supermarket and decided to go for dinner, so I decided to dig a little.

By the power invested in me by Google, I soon discovered that the dinner Murdoch was likely referring to took place in Washington D.C. on September 30th last year.

On that day, Murdoch's News Corporation hosted an "Evening Celebrating Indonesia" and Mari was the guest-of-honour. In her speech that evening (PDF online here), she described the event as a "tribute to Indonesia’s democracy and unique culture, food, music, and film".

Accompanied by a delegation of government officials and businessmen, Mari spoke about her desire to attract more US investment into Indonesia's emerging film and entertainment industry.

And she was most grateful to Murdoch for sponsoring the event, saying: "I want personally to congratulate the Chairman of News Corporation, Mr. Rupert Murdoch and CEO of News Corporation, Mr. James Murdoch who make this important event happened. May you have continued success and hope this is a starting point for Indonesia and US film cooperation."

Call me a cynic but Murdoch does not normally entertain political leaders just for fun. It can never hurt to keep the government of the world's fourth most populous country, which has a large and rapidly growing domestic media market, on side.

But I wonder if the wily old fox has some more specific investment plans for Indonesia.

 

 

What Singapore could learn from Rupert Murdoch

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch spoke at a media conference in Abu Dhabi, where he warned Gulf states that they must cut regulation and end censorship if they want their creative industries to truly flourish. (PDF of full speech courtesy of Media Guardian)

Much of what he said could apply to another city-state that tightly controls the media landscape while insisting that it aspires to become "a leading cultural capital" and "a hub for the arts": Singapore.

Putting aside the social and political cases for a free media, Murdoch argued that it makes economic sense to ease media restrictions.

Limits on the operations of foreign media companies in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore put off some investors - although the governments of these city-states often successfully counter this by offering attractive tax breaks and other financial incentives.

But, more importantly, censorship and government control kills creativity, which is vital for the media industry to flourish.

As Murdoch put it: "Human creativity flourishes in freedom. By making the decision for greater openness, you will signal the importance you have assigned to creativity in your plans for the future – and declare your confidence in your people."

Murdoch said that he had had his fair share of "blistering newspaper attacks … unflattering television coverage … and books that grossly distort my views or my businesses or both".

The owner of The Times and the Wall Street Journal said he accepted that this was the price of success in a modern society but that "for a nation, the stakes are even higher".

"In face of an inconvenient story, it can be tempting to resort to censorship or civil or criminal laws to try to bury it," he said.

However, he warned that government attempts to boss the media were counter-productive, "promoting the very panic and distrust that they had hoped to control".

There was evidence for that in the furore caused by self-exiled Singaporean blogger Gopalan Nair, who claimed in a not-very-convincing hoax blog post that Lee Kuan Yew had suffered a heart attack.

Although he is based in California and has a track-record for anti-government rants rather than breaking stories, the extreme distrust in the government-controlled media meant that some otherwise sensible people thought there might be something in Nair's claims.

Bank bailout furore shows limits of reform in Indonesia

Around the world, central bankers have been lauded for bailing out troubled banks and saving the global financial system. The uninspiring Ben Bernanke was even made Time magazine's person of the year.

But, in Indonesia, the $730m bailout of a small-ish lender called Bank Century in 2008 has become a millstone around the government's neck.

Despite a distinct lack of evidence, political opponents have hurled allegations of wrongdoing at President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and, in particular, his two reform-minded lieutenants, Vice President Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

A lengthy, farcical parliamentary inquiry into the bailout failed to come up with any hard evidence of corruption. But it did prove to be a massive political distraction that has limited Yudhoyono's ability to push ahead with the reform agenda on which he was elected for a second term last summer. (For a fuller background piece, check out Aaron Connelly's blog)

Some political and business leaders hoped that the Bank Century furore would fade with the closing of the parliamentary inquiry. However, the Corruption Eradication Commission has taken up the Bank Century baton and it looks likely that the affair will continue to be a drag on the Yudhoyono government for some time to come.

But the Bank Century issue is less a cause than a sympton of the wider political problem that is holding up the vital drive to reduce the endemic corruption, rent-seeking and red tape.

Those threatened by the anti-corruption fight led by the likes of Sri Mulyani and Boediono are fighting back by labelling their accusers as the real "Koruptors".

As Ross McLeod of the Austrlian National University points out in a blog post on the East Asia Forum: "The innocent are wrongly branded as thieves; but the accusation is made by the real thieves, precisely in order to hide their own activities."

So eight months in to Yudhoyon's second and final term, which begun with a large popular mandate and high hopes, where does this leave the reform agenda? Not in a very good place, according to McLeod.

"Although the reformist Vice President and Minister of Finance now seem safe in their positions, it is difficult now to imagine how the second SBY administration can recover the momentum of reform, given the shabby manner in which the parties that comprise the ‘rainbow coalition’ cabinet continue to behave."

 

 

Australia-Indonesia relations need to be reinvigorated

With Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visiting Australia this week, lots of ink will be spilt about the need to improve relations between the countries.

But there will probably not be many more incisive and critical analyses of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia than that penned by Fergus Hanson of the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.

While Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is busy holding conferences on the supposed need for yet another Asia-Pacific multi-lateral institution, Hanson argues that relations with Indonesia, which should theoretically be a key partner for Australia in Asia, have plateaued.

While government-to-government ties have been getting stronger, Hanson points out that these are focused around a mostly negative set of security-related issues, such as counter-terrorism, illegal fishing, people smuggling, bird flu, climate change and interfaith dialogue (i.e. soft counter-terrorism).

He also argues that business links are underdeveloped, with Australia's two-way trade with Indonesia, a market of 230m people, only half the size of its two-way trade with New Zealand, which has less than 2 percent of Indonesia's population and a fifth of its GDP.

"Mutual public distrust and stereotypes are so entrenched that dramatic leadership gestures are needed to produce a step-increase in relations," Hanson writes.

He proposes a number of ways to move things forward, which you can read in his full paper, online here.

 

Reuters to launch Vietnamese news service?

Reuters appears to be setting up a Vietnamese language news service, a move that would be in defiance of the dominant atmosphere of censorship in the communist-ruled nation and that points to a maturing in Vietnam's nascent capital markets.

According to its careers website, Thomson Reuters is recruiting a translator for its Hanoi bureau "to convert English-language financial news stories from around the globe into Vietnamese."

In addition to its main English news service, Reuters operates more than 20 foreign language news services, including Chinese, Japanese and Turkish wires.

But the Vietnamese government is no friend of the media. In addition to its almost total control of the domestic media and its regular detention of the more enterprising Vietnamese journalists, the government places tight restrictions on the few accredited foreign correspondents in Hanoi.

Moreover, the government is particularly sensitive about foreign news organisations publishing stories in Vietnamese. The BBC Vietnamese website is often blocked by censors, alongside the likes of Facebook.

While most people wouldn't find anything controversial in translated Reuters stories about US jobless figures or Chinese motorbike sales, it doesn't take much to arouse the concern of Vietnam's paranoid government censors, particularly with the five-yearly Party congress just a year away.

I presume that Reuters have applied for and obtained clearance from the Vietnamese government for their latest venture. Otherwise they may be storing up some trouble.

Intellasia, an Australian-run website that provided straight-up English translations of news stories culled from Communist Party-owned newspapers, was closed down in 2008 and its founder forced to flee Vietnam after he was accused of publishing without a license.

Regardless of what the Vietnamese government thinks, Reuters' apparent desire to set up a Vietnamese service points to the fact that a capital market culture is starting to become more deeply-embedded in Vietnam. Much of the trading on the main Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange remains driven by a combination of cheap borrowing, rumour and insider dealing.

But if there is a demand for a Vietnamese language financial wire, it's evidence that the market culture is maturing.

InterContinental Hotels hands ugly PR people a reprieve

Although most sizable public companies have some sort of Corporate Responsibility policy and department in place, it's hard not to be suspicious of construction contractors or soap manufacturers that claim to be governed by anything other than the profit motive.

Even if the corporate responsibility staff are genuine, the department is often used by the company as  little more than an additional public relations department.

But, by holding companies up against the standards they claim to follow, you can sort the wheat from the chaff. Like last year, when I pointed out that building airports for the Burmese generals rather undermined the claim of Downer EDI, one of Australia's biggest engineering groups, that it upheld a "no harm" policy. To its credit, Downer EDI subsequently withdrew from the project.

Earlier this week, it was brought to my attention that InterContinental Hotels, the UK-based global hotel group, was advertising for a "good looking" public relations manager to join the staff of its Hanoi Westlake hotel.

This seemed to go against InterContinental's rather pompous Corporate Responsibility policy regarding its own staff, which is called "The Deal". This policy supposedly "celebrates difference" and offers employees "room to be yourself".

What about ugly public relations professionals? Are they not part of The Deal?

I contacted Eric Lee, InterContinental's head of communications in Asia (presumably he must be a handsome chap), who in turn checked with the Hanoi hotel management.

"They regret that description in the job profile," he said in an email. "They are making arrangements to remove that description from the profile as soon as possible." (the ad, online here, has already been changed)

He also stressed that "our hotels would never place appearance above other criteria and that all hotels are committed to our equal opportunities policies".

So they've changed the wording but will the actual recruitment process change?

It's not uncommon to see job ads in Southeast Asia that stipulate that the successful candidate must be a looker. Perhaps they should just use the Western HR euphemism of choice: "well-presented".

Hat-tip to Our Man in Hanoi, who drew the initial job ad to my attention via Twitter.

 

Indonesia's Kit Kat economy

If you want to understand what's wrong with the Indonesian economy - and why it's now perhaps moving in the right direction -  you need look no further than the tortuous journey that brings the humble Kit Kat to this country.

So says Gita Wirjawan, the smooth-talking former banker who heads up Indonesia's Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

Indonesia exported about $1.8bn worth of cocoa last year but most of this was in the form of dried, unfermented beans, that were processed abroad and then re-exported back to Indonesia in the shape of chocolate and other finished goods.

So Indonesian farmers make some money from growing the beans but the bulk of the profits are generated by the processors and chocolate manufacturers overseas.

But, an optimistic Gita told a gathering of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club earlier today, "the days of coca being taken from Indonesia and us buying Kit Kats from Switzerland should be finished".

The government has already announced plans to help develop a local chocolate industry and Gita believes Indonesia needs much more of this "value-added" manufacturing if it is to keep growing at more than a relatively unexciting 6 percent per annum.

The US-educated official was a convincing prophet of change, although you have to wonder how many members of the government, particularly the non-technocrats, share his enthusiasm for further liberalisation of what remains a very restrictive market.

Gita, who is a former head of JP Morgan Indonesia, did look slightly out of a place in a black safari suit that was more Bandung Conference 1955 than 21st century Indonesia.

But, ever silver-tongued, he had an adequate explanation: "I've started to wear really cheap clothes because I took a massive pay cut when I joined the government."

Quote of the week: Thaksin advises businessmen not to enter politics

"If you are a businessman, think hard if you are tempted to play politics."

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra speaking via video link after the country's highest courty seized $1.4bn of his assets, having ruled that he abused his power while in office.

While Thaksin blamed "mean politics" for the "discriminatory" ruling, it's worth pointing out that it was the self-same politics that allowed him to grow his fortune.

Although the much-feared violence has yet to break out, Thailand still remains as politically divided as ever.

In the words of Duncan McCargo, an expert on Thai affairs at the University of Leeds, what the country now needs badly is "a political compromise – a big dodgy deal, in short".

Is Aceh really a safe haven for Islamic terrorists?

Following the arrest of four members of an unnamed Islamic terroist group in Aceh earlier this week, Indonesia's English language press has been quick to suggest that the province, which has imposed shariah law, is something of a safe haven for militants.

An article in Thursday's Jakarta Globe quotes terrorism experts and police who argue that the strength of fundamentalist Islam in Aceh makes it an ideal staging post for wannabe terrorists.

But Aaron Connelly, an American researcher in Jakarta who I met the other day, casts doubt in an interesting blog post on the simplicity of this argument and suggests that there may be darker forces at work behind this week's arrests and the death of an innocent bystander in a cross-fire.

His post raises the wider question of how the adoption of shariah law in Aceh (after the peace talks that ended the long-running separatist conflict) has been reported in the Western media. The focus has been on emphasizing extremism in Aceh by pointing to some of the shocking judgements/rulings/behaviour by the religious police and courts.

But the question of how far there is public support in Aceh for these measures is much less frequently asked, although Aaron points to a piece by freelance journalist Peter Gelling that addresses this issue. If I get time, I'd like to go to Aceh later this year to find out more.

Disclosure: among other things, I'm currently working as an editor at the Jakarta Globe.

 

 

 

Singapore government dodges Malay education issue again

Contrary to popular perception, Singapore does actually have a working Parliament, in which ministers are occasionally asked questions, some of which are not plants or attempts to crawl up the arse of a minister.

In Parliament yesterday, one such incident occurred, when Zaqy Mohamed, vice-chairman of the ruling People's Action Party's youth wing and an ethnic Malay MP, asked the education minister what was being done about the persistent educational under-performance of Malay students compared to Singaporeans of other ethnic backgrounds.

The problem is a serious and persistent one. Figures from the Education Ministry show that while Singaporean exam results have increased across the board over the last decade, the stark disparities between the city-state's main three ethnic groups remain.

In 2008, just 59.3% of Malay students achieved 5 passes at O-level, the exams taken by 15 and 16-year-olds, compared to 86.2% of Chinese and 73% of Indians.

The disparity, which appears to be particularly sharp when it comes to Maths and Science, seems embedded from a young age. While 89.6% of Chinese and 72.9% of Indian kids taking the Primary School Leaving Examination achieved A*-C grades in Maths, only 56.3% of Malay kids managed the same feat.

The only area where Malay students seem to come out on top, according to the government figures, is in terms of mother-tongue ability. 98.6% of Malay students taking the PSLE achieve an A*-C in their mother-tongue exam compared to 98.4% of Chinese and 96.7% of Indians.

But despite the clear message of this data, the government, which tiptoes around racial issues because of fears of ethnic disharmony, does not appear willing to confront the problem.

In response to Zaqy's question, the education minister Ng Eng Hen said only that the performance by Malay students had been "stable" over the last decade, with some improvements in Malay and English.

While Zaqy wanted to know "what more can be done to help Malay students progress at the same rate, if not better, compared to their peers from the other race groups", Ng offered only vague platitudes, as he side-stepped the issue.

"Parents and families, of all races, can support students by ensuring that they attend school regularly, motivating them to work hard, and adopting good habits like reading widely," the minister said. "Community and self-help groups can also help families deal with problem issues related to finances, jobs and relationships, in order to create a more supportive home environment."

In other words: nothing to do with me, mate.

It's not surprising to see the government dodging this intractable and controversial issue again. The question is whether the PAP's seeming indifference is motivated more by its over-arching self-help philosophy or by the fact that a Chinese-dominated party in a Chinese-dominated nation is not too bothered by the underperformance of the Malay minority.

Singapore casino crimes may be a taste of things to come

As a regular contributor to Gambling Compliance, an industry publication, I closely followed Singapore's transition into a casino city.

One of the biggest concerns for Singapore's nascent casino regulators and police was how to ensure that the crime, both organized and low-level, that plagues Macau and other casino destinations in Asia was not replicated in the a city that prides itself on its safety and security.

So what to make of the news that Singapore arrested eight people and jailed one within the first four days of the opening of the first of Singapore's two casinos?

The crimes - theft of a mobile phone, identity fraud and attempts to avoid the S$100 ($71) daily entry fee for locals - were pretty minor and I suspect the authorities will not be too bothered about a few initial such offences.

But the police will be keen to ensure that such petty crime does not become endemic.

Nevertheless, the bigger concern is regarding organised crime: illegal moneylending, money laundering, side-betting and related issues including prostitution and violence.

These professional crooks are much more sophisticated and it will take some time before it becomes apparent whether the Singaporean authorities have managed to keep them away from its virgin casinos.

I'm hoping to visit the casinos in the next couple of months to get a better idea of how Singapore's latest gambling experiment is working out.

Back in the saddle

After a much-needed break in Bali, I'm now back in Jakarta and getting back to the blogging.

Feel free to post any comments or suggestions below, drop me an email at theasiafile@gmail.com or contact me viaTwitter @benjaminbland.

 

 

Disgusted of Toa Payoh

"Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" is a spoof letter sign-off typically used to mock those pedantic, easily-offended members of the English middle class who are wont to write to missives of complaint to newspapers over the merest trifle.

But these much-derided scribes are nothing compared to Singapore's angry letter writers, who are emboldened by a sense of entitlement passed down to them by the nanny-state government.

While "disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" may, from time to time, take the edge off their perpetual sense of outrage by imbibing a few stiff drinks, Singapore's "disgusted of Toa Payoh" never lets up. And that's one of the reasons that I sorely miss opening up the Straits Times every morning to read the latest incredulous correspondence.

Thanks to the internet, though, I can still read gems such as this letter to the Straits Times forum from Lim Yong Soon, who may or may not live in Toa Payoh, a public housing estate in central Singapore that is popular with Chinese families. The correspondent is scandalised by the common local practice of reserving a table at a food court or hawker centre by putting down a packet of tissues:

I am shocked that some Singaporeans continue to regard their tissue paper packet as an endorsement of their public reservation of a table for lunch or dinner.

I had lunch recently at the Great World City foodcourt. I spotted an empty table while my friend went to order the food.

This was a table for four, and this young man in his mid or late 20s plonked down at the table and said it was his as he had a tissue paper packet there.

There was no tissue paper packet around, so he insinuated that I had removed it so I could occupy the table. He then called his friend and one minute later, she appeared and also plonked down at the table.

I would have gladly shared the table with them had they been polite and not accused me of removing their tissue paper.

I was shocked by such ugly behaviour.