Singapore corruption ranking is a joke

Whilst the position of Thailand and that of Singapore as the cleanest country in Asia was to be expected, the fact that Singapore is ranked 3rd in the world struck me as somewhat surreal.

One of the main precursors for an open and incorrupt society, as I understand it, is a strong, independent and free press that is not afraid to undertake investigative journalism to expose wrongdoers so that they can be prosecuted and tried in fair and unbiased courts.

Singapore's press, however, is ranked 133 on a world scale of 175 for freedom, languishing beneath such paragons of virtue as Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, Cambodia and Nicaragua.

Given this fact, it is worrying that the Singaporean ruling family, the Lees, have won yet another big court settlement and that the target of their latest defamation suit was the well known and respected Far Eastern Economic Review, owned by the highly responsible "Dow Jones & Co, which wrote an article on Chee Soon Juan, an opposition party leader.

Where those who are the first line of defence in the fight against corruption are bound and gagged and live in constant fear of law suits on a whim, I doubt we are seeing anything that equates to a full and clear picture of the "cleanliness" of Singapore.

JOHN SYMONS

BANGKOK

'Spy's' information was common knowledge

I am a little confused. I receive lots of calls, some accurate, some not so, telling me where Thaksin Shinawatra is. Could I now be charged with spying for Thailand or Britain, my native country?

If I were to be in Cambodia and told my news desk that Thaksin was leaving shortly, or even had now just arrived, could I be banged up? Is Thaksin, a crook on the run, an unfairly deposed politician, or some sort of top secret weapon on a military mission, about whom we cannot reveal the whereabouts, not least the colour of his underpants.

This is all very confusing because pilots in my family have informed me that civil flight plans have to be logged and certain airways have to be followed and they cannot be secret, otherwise I guess planes might bump into each other. In the Thai case, Siwarak Chotipong is reported to have told a Thai Embassy official of the arrival of Thaksin's plane on November 10 - 10 minutes after it arrived. On this basis I guess authorities at Heathrow can round up scores of pimply plane spotters.

Taking a step back, the only way one can look at this affair is that Hun Sen is, with Thaksin Shinawatra's acquiescence, trying to damage Thailand. Hun Sen seems the immature person here. Right?

Does he think the RTAF are going to shoot Thaksin down? Does he think there is some guy at Wing 41 or whatever waiting by a telephone to give the order "scramble!"

CONFUSED HACK

BANGKOK

Unreasonable to blame train staff for problems

Re: "SRT must fire incompetent, unproductive staff members", Letters, November 24.

I'm afraid that if the SRT fires incompetent staff members, there will be no management personnel left there. While I don't follow every twist in the SRT saga, Burin Kantabutra's letters are hard to miss, and I have a hard time understanding what drives his constant attacks on SRT union members.

To me it's obvious that no union members - ticket sellers, train attendants, signalmen and drivers - are responsible for the sorry state of the SRT. Why should they be held responsible for trains that are older than Thai democracy, or for financial losses, given that train fares were apparently set in stone shortly after World War II? They can't be held responsible for losses from renting the SRT properties either. In my experience, they provide reasonably good service for what they have to work with.

I also understand their concerns when they have been excluded from any participation in the SRT restructuring and the whole task has been delegated to the same fat cats who have run the company into the ground in the first place.

Government intervention is welcome, I suppose, but it's not a guarantee that the SRT bureaucrats will be prevented from milking the company dry in the future at the expense of the general public, while people like Burin continue to berate poor SRT unionists making just a bit over minimum wage.

Perhaps it's time to realise that the SRT management is the common enemy here, while unionists and the people want exactly the same things - safe, modern transportation affordable for anyone.

STAN G

BANGKOK