Lee Kwan-yew did not enrich himself during his tenure as leader of Singapore. Nor did his family gain any undeserved influence over the country. It is a meritocracy and don’t suggest otherwise.
In fact the only reason Lee can sustain an affluent lifestyle in retirement is because he gets shedloads of cash from irresponsible Western media groups that dare to suggest such nasty and untrue things.:
We recognise that the statements attributed to Mr Lee in the obituary on Devan Nair and which are referred to in Mdm Yeong Yoon Ying’s letter, are false. We apologise to Mr Lee for having published them, and we unreservedly withdraw them. We have agreed to pay Mr Lee damages and to indemnify him for all costs incurred by him in connection with this matter.
The Economist last apologized to the Lee family in September 2004. Other media groups that have had to apologize to the Lee family include Bloomberg, the Far East Economic Review and the International Herald Tribune. Typical settlements are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, media, singapore, southeast asia
January 20th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Ooooooh, AsiaPundit reads the Ecnomist!
January 22nd, 2006 at 5:05 pm
FinanceAsia on www.financeasia.com have also had to pay damages for their comments about Temasek and alleged links to the Lee family.
January 24th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
The happens to the Economist about once a year. I reckon they just see it as a cost of doing business. I also reckon their retractions have about the same level of heartfelt sincerity as the “self-criticisms” that some of my Beijing journalist acquaintances have had to make after run-ins with overzealous local (not-noseless) cops.
It’s the one thing about Singapore that still reeks of third-world pettiness. They’ll be better off when they outgrow it.
Still, beats throwing journalists in jail.