Regional News in Brief

Regional News in Brief

Lee to visit NZ, Australia

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was scheduled to leave yesterday for a two-day official visit to New Zealand and Australia, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

Lee, who stepped down in 1990 and is now senior minister in Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's cabinet, will be accompanied by Information Minister George Yeo.

The trip, his first to both countries since 1988, is aimed at reaffirming close ties, the Times said.

While in Wellington, Lee will call on Prime Minister Jim Bolger, Governor-General Dame Catherine Tizard and opposition leader Helen Clark, and address the New Zealand Business and Parliament Trust.

In Canberra, Lee will call on Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and Defense Minister Robert Ray, and speak at the National Press Club.

NZ campaigners investigated

WELLINGTON (AFP): New Zealand's two leading anti-apartheid campaigners are being investigated for racism, the Sunday Star- Times newspaper reported yesterday.

John Minto and Dick Cuthbert were key figures in the now- defunct Halt All Racist Tours (HART) and have since launched a new group called SWAT (Stop White South Africans Today).

Their aim was for a strict screening of the increasing numbers of South African immigrants to ensure that they did not hold racist views.

The Sunday Star-Times reported that the Race Relations Office had received complaints about the new organization and quoted one of its managers, Tuck Waaka, as saying those complaints were being treated "very seriously".

The origin of the complaints were not disclosed but the report quoted Waaka as saying they had gone through initial investigation and had been put in front of the Race Relations Conciliator, John Clark.

Keating begins visit to Vietnam

HANOI (AFP): Prime Minister Paul Keating arrived in Hanoi yesterday for an historic visit aimed at raising his country's profile in Vietnam and pressing forward with Australia's diplomatic and economic push into Asia.

Keating, the first Australian leader to visit Hanoi, is to meet with top Vietnamese leaders today, including his counterpart Vo Van Kiet, President Le Duc Anh and Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi.

He is expected to discuss human rights but Australian officials suggested Keating would take a low key approach to the problem despite calls from Vietnamese Buddhist groups and members of parliament in Australia for a firm stand.

Australia has insisted it wants a dialog on the issue and officials said they hoped the Vietnamese would finalize arrangements for a human rights delegation to visit here later this year.

Suu Kyi barred from politics

BANGKOK (Reuter): A constitutional forum steered by Myanmar's ruling military junta has adopted guidelines seen by diplomatic and rebel sources as intended to bar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from politics.

Myanmarese state radio monitored in Bangkok said on Saturday night the national convention had adjourned until Sept. 2, after setting constitutional guidelines on the name of the state, its leadership and structure.

The guidelines say the country will be called the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, it will be divided into 14 regions and its president must be free of foreign connections, according to the radio.

The junta's ruling body, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), had earlier changed the name of the country from Burma to the Union of Myanmar after seizing power in a bloody coup in 1988.

"The third clause about the head of state was directly intended to disqualify Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming involved again in politics in Burma," a diplomat based in Yangon told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Missing penis reopen death case

BANGKOK (Reuter): Police in southern Thailand were forced to reopen an alleged suicide case after the victim's relatives said his penis was missing and that foul play was suspected, police said yesterday.

The relatives of Somchai Chanwong, 20, a former singer who was found hanged, discovered that his penis was missing when they were about to cremate the body on Saturday.

Police in Sichon district of Nakhon Si Thammarat province about 900 kilometers south of Bangkok said that since the man's body had been fully clothed at the time of death they had not been aware of the missing organ.

'Schindler's List' needs to be cut

KUALA LUMPUR (Kyodo): The Malaysian government has agreed on the need to cut several scenes from the Oscar-winning movie Schindler's List before it can be shown to the public, a senior official said on Saturday, effectively wiping out its chance of being screened in the country.

"Now it is up to the film producer to decide," Deputy Home Minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub was quoted as saying by the national Bernama news agency.

The movie's director, Steven Spielberg, has said he wants it to be either shown uncut or not screened at all.

Megat Junid said he agreed with Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to support a decision by censors to cut one scene of violence and five or six scenes depicting "immorality."

Malaysia arrests treasure hunters

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Twelve men, including an Indonesian and a Singaporean, were arrested after the Malaysian navy uncovered an illegal salvage operation on a sunken 18th-century Dutch galleon, officials said yesterday.

Several boxes of china, porcelain, jugs and vases were recovered from an unregistered trawler, Puteri Anjasmara, which the men had been using to salvage the galleon lying in the seabed off Malaysia's Malacca state, they said.

The two foreigners and 10 locals who were arrested during the diving operation had been handed over to the police, who were awaiting museum officials from Kuala Lumpur to determine the status of the treasure.

No details on the galleon were available but news reports said it was believed to have sank while on its way to India.

Thai-Cambodian border on alert

ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand (AFP): Officials in this Thai bordertown put their troops and police on alert yesterday as fighting between Cambodian government and Khmer Rouge forces escalated a few kilometers (miles) away.

Some 300 Cambodian government soldiers reinforced an offensive yesterday on a Khmer Rouge village in Sisophon, some 15 kilometers southeast of this Thai bordertown, Thai police and military officials here said.

The troops and four T-54 tanks took up positions around Koop village where government and guerrilla forces had been engaged in heavy fighting since Saturday, they said.

Thai army and police officials in Aranyaprathet were immediately placed on full alert, one officer said.