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.