SE Asian profits tumble as pollution worsens

SE Asian profits tumble as pollution worsens

By Andrew Higgins

KUALA LUMPUR: A breathless brochure handed out by a young woman in an Islamic shawl and a white surgical mask promises a panoramic view stretching 70 miles to the Straits of Malacca. Visitors are then catapulted to the top of the world's fourth- highest tower in the world's fastest lifts and invited to peer through binoculars labeled with the warning: "Don't look directly at the sun."

These days, though, there is no sun. It has vanished behind a thickening soup of forest-fire smoke, car exhaust and industrial grime that has reduced visibility in parts of Malaysia to arm's length.

From the observation deck of the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a grandiose project designed to show off the vision of the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, for his capital, the only water still visible is the nearby Kelang river. The sea disappeared weeks ago.

The Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest skyscraper and the grandest expression of Dr Mahathir's edifice complex, has been reduced to a ghostly form, its silhouette given substance only by the flashing lights installed to warn off low-flying aircraft.

"I have not seen the sun properly for two months now," said Hishamuddin Rais, a film-maker and political commentator who, after years of exile in Brixton, is not easily alarmed by dreary skies.

"On a good day, all we get now is a hazy golden glow. It is not our tropical sun but something from the movies, like in a John Ford western... We face a terrible national disaster."

He has just formed a lobby group called Fresh Air for Ordinary People, better known by its Malay acronym Kubur, which means graveyard. It wants to put pressure on leaders more preoccupied with the collapse of the currency and the signs that the country will fall short of a dazzling 8 percent annual growth for the first time in eight years. Newspapers now publish pollution and stock market indexes side by side: pollution up, profits down.

Officials at Kuala Lumpur's international airport seem to have abandoned their traditional greeting of Selamat Datang -- welcome -- in favor of a more practical: "You had better find a pharmacy and buy a face mask."

But foreigners seem to be leaving. The United States embassy has started voluntary evacuations and the Australian mission is offering staff a week in Australia for a fresh-air break.

After telling people to stay indoors and avoid smoking, a recommendation undermined by the fact that the minister who offered the advice was then seen retiring for a cigarette, the government took more active steps Wednesday. It sent more than 1,000 firefighters to neighboring Indonesia to attack the root cause: vast tracts of blazing bush and forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The information minister, Mohamad Rahmat, who had earlier suggested evacuating up to 2 million people as a possible last resort, unveiled a more modest and realistic proposal: spraying water from the top of tall buildings to try to dissolve pollutants. Transport officials announced a scheme to cut road traffic by 30 percent.

Sarawak, the Malaysian portion of Borneo, is worst hit. Wednesday the air pollutant index in Kuching, the regional capital which has a million inhabitants, was down from 839 on Tuesday, but still well over the "hazardous" 500 mark that normally forms the upper limit. More than 300,000 surgical masks have been rushed to the region.

"The government wants to create a false sense of complacency," said Sivarasa Rasiah, an environmental activist. "It tells us to wear masks to make us feel better, but they have no real effect. They were designed to stop surgeons spitting on their patients, not to keep out pollution."

But medical suppliers have hit the jackpot. A chemist in central Kuala Lumpur reported daily sales of 2,500 Australian surgical masks. Many others have already run out. Skin-care manufacturers are also cashing in. A full-page press advertisement Wednesday warned that pollution damaged the complexion as well as the lungs. "So use Protex to keep you and your family clean and healthy." If only it were that simple.

-- The Guardian