Stop blaming RI for haze: Anwar

Stop blaming RI for haze: Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): The deputy prime minister called on
Malaysians yesterday to stop blaming Indonesia for the eye-
burning smog that has blanketed Southeast Asia.

While acknowledging the haze had affected public health and
could harm the economies of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) members, Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said
the problem must be handled in a way that won't jeopardize
Malaysia's relations with Indonesia.

"We realize that the solution lies not in pointing the finger,
but in the ASEAN spirit of consensus," Anwar said.

"I think there was a communication problem in the beginning,
but the situation appears more positive now and Indonesia appears
to be taking good measures," Anwar said.

Hundreds of forest and scrub fires, many of them deliberately
lit to clear land for plantations, have been burning across
Indonesia for weeks. Thick smog has drifted over neighboring
Malaysia, southern Thailand and parts of the Philippines, as well
as Singapore and Brunei.

Shifting winds and rains in the past two days have provided
some relief in Indonesia and Malaysia, though pollution levels in
Singapore soared Thursday.

Many environmentalists and some government officials in
Malaysia have attacked Indonesia for not doing enough to prevent
and put out the fires.

On Thursday, Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik said he was
disappointed Indonesia hadn't mobilized all its available
resources to put out the peat fires that have burned some 600,000
hectares of land.

Lim said he had proposed to the Indonesians five years ago
that they should have a better monitoring system to prevent
forest fires.

Indonesia and Malaysia have deployed about 10,000
firefighters, but say it will take the upcoming monsoon rains to
put the fires out, as has happened most years.

Separately, Malaysia's environment department said yesterday
that the clear skies over the country now could again be shrouded
with smog from forest fires if the current wind conditions
change.

"What we know is that the worst for Indonesia in terms of the
forest fires is far from over and that could be mean we are still
at risk," department director-general Tan Meng Leng said.

"If the northeasterly winds blowing through Malaysia now
become less effective and bring less rain, then the smog could
return," he said.

In Malaysia's eastern Pahang state, peat fires that had been
smoldering for the past several days in a forest were mostly
extinguished by an overnight rainfall, officials said.

"It's down to embers," Azman Mohamed, deputy head of fire
operations in Pahang's state capital of Kuantan, told Reuters by
telephone. About 20 firefighters were standing by in case the
flames flared up again.

A lack of rain and dwindling water supply from a nearby stream
had originally hampered the firefighters' efforts. Residents of
the area said it had not rained for weeks.

Malaysia's Air Pollutant Index in Kuala Lumpur was at a "good"
level of 50 yesterday, said Tan, compared to the "unhealthy" and
"hazardous" range of between 200 and 300 in the past month.