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AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) urges the Australian government to keep pushing Singapore to spare the life of its citizen Nguyen Tuong Van, who faces the death penalty in the city state for drug trafficking.
"The young Australian man facing imminent execution in Singapore on drug charges is neither a hardened criminal nor a desperate addict. Nguyen Tuong Van is first and foremost a brother. His tragic decision to act as a drug mule for a Sydney syndicate was made under extreme duress. He did not stand to profit personally from the two small packages of heroin he picked up in Cambodia and which were intercepted during a transit stop in Singapore. It was a one-off drug run in exchange for clearing about 20,000 Australian dollars in gambling debts racked up by his twin brother ... what matters now is that Australia pushes the case right down to the line, no matter how slim the chances of success. Canberra has an obligation to seek to save the life of any condemned Australian, regardless of the crime and regardless of race."
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BANGLADESH
In Dhaka, the Daily Star (www.thedailystar.net) says the world community should do more to help the survivors of the Kashmir earthquake, pointing out that the relief effort has fallen short of that seen after the 2004 tsunami.
"Several millions still continue to live in the open, braving bitter cold and rains. With three weeks to go before snowing, time is running out to reach out to them. The inaccessibility to the affected areas has made some experts view the tragedy as worse -- in a sense -- than the dreaded tsunami that lashed out at six countries in three continents. We feel that the response of the international community to the quake aftermath could and should have been better than has been the case so far. In regard to the tsunami situation, the media played a huge role in drawing the world attention to the tragic consequences of the catastrophe. Resultantly, the world community came in a very big way to assist the victims, and while the funds garnered reached a double-digit mark, much of this is yet to be spent. Yes, in Pakistan, the work being carried out by the international NGO community and the UN Agencies deserves mention. We feel that the international media and the world community could do much more to help Pakistan out of the tragedy."
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INDONESIA
The Jakarta Post (www.thejakartapost.com) editorial argues that the Communist Party of China must drop its monopoly on power to gain moral legitimacy and the trust of the international community.
"The irony of China ... is that while tremendous (economic) progress is occurring on one front, there is stagnation on the other. The Chinese government's issuance of a white paper on political democracy, the first of its kind, reinforces the belief that significant political reform remains an issue of stagnation. In a nutshell the extensive document justifies the monopoly of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the political helm for many years to come ... The CPC may have embraced the market economy, but politically the system remains very much entrenched in a strict autocracy. Eventually it is this very refusal to accept multi-party democracy which will result in China continuously being perceived with a degree of suspicion and bring it into 'conflict' with more politically liberal minded states, including those in Southeast Asia. What China has to learn is that its biggest test will not simply be ensuring economic equity and welfare for its people or even its relationship with the United States, but the disquiet that results from the question of the CPC's moral legitimacy."
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SINGAPORE
The Straits Times (http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg) supports US President George W Bush's choice of Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
"Mr Bush's choice, Mr Ben Bernanke, is a man of outstanding qualities ... Respected among academics as well as on Wall Street, he is also that rare bird in this most politicised of administrations -- a genuinely non-partisan figure. Though a registered Republican, he has not taken ideologically-inflected positions on many of the issues that currently consume the party faithful -- chief among them, tax cuts and the privatisation of Social Security. He differs in this respect from Mr Greenspan, who intervened frequently on matters beyond the immediate scrutiny of a central banker -- and not always happily, as in his 2001 decision to back Mr Bush's tax cuts ... The world can breathe a sigh of relief that Mr Bush has chosen someone so eminently qualified for the most important economic policy job in the US, and perhaps the world."
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THAILAND
In Bangkok, The Nation (www.nationmultimedia.com) blames the government for Thailand's fall from 59th to 107th place in a global index ranking media freedoms issued by watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.
"How come a country that once had the reputation for having one of Asias freest media has turned into a case study for press control? ... A plausible answer can be that political interference with the media has evolved with time, and the changes must have been internationally recognised. No longer do we judge freedom solely on how many journalists have been murdered or arrested ... In the changing world, financial measures can be as effective as guns and death threats. The staggering criminal and civil lawsuits filed by this government, its politicians as well as politically connected businesses are one example of how state and legal powers can be used to suppress freedom of speech ... Prime Minister Thaksin is unlikely to take this index seriously. Just when it was made public last week, he launched a new stinging attack on the press. He surely will continue to claim that newspapers here are free to criticise him and thus the complaints about interference and the lack of freedom are absurd. But the truth he has tried to avoid is that the existence of vocal media here is owed mainly to a die-hard spirit which has survived in spite of him."