The Correspondent, November - December 2010

MEDIA THE PHOTO FESTIVAL THAT’S ALL OVER TOWN

OBITUARY THE BRILLANT MURRAY SAYLE REMEMBERED

BI-MONTHLY • NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2010

TURN ON, TUNE IN,

SPLASH OUT

IN REVIEW HOW JOURNALISM IS DEALING WITH THE NEW WORD ORDER

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 香港外國記者會

FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

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THE CORRESPONDENT

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2010 THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG

cover

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TUNE IN, TURN ON, SPLASH OUT

This issue of The Correspondent celebrates the Ninth Annual FCC Charity Ball, held in October, and thanks the dozens of sponsors who made this year’s event bigger, better and, most importantly, more charitable than ever. Robin Lynam joined the party.

news

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obituary

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MURRAY SAYLE: 1ST JANUARY, 1926 – 19TH SEPTEMBER, 2010

media

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SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

wall

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FACE OFF

review

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NEW WORLD, NEW WORDS

media

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PUBLISH AND BE BANNED

stiletto

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Max Kolbe on the Iranian writer who is serving a nineteen year prison sentence for blogging

then and now

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Chai Wan - in 1973 and today, by Bob Davis

meanwhile

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ZOO NIGHT: Yet another outstanding Harry Harrison cartoon

CHRISTMAS NEWS AND A MISSIVE FROM OUR NEW PRESIDENT

Philip Bowring and Don Kirk remember this brilliant journalist The wonderful Hong Kong Photo Festival celebrates 150 years of local photography across 18 gallery spaces. It is not to be missed The irrepressible Graham Uden shows his portraiture Two heavyweight journalists from media giants and arch-rivals Reuters and Bloomberg give the FCC their take on what a rapidly changing journalistic world means. Jonathan Sharp was there Malaysia is gearing up for a general election and that means more media censorship, writes Luke Hunt

Cover: Harry Harrison

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 Email: fcc@fcchk.org Website: www.fcchk.org

President: Anna Healy Fenton 1st Vice President: Stephen Vines 2nd Vice President: Francis Moriarty Correspondent Governors: Frederik Balfour, Keith Bradsher, Thomas Easton, Tara Joseph, Christopher Slaughter, Peter Stein, Stephen Vines, Neil Western Journalist Governors: Jake Van Der Kamp, David Lague Associate Governors: Andrew Paul Chworowsky, Thomas Crampton, Kevin Egan, Steve Ushiyama Goodwill Ambassadors: Clare Hollingworth, Anthony Lawrence General Manager: Gilbert Cheng The Correspondent © The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the Club.

Publications Committee Convener: Neil Western Editor: Richard Cook Produced by WordAsia Limited, Tel: 2805 1422, Email: fcc@wordasia.com www.wordasia.com

FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

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THE CORRESPONDENT

FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

THE CORRESPONDENT

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FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

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THE CORRESPONDENT

FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

THE CORRESPONDENT

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FCC BALL 2010 SUPER DIAMOND PARTNERS

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THE CORRESPONDENT

From the Club President

Dear Members, Outgoing president Tom Mitchell leaves the Club in great shape. �e �nances are strong, we’ve just seen another successful ball – the ninth – and the promotion to boost correspondent and journalist membership has produced an impressive pile of applications.

Tom’s hard work also sees club relations with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs at an all-time high, crucial for members whose work requires frequent mainland trips.

We wish Tom the very best at Financial Times HQ in London.

Just hope he realises that Hong Kong is the real Hotel California – “you can check out any time but you can never leave” - and that we expect to see him back here again.

Often. One word of advice – Tom, don’t get a two-bedroom �at, unless you also want to see lots of us again. Often. �e great thing about the FCC is that the exceptional work of our general manager Gilbert Cheng and his dedicated team means the Club runs like clockwork, with minimal interference from the Board. And since the best change is no change, members can be assured of no �xing of things that are not broken. What I would like to instigate are additions that make FCC membership more fun and the best possible value.

Since our main activities revolve around dining and drinking, this is a prime focus. �e inexpensive Correspondents’ Choice own label red and white wines are a hit and we have added two more, priced slightly higher as well as our own label sparkling wine, Hunter’s Miru Miru from New Zealand. �is was a roaring success at the

recent Hunter’s wine dinner and will be perfect for the Christmas party season at a very reasonable price. FCC chocolates are also in the pipeline. �e wine dinners go from strength to strength, not only great events in themselves, but they allow us to offer home delivery at exceptional discounts. None of this would be possible without Chef George’s endless creativity on the food front.

On the subject of events, quality over quantity is the goal for speaker lunches. We rely on members’ suggestions for good speakers – so please tell Professional Committee Convenor Keith Bradsher in good time of likely candidates coming to town. We welcome top people in any �eld – �nancial, legal, politics, sport and entertainment, both in English and Mandarin.

Improvements to the Club website continue, with an online

member directory coming soon.

Inclusion is optional. We’re also reducing FCC emails to members by putting as much housekeeping as possible on the website. A new staff member will take charge of social media and day-to-day website matters.

Something many members have raised is the possibility of creating a club welfare fund for charitable causes and members and staff in need. �is would be separate from the charity ball, which raises funds for the Po Leung Kuk. How best to do this is under discussion, but the idea is to hold club events, such as a dinner dance and charity casino night. Expect a progress report in the next issue.

Finally, it’s more than a year since renowned cartoonist, waspish wit and raconteur Arthur Hacker’s unfortunate fall down some slippery steps. �ree months in hospital followed, but thanks to the generous help of many members, he was able to move back home to Discovery Bay. He has made a good recovery and hopes to be back working soon, but in the meantime we have tried to help Arthur by organising at the Club a drinks evening that includes a sale of his many books. �e end of the year is always a busy time socially. I hope to see as many of you as possible in the Club over the next few weeks, and please put forward any ideas to me directly. �is is your Club and I look forward to hearing from you.

Anna Healy Fenton Club President THE CORRESPONDENT

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What’s on

Bad Pants Golf, the Sequel

Annual Press Awards The 15th Annual Human Rights Press Awards 2010, co-organized by the HK Journalists Association, Amnesty International and the FCC, is open for entry. This prestigious competition is open to journalists working for Hong Kong and Macau news media as well as Asia-based correspondents. For details, contact the Club office or see www.amnesty.org.hk, www. hkja.org.hk or www.fcchk.org.

Cricket wins continue

The second FCC Bad Pants Open was held in October at Kau Sai Chau and loud, colourful and outrageous pants filled the links like never before. Course marshals gawked, beer girls giggled and other golfers whiffed their shots. Winners were Jeremy Bolland with his “golfer’s grunge” look and Maygi Tsui who made a statement with her Country Club kitsch, while Tracy Kwan and Gary Leung were the golf winners.

Pictured are Andy Chan, Maygi Tsui, Sabrina Wong and Russ Julseth.

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THE CORRESPONDENT

Debutants Bradley Tarr and Matthew Davies led the FCC social cricket team to a famous victory over the Taverners at the hallowed HKCC in October. The big-hitting pair defied the gloom to chase down a target of 246, the highest in the short history of the side, with Davies planting one memorable six into the pavilion.

The hosts, who trounced the FCC last season, opted to bat first but stumbled to 38 to 3 with paceman Alex Price snagging two early wickets, one to a stunning left-handed catch by Tarr, and Al Bruce chipping in from the other end. The Taverners got into their stride as skipper Hari Kumar ensured everyone got to bowl a few overs, with Will Giles and Paul Christensen posing some problems with their spin variation.

By the time the FCCCC began their run chase the sun was already disappearing behind the hill at the Wong Nai Chung Gap Road end, but Tarr got the visitors off to a flying start before retiring at 30 as per the rules of social cricket. Davies took a few chances as he hit out from the start before retiring and, after a middle-order stumble, Richard Frost hit a steady 30 not out to steady the ship. A whirlwind 30 from Price put the FCCCC back in the game and when the FCC’s 13th batsman was out, Tarr and Davies returned to share a stand of more than 60 in just 5 overs to clinch the win as darkness fell.

What’s on Membership Our regular column dedicated to the comings and goings of members. It is for you and about you. So just had a baby? Got married?

Should you wish your fellow members to know about changes in your life simply email marketing@fcchk.org.

Hatched – An extremely warm welcome to these new members: Correspondents:

Correspondents: Andreana Holland, International Herald Tribune; Rishaard Salamat, Bloomberg Television; Ellen Sheng, Dow Jones Newswires.

Journalists:

Tyronne Henricus, South China Morning Post

Associates:

Richard Baker, First Eastern Investment Group; Francis Caruso, Chinatex (HK) Holdings; Chan Pui-Sze, Briscoe & Wong; Michael Chan Tse-Ho, Chanoval Partnership; Geoffrey Feeney, HSBC; Guy Fulton, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; Adam Goodman, Arrow Asia Shipbrokers; Geoffrey Green, Ashurst Hong Kong; Simon Hawkins, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Gina Hudel, RBS; Stephen Layton, Furnmart (Asia); Lin Shih-Chieh, Keywise Capital Management (HK); Yasmin Mahboobani, Jovian Creations; Duncan Mansfield, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group; Ng Wing-Lung, Sun Yip Hong Gold Dealers; George O’Kelley, Flextronics Manufacturing; Christopher Oram, Horizons Ventures; Simon Price, WH Smith Asia; Javed N Rahman, Alter Domus Asia; Haresh Shamdasani, Shelsham Trading; David Sharpe, Silver Quest; Michael Short, World-Check Online; Simon Smith, Savills Hong Kong; Teoh Chin-Chin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Carl Tong Ka-Wing, eSun Holdings; Rica Tong Wai-Yee, China Resources Property Managemen; Peter Troy, Troy Group; Richard Trythall, Wallem Group and Meiling Tsang, German Swiss International School.

Corporate:

Dhamodran Marimuthu, Mathew Davis and Benjamin Lee, Zetland Fiduciary Group Limited

Welcome back, absent members who have reactivated their membership: Correspondents:

James Seymour and Bill Condon

Associates:

Hiranand Bharwani, Jonathan Glusman, Gul Mirpuri, Murlidhar Maiya, Shivan Sujanani and Wu Gang

A fond farewell to members leaving Hong Kong: Caleb Goddard, Bloomberg Asia-Pacific TV, Freelance Journalist Joanna Baker, Paul Husband, Husband Retail Consulting.

Also resigning:

Josh O’Connor, Bloomberg; Gerlinde Igler & Christian Zeitsch, Bayerische Landesbank

Bon voyage to those also leaving but who wisely became Absent Members: Correspondents:

Leslie Hook, the Financial Times; Andy Maluche, Photographer; Ishann Thaoor, Time.

Journalists:

Tama Miyake Lung, Freelance.

Associates:

Paul Alton, Hawley & Hazel Chemical Company; John Barclay, Government of HKSAR; James Binnie, Murrayfield; Bevan Bruce Civil Aviation Department; Andrew Kemp, Thomas Miller; Vishal Mirpuri, Citigroup; Isabella Sin; David Smith; Humphrey Valenbreder, ABN AMRO Bank and Judy Yu Chun-Ngor, The Asia Foundation.

Other Changes:

Mydi Eckes has been granted Honorary Member status.

THE CORRESPONDENT

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What’s on

Reciprocal Clubs

Red Capital Club, Beijing Hidden inside a network of historic old hutongs, this atmospheric courtyard venue with excellent food and kitschy retro-red 1950s design, is well worth a visit writes Robin Lynam.

THE CORRESPONDENT

E. 2nd Ring Rd

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Dongzhimen S Alley

Dongsi 5 St

Although the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has no clubhouse of its own, any FCC member visiting Beijing should certainly check its calendar for events of social or professional interest organised at venues around the city.

Another reciprocal option - if you want to rub shoulders with the more affluent members of the city’s business movers and shakers - is to drop in at the bar of the very upmarket Chang An Club.

If it is atmosphere you are seeking however – and if you don’t mind getting lost in the hutongs on the way there - The Red Capital Club is the place you are looking for.

Like the Clube Militar in Macau, the club’s main feature is its food and beverage service, and it is open to the general public, but FCC members do enjoy a 10% discount and a particularly warm welcome.

The club, which is open from 6pm to 11pm, is located in an old courtyard house and would be very difficult to find were it not for the 1970s Hongqi Red Flag limousine permanently parked outside.

Go through the gates and head for the Cigar Divan – no need for smokers to hang around outside here – and the décor implacably recalls the design aesthetics of the first decade or so of the PRC. Many of the furnishings in the lounge were at one time or another property of the Politburo, and a couple of sofas were supposedly at one point used by Lin Biao and his entourage. Mao and Deng memorabilia are strewn all over the place.

Cocktails have a revolutionary theme, and pack a punch. Lin’s fall first from grace and then from a great height are commemorated with a vodka and blue curacao concoction tastefully called “Lin Biao’s Crash”.

Mix gin, campari, grenadine, and Chinese cassia flower wine and you have a “Long March”, assuming, of course, that you can still walk.

The dining room is geared more towards imperial splendour in its design, being dominated by dragon robe embroidery, but the calligraphy on display is Zhou Nan’s, and the Communist Party’s angle on Chinese gastronomy served as the inspiration for the menu.

The club prides itself on banquets, served for a minimum of ten, comprising dishes which were personal favourites of Mao, Di’anmen E St Deng and Zhou Enlai, although there are also acknowledgements to Genghis Khan, Empress Dowager Cixi and a recipe from the Dream of the Red Chamber.

Mao’s idea of gastronomic heaven apparently was “Red Roasted Pork”, a good old-fashioned peasant dish consisting largely of a potentially heart stopping quantity of fat.

Palace Zhou Enlai’s preferences were more refined, and the platter dedicated to him consists of asparagus spears arranged in the shape of a fan. “Xiaoping’s Spice of Life” is a spicy chicken dish.

It’s kitsch, of course – or “retro chic” if you prefer - but it’s fun, the food is generally good, and it’s quite unlike anything else in Beijing.

Established in 1999 the club was the first of the businesses The Red Capital Club, Laurence Brahm established under the Red Capital banner, No 6, Dongsi Jiu Tiao Dongcheng District which now also include a boutique hotel, the nearby Red Capital Beijing 100007 Residence, and Shambhala at the Great Wall (originally called Tel: 86-(0)-10 6402 7151 the Red Capital Ranch), an eco tourism resort. FCC members Email: info@redcapitalclub.com.cn also enjoy a 10% discount at those.

Website: www.redcapitalclub.com.

Club Festive Programme Christmas Day Buffet

Christmas Set Dinner

Saturday December 25, 2010 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm

December 24 & 25, 2010

Adults: HK$298 (with 1 glass of sparkling wine) Children under 12: HK$138 (with unlimited soft drinks)

MENU

Soup

Lobster Bisque with Brandy Cream

Salads

Mesclun Salad with Dressings & Condiments Niçoise Salad with Peppered Tuna Sumac Chicken & Kumara & Pecan Salad Apple Slaw Salad with Nuts & Raisins Caramelized Pumpkin & Wild Rice Salad Tabbouleh Salad German Potato Salad with Bacon Hummus with Pitta Bread

Cold Platters

Freshly Shucked Oysters Chilled Dilled Crayfish & Mussels with Cocktail Sauce, Red Onion Vinegar and Lemon Smoked Norwegian Salmon & Gravlax Assortment of Pates & Terrines Charcuterie & Air-cured Meats Platter Assorted Sushi and Sashimi with Condiments Buffalo Cheese, Avocado & Blush Tomato Curried Prawns with Mayo on Avocado Shell

Carvery

Roast Turkey with Chestnut & Sage Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce Honey-glazed Ham in Bread Crust, Madeira Sauce and Apple Sauce Chinese Barbecued Meat Counter Roti Prata Station with Lamb Rogan Josh & Chicken Kastari

Hot Dishes

$398 per person MENU Fresh King Prawn & Crumbed Scallop Composed with Snow Pea Tendril, Tatsoi and Shiso Salad Sweet Mustard & Dill Dressing * Crustacean Chowder & Truffled Ravioli served on Sour Dough Bread * William Pear Sorbet * Roast U.S. Turkey with Honey Glazed Ham Chestnut & Sage stuffing, Brussels Sprouts Candied Sweet Potato, Glazed Chestnut & Carrot Cranberry Relish and Gilblet Gravy OR Roast Whole Australian Tenderloin Wild Mushrooms Polenta, Confit Shallot, Glazed Cep Kenya Beans and Parmesan Cracklin, Red Wine Jus * Festive Homemade Christmas Pudding With Ginger Bread Ice Cream, Brandy Sauce OR Ginger Pumpkin Pie With Honey Lemon Grass Ice Cream * Freshly Brewed Coffee or Gourmet Tea Festive Petit Fours

New Year’s Eve Party

Roasted Rack of Lamb with Provencale Herbs Fillet Mignon with Porcini Sauce Seared SeaBass coated with Herbs Friday December 31, 2010 in Olive Capers Sauce 7:00pm Cocktails / 8:00 pm Dinner Mushroom & Vegetable Lasagna Sautéd Scallops & Shrimps in X.O. Sauce MAIN DINING ROOM with Holland Beans $1,288 Pork Chops in Dark Vinegar Includes pre-dinner cocktails Fried Rice with Conpoy & Egg White 6-course dinner & breakfast Chef Specialty Chicken Music performed by the 9th State Band Glazed Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Roast New Potatoes With a wide range of pop rock with Allen Youngblood

Desserts

MAIN BAR & HUGHES ROOM Christmas Pudding with Brandy Sauce $565 Mince Pies Includes pre-dinner cocktails & buffet dinner Marble Cheesecake Christmas Yule Log BERT’S X’mas Pudding with Brandy Sauce $783 Marble Chocolate Brownies Includes pre-dinner cocktails & 6–course dinner Seasonal Fruit Platter Disco boogie with DJ Ivan Assorted Cheese Platter Complimentary French Sparkling for booked tables of with Sliced Baguettes & Crackers six or more persons Chocolate Fountain Mini Soufflé Counter: Chocolate & Vanilla BREAKFAST BUFFET IN MAIN BAR Strawberries, Kiwi Fruit, Melon Cubes, Marshmallows $125 Bread & Butter THE CORRESPONDENT From 1:30 a m onwards Coffee and Tea

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Obituary

Murray Sayle 1ST January, 1926 — 19TH September, 2010

Image: Elliott Erwitt

Australian Murray Sayle died in Sydney in September aged 84, after enjoying a brilliant and unique career as a journalist, commentator, novelist and adventurer. He covered wars in Vietnam, Pakistan and the Middle East, broke the story of Che Guevara in Bolivia, was the first to track down Kim Philby in Moscow, almost climbed Everest and did sail the Atlantic single-handedly. Here he is remembered by two friends and colleagues. First by former FCC President, Philip Bowring, who first met Murray when he lived in Hong Kong in the 1970s. And overleaf, by Don Kirk, who knew him from Vietnam in the 1960s.

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THE CORRESPONDENT

Obituary

M

urray Sayle is perhaps the most remarkable journalist I ever had the good fortune of knowing. I �rst met him and Jenny in Hong Kong and got to know Murray a little when we staying at the same hotel in Saigon in April 1975, passing many a curfew hour chatting at the bar. It was the beginning of a 35-year friendship. I last saw him in December last year.

Of course he could be annoying, but in the nicest possible way. He turned up unexpectedly at my Stanley �at one day in 1982 just two days after our return from honeymoon.

So the �rst experience Claudia and I had of officially living together was acting as daily foils for Murray’s outpouring of words and interesting, challenging ideas and analysis.

One could not say No to Murray, so forceful was his personality, the independence of his mind and rewarding his thoughts.

He was also himself always hospitable to the many friends, and probably a few impostors, who took the train from Yokahama to Atsugi station where he or Jenny met them and drove, for the �rst several years, to their old wooden former farmhouse on a hillside in the village of Aikawa. �is house subsequently burned down to be replaced by the provision of another, complete with furniture and utensils, by the neighbours who rallied round the foreign couple who had made Aikawa their home and sent their three children to the local school. �is existence allowed Murray to read and think but he was never so far out of the way that contact with Tokyo and fellow journalists was lost. Aikawa was beyond commuter belt, but not by much. �is existence, writing occasional but extraordinarily thoughtful and

well-researched long articles, was possible in large part because of the untiring efforts of Jenny who managed the house, brought up the children, learned the language and taught in the local school.

I remember staying at the house only a couple of weeks after eldest child, Alex, was born. It was mid-winter, the place was freezing but there was Jenny simultaneously feeding the baby, cooking dinner, tending to the dogs while Murray kept up a monologue from his bed on some doubtless crucial topic.

I was then already well into Murray’s debt. A couple of years earlier, about 1978, we were taking a stroll along Stanley beach when he saw a “For Sale” notice on a tiny, gaff-rigged �breglass dinghy. “Can you sail?”, asked the man who has sailed in a solo transatlantic race. No, I replied. How, he then implied, could I live in Hong Kong and so close to a beach from which one could sail and not do so?

I was thus persuaded to contact the owner and, after one brief sail with Murray explaining lots of things that went over my head, I was persuaded to buy it. Murray returned to Tokyo and I was left to teach myself with the help of some books and the experience of several capsizes. And thus began my love affair with sailing. So thank you, Murray.

Knowing Murray did not of course make it any easier dealing with him professionally. He wrote a few pieces for the Far Eastern Economic Review but even the Review, which often let cover stories run to 5,000 words, found it difficult to cope with Murray’s demand that his 9,000 words be subject only to the lightest editing.

Fortunately his remarkable if infrequent output from Japan did �nd outlets, mostly in US publications such as �e New Yorker. He appeared to have come a

long way from his youthful days of sex and crime scoops for �e People, or middle years of climbing Mt Everest, and �nding Kim Philby and Che Guevara for the Sunday Times, and helping write “Do You Sincerely Want to be Rich”, the classic story of international fund fraudster Bernie Cornfeld and his Investors Overseas Services.

But it was the same Murray with his relentless search for facts, to get behind official statements and bland reporting to the real story.

It was this searching that led him to resign from the Sunday Times when it refused to run his (later vindicated) investigative article on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland.

Even after illness forced Murray and family to move back to Australia in 2005 he continued to keep his mind working on the issues of the day, always eager to produce theories and engage in debate. �e last three years or so in a nursing home close to where he went to school in the Sydney suburb of Canterbury however were difficult.

I saw him there twice during that time. He was as eager as ever to talk but increasingly frustrated by his physical incapacity and the con�nes of a room in a home from which he knew there was only one exit.

His passing is a reminder not only of his achievements but of just how trite so much journalism has become in the age when the BBC boasts its Twitter count, the once ground-breaking Sunday Times is now just another Murdoch consumer product, and an ever more parochial Australian media has virtually given up covering Japan.

Let’s hope a Murray reincarnation is already on this earth.

Philip Bowring THE CORRESPONDENT

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Obituary

M

urray behaved a little differently from the run of Anglo empire correspondents when I �rst ran into him in Saigon, probably at the �ve o’clock follies, the daily U.S military brie�ngs, all those years ago.

Unlike most of them, he didn’t have the air of either the Oxbridge types or the breed who’d gone to work as office boys at 16 and �gured by the time they were covering Vietnam they were pretty tough “blokes” and knew it all. Murray de�ed all stereotypes. I remember one of my �rst conversations with him over dinner on the top �oor of the Majestic Hotel, overlooking the Saigon River, where I was staying.

He didn’t mind saying what he thought, and he listened to my views too, all quite different from most of the Brits and Aussies I ran into during those years in and out of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

From there, we went on numerous stories out of Saigon, up Route One toward Tay Ninh, down in the Mekong Delta, sometimes to places that weren’t all that “secure.” Before going down a canal in a �shing boat with Don Tate, correspondent for the Scripps-Howard papers, Murray wanted to know what we were getting into. As we cruised by pastoral scenes, waving at kids on the banks, he cautioned of the need for “reconnaissance.”

We got to calling Murray “bao chi” – Vietnamese for reporter. He talked about some of his exploits but didn’t brag. I didn’t know, until I read the obituaries, that Murray had been “Chief Correspondent” for the Sunday Times and had quite a reputation on Fleet Street.

Murray would chat it up with anyone. After listening intently to one old man we were interviewing he told me bluntly “droopy drawers” was living in the past.

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THE CORRESPONDENT

After Vietnam, the next time I saw Murray he had the august title of Asia Editor of Newsweek…

He was not happy about the job, complaining about “21-year-olds from Brooklyn” rewriting his florid prose. By the time he quit, he hated the magazine totally

At some point, he’d say he had to get back to Saigon by Friday and write 2,000 words for the paper.

I never actually saw what he �led, but he made his routine sound almost rhythmic, embellishing stories with on-scene colour and impressions from everywhere.

Many years later, I did see a 12,000-word review that he wrote for the London Review of Books in 2002 in which I was a little startled to �nd, lower down, “Don Kirk of the Chicago Tribune and I were shelled in the cemetery of a village that had declared for the VC, by South Vietnamese who knew perfectly well who we were” but were blaming “the Western press” for the sellout of the 1973 Paris Peace. Uh, I’m not sure the village, in the upper delta, was “VC,” and I don’t recall shells landing where we were though they may have been �red overhead to scare us away.

Whatever, the story was accurate about attitudes. Murray conveyed basic truths – no need to let petty details get in the way.

After Vietnam, the next time I saw Murray he had the august title of Asia Editor of Newsweek. He also had a new young wife, Jenny, whom he had met when she took dictation from him on shortwave calls as he was traversing the Atlantic in a sail boat for the Sunday Times. �ey were living in a crowded ground-level �at in Kowloon, not the luxury digs one might have expected to go along with the new title, and they had an infant son. Murray was not happy about the job, complaining about “21-year-olds from Brooklyn” rewriting his �orid prose. By the time he quit, he hated the magazine totally. Later, the late Maynard Parker, Hong Kong and Saigon bureau chief, who had either hired or recommended him, told me Murray “wasn’t made for Newsweek.”

Obituary

He, Jenny and their child, the �rst of three, soon shifted to Japan, his home for the next 30 years.

When I saw him again, they and one or two more kids were living in a farmhouse in a village named Aikawa-cho, in the countryside south of the Tokyo sprawl. He’d gotten the house for almost nothing. �e family, plus any odd guest and a dog named Chomo, slept on futons. Jenny did the cooking and most of the cleaning and taught English nearby and in Tokyo, a terribly crowded two-hour commute away. �e kids all went to a local Japanese school.

A night or a weekend out there was an experience, Murray spinning stories, showing stuff he’d written, in draft or in print, attacking editors who he said had reached their lofty positions by “kissing bum and punching clocks.” Every week or two he’d go into Tokyo, sometimes with Jenny, holding court at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, entertaining the bar. Eventually he was doing television specials. I recall a scene where he was yakking from the depths of a steaming Japanese bath.

After some years, Murray began writing for �e New Yorker and �e Atlantic. A couple of memorable pieces had to do with Hiroshima and the downing in 1983 of KAL 007 by a Soviet �ghter plane. His Hiroshima piece for �e New Yorker was probably his greatest single achievement – almost an entire issue devoted to why the Japanese would have surrendered without the A-bombing.

Murray, Jenny and children suffered one terrible experience in Aikawa-cho that could have been tragic but wasn’t. While Murray was travelling, their farmhouse, built of thin wood with sliding doors and a thatched roof, burnt to the ground. Murray credited Jenny with rescuing the kids.

Every week or two he’d go into Tokyo, sometimes with Jenny, holding court at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, entertaining the bar. Eventually Murray was doing television specials. I recall a scene where he was yakking from the depths of a steaming Japanese bath He spoke to me later of the bravery of women in defence of their family. Murray owed not only that but much else to Jenny, who maintained life on an even keel, teaching English when times were tough for Murray. She got the kids to school and held the home together. It was due to her relations and popularity in the neighbourhood that local people got the family a new house, somewhat smaller but safer, in the same village.

Around this time, maybe in�uenced by the �re, Murray began to see Japan failing as a society and a country -- a view that pervaded a lengthy article he wrote for �e Atlantic. �ose who knew him in Japan got much longer versions in numerous conversations. I remember him saying, the last time I made the pilgrimage to Aikawacho, a dozen years ago, that Japan was “through,” “�nished.” It was, as they say, a good story and might even be true.

I missed seeing Murray as he gradually faded away with Parkinson’s and he, Jenny and the family went to Australia, the land of Murray’s upbringing, for

medical treatment. We remained in touch through cards and emails.

Jenny spread the word of the republication a couple of years ago of Murray’s Fleet Street novel Crooked Sixpence, the �rst edition of which was pulped in a crazy libel suit that I heard him talking about but never fully understood. A photograph shows him getting an honorary doctorate from Sydney University, where he studied before migrating to Fleet Street. Others show him seated in front of his family, Jenny a pillar of support to the last. �e last one, for 2010, shows Murray at the Amity Aged Care Home. He looks quite gaunt, his face vacant but cast in a mode of determination, as if forever focused on a story, Jenny beside him, Matt, Alex and Lindi standing behind.

“I’m afraid Murray is increasingly frail,” says the note from Jenny, “but at least he is not aware how long he has been in the home.” I wonder how much, or even if, he knew of the long belated success of “Crooked Sixpence”. �ose who worked with Murray may remember his interviewing style -- he did most of the talking, telling garrulous stories, interspersed with caustic remarks, occasionally letting the interviewee interrupt with a comment. �at was Murray. Others will have their own special memories of this unique, unforgettable, funloving and thoroughly kind and decent individual. Over the years he was an enduring friend everywhere -- in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Japan -- and the friend of numerous others whom he had down to his farmhouse for great conversations and storytelling -- Murray telling the stories, others listening, sometimes applauding, exit laughing.

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COVER STORY – FCC BALL 2010

The 9th Annual Charity Ball This year’s Annual FCC Charity Ball, held in October, was bigger, better and, most importantly - more charitable than ever. Robin Lynam just about remembers it.

All images: Terry Duckham, Asiapix

“It gets increasingly smooth every year,” says Andy Chworowsky, Co-Chair of the FCC Charity Ball Committee and its long-serving Master of Ceremonies.

“When I go on stage at �ve past eight there’s a burst of energy and I know I’ll be down in two hours - and then I can have a drink.” �is year’s ball, the 9th, featuring star attraction Creedence Clearwater Revisited, did indeed go smoothly, and raised over HK$7 million for the Po Leung Kuk/J.P.Morgan/FCC Language Training Program, the Po Leung Kuk/Merrill Lynch/FCC Children’s Learning Centre, the Po Leung Kuk/UBS/FCC Child Development Program, and the Po Leung Kuk/Henrik Nielsen/FCC Scholarship Fund.

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an event in its own right, and this year’s proved spectacularly so, thanks in part to a troupe of colourfully attired stiltwalkers, borrowed for the evening from �e Venetian Macao who posed with revellers for photographs, and mingled with the crowd while towering - for the most part - above it. One girl, whose leg extensions had more or less doubled her height, looked distinctly puzzled to �nd herself at only about the same elevation as Karl Grebstad, who was, I think, stooping slightly. “�ey had a great time and said they’ll bring more people next year,” says Andy.

As usual the liquor suppliers had pulled out a fair number of stops. An ice bar, in which the ball’s Founding Chairman David Garcia seemed to be taking a particular interest, had been constructed serving Patron Tequila shots and cocktails, and 12-year-old Glenlivet was being dispensed in dangerously generous measures.

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For those playing it safe there was always prosecco, glasses of which were being passed around by the man who made it, Sandro Bottega, an amiably voluble stage Italian who had also generously supplied some of the wines for the tables, as well as the digestifs.

FCC ex-presidents were fairly thick on the ground, including Ball Committee Co-Chair �omas Crampton, Keith Richburg, now based in Beijing, who had �own in specially, and soon to be ex-president Tom Mitchell who had dropped by to deliver a short speech before catching his plane to London later the same evening. �e speech was intended to be Tom’s �nal presidential duty, but General Manager Gilbert Cheng had reserved one last cheque for him to sign, which he ceremonially did at a mini farewell party, staged for him in the foyer by the numerous FCC staff who had volunteered to help in various ways at the event.

As Andy and Tom both pointed out, the contribution made by Club staff to the ball is immense, both in the run up to it - during which much of the burden falls on the shoulders of Gilbert, Hoi Lo Chan and Alex Lee who also serve on the Ball Committee and on the night, when everybody who can cheerfully pitches in. �eir presence is one of the elements that stamps a real FCC identity on to an event attended by large numbers of people who are not necessarily members of the Club. �e foyer party is also the time when ball-goers get an insight into what the evening is really all about, because they get a chance to meet some of the students from the Po Leung Kuk schools.

Younger children in colourful costumes greeted arriving guests, and mingling with the throng were some of the winners of the Po Leung Kuk/Henrik Nielsen/FCC Scholarship Fund who are already studying at local universities. “�eir dreams,” Tom Mitchell noted, “are varied. �ey want to be – to cite just a few of the aspirations of this year’s candidates – teachers, doctors, police officers, investment bankers, social workers and dentists. �e scholarship funds this ball raises will help them achieve those dreams.”

He didn’t mention accountancy or journalism, which are the intended careers of Lo Yuet Ping who is studying at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Tsang Tsz Hin who is studying for a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Communication at the Baptist University of Hong Kong.

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con�dence and poise, and I tried to talk Ms Tsang out of journalism on the grounds that there is absolutely no money in it. She’s young and idealistic though, and I don’t think she was paying close attention. �e stilt walkers herded us capably in to dinner and after everybody had found their places, and Andy had welcomed everybody to the ball, various speeches and cheque presentations followed.

Tom spoke, followed by Po Leung Kuk Chairman Quincy Lui, after which came the presentation of generous cheques from J.P. Morgan by Michael Fung; Prosperity Holdings Hong Kong Ltd by Amanda Li; Matthew Marsh; and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

by John Lee. Perhaps the most arresting speech though came in the form of a thank you from Melissa Lau Shan Shan, one of the 2009 scholarship winners and chair of the FCC Scholarship Alumni Association. �e association was founded in 2007 by the scholarship winners of 2007/2008, and currently has 82 members. It is intended to maintain a connection between the FCC and the scholars, and to keep the scholars in touch with each other for purposes of mutual assistance – older students or graduates help younger ones through a mentorship programme – and to undertake voluntary community service, some of it through the Po Leung Kuk’s community centres. �e recipients of the scholarships seem to believe in giving back, which is encouraging. “�e past year was incredibly awesome,” said Ms Lau. “�e �nancial burden was alleviated, no more rush for part-time jobs after school, and no more panic about tuition fees…I am sure my fellow scholarship winners would feel the same way. It is all because of you sponsors. It is your generous donations yesterday that help our education today. And we are ready to give back to society tomorrow, because we were once supported and cared for by sponsors of whom we could not even catch their names.”

On to the auction, overseen as ever by Hong Kong Jockey Club Racing Club manager Mark Richards, this year with the assistance of Richard Ellis Chairman and CEO, Asia Paci�c Rob Blain.

It produced some sensational results with astonishingly competitive bidding for the top selling item - a green blazer with the US Masters Tournament logo signed by winners Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Phil Mickelson, Gary Player, Jose Maria Olazabal, Tommy Aaron, Larry Mize, Vijay Singh, Ben Crenshaw, Trevor Immelman, Ray Floyd, Ian Woosman, Mark O’Meara, Zack Johnson,

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Centre stage:

Melissa Lau, Chairperson of the FCC Scholarship Alumni Association, with members of the Alumni, who took to the Charity Ball Stage to thank the FCC and sponsors for making it all possible.

Charles Coody, Mike Weir, Fred Couples, Nick Faldo, Tom Watson, Craig Stadler, Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Doug Ford, Fuzzy Zoeller, Billy Casper, Sandy Lyle, Bob Goalby, Jack Burke and Ben Crenshaw. �e jacket went for an astonishing HK$310,000 – HK$10,000 more than a copy of �e Beatles (aka �e White Album) signed by John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Other lots were sold for prices ranging from HK$10,000 for a Super Bowl XLIII Helmet signed by the 2008 winning team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to HK$210,000 for an Epiphone Les Paul guitar signed by former Guns and Roses axeman Slash.

It is one indication of how successful the auction was that the HK$200,000 realised for a guitar signed by the late Michael Jackson was regarded as slightly disappointing.

Altogether HK$1,670,000 was raised and a “silent auction” netted a further HK$670,479.

Po Leung Kuk schoolchildren contributed signi�cantly to the entertainment during dinner. �ere was the now traditional dance performance, this year from the children of the Li Tsui Chung Sing Memorial Kindergarten, and also a solo performance from a young student of the Choi Kai Yau School, Tiger Yip, who gave the �rst of the evening’s two memorable renditions of John Fogerty’s Have You Ever Seen �e Rain? �e second of course came from the headliners, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, effectively a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band, but one built around that classic rock act’s own original bassist and drummer – Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford.

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Conspicuously absent, of course, was Fogerty, who wrote and produced almost all the hits, as well as singing and playing lead guitar on them, but who now talks to his former bandmates only through lawyers.

For the serious Creedence fan the performance was inevitably something of a case of Hamlet without the Prince, but for most of the ball-goers, who packed the dance �oor for the whole of a lengthy set, it is probably fair to say that the presence of Cook and Clifford was enough to make the run through of perhaps the greatest bar band repertoire in rock something special.

Both men are 65, but play with undiminished energy. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist John Tristao does a very passable imitation of Fogerty’s highly distinctive voice.

Rounding out the group were multi instrumentalist Steve Gunner and – playing his �rst gig with them after an absence of several years – lead guitarist Elliot Easton.

Easton is a rock star in his own right having been one of the founder members of �e Cars – You Might �ink, Drive etc – but, as Cook explained to me backstage after their performance, he loves the Creedence tunes having cut his musical teeth playing them in highschool bands.

Easton’s solos, particularly on the free-form cover of Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It �rough the Grapevine, provided some of the musical high points of the night.

For well over an hour they played nothing but hits – Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Lodi, Hey Tonight and many more, including Have You Ever Seen �e Rain? – before “Cosmo Clifford” called the last number, Up Around the Bend, and announced that afterwards he would sign his drumsticks as the last auction item of the night. �ey went for HK$25,000.

DJ Bob Youill did a good job keeping dancers on the �oor after the band quit, and the evening gently wound down.

Next year, for the 10th anniversary, another famous American band from the classic rock era has been booked, �e Doobie Brothers, which does still have both the frontmen from it’s 1970s glory days, Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons.

Doobie Brothers hits include Long Train Running, Listen to �e Music, China Grove, Black Water, Dark Eyed Cajun Woman and many more. �e current lineup also performs some material from the band’s later era when Michael McDonald took over most of the lead vocals and contributed hits such as it Keeps You Running and What a Fool Believes.

McDonald is not a member of the current band, but like various other former members has been known to sit in as a guest.

October 28, 2011, is the date to mark in your diary. It should be a good night. �is year’s ball certainly was.

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Media

Something Old, Something New

The Hong Kong Photo Festival is a wonderfully widespread celebration of photography that fills 18 exhibitions and spans more than 150 years.

It is organised by the HK Photographic Culture Association, a loose collection of local photographers, who hope to run the event every two years. Association Chairman, Leong Ka Tai – who is also a longtime FCC member – says the overall aim is to open photography to all. “Digital technology has driven a huge resurgence in photography and we want to show those that only know photography through putting photos on Facebook that there is so much more to it.” Shown here is the Festival’s opening exhibition - featuring rare archive photos of Hong Kong collected from seven museums in Europe and the United States - and the “highlight exhibition” that showcases the latest art photography from HK, Mainland China, Macau and Taiwan, while the next issue of The Correspondent will feature the “Mongolia, Land of the Deer Stone” exhibition that hung in the FCC during November. The Festival runs until the end of December. For more information, see www.hkphotofest.org.

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Canon Presents First Photographs of Hong Kong: Top: From the Public Gardens near Albany, 1860s.

Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection. Left: A Hong Kong Comprador, 1861. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Above Right: Hong Kong from ‘The Ground’, 1858. Régine Thiriez Collection. Facing Left: The Cricket and Parade Ground, 1870. Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection THE CORRESPONDENT

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Canon Presents First Photographs of Hong Kong: Top Left Race Course, 1860-64. Top Right: Governor’s Residence, 1868. Both Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Middle Left: The Peak, 1880. Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection Middle Right: The Praya Looking West, 1868.

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Below Right: Canton Ferry Pier in Central, 1868-74.

Dennis George Crow Collection

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Four Dimensions - Contemporary Photography from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau Above Left: Xian Yun Qiang, Liaoning, PRC - 2006 Above Right: Chen Po I, Taiwan - 2009 Centre Top: Chung Shun Lung, Taiwan – 2002 Centre Bottom: Lam Wai Kit, Hong Kong – 2010 Below: Hou Shur Tzy, Taiwan – 2009

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Four Dimensions - Contemporary Photography from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau Wei Bi, Hu’nan, PRC – 2009

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The Wall

Graham Uden Shows His ‘Face Off ’

The irrepressible photographer, Graham Uden, exhibited his diverse portraiture work at the Club’s Wall Gallery during October and November.

The images, taken over two decades and in more than a dozen countries, speak for themselves.

Top Left and Top Right: Syria, 2003 Left: Indonesia, 2008 Above: Uzbekistan, 1992 Below: Oman, 2010

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The Wall

Top Left: China, 1992 Top Right: Afghanistan, 2001 Below Left: Hong Kong, 1994 Below Right : Hong Kong, 2007

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Top Left: India, 1998 Top Right: Afghanistan, 2001 Right: China, 1992 Below Left: China, 2005 Below Right: USA, 1989

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The Wall

Top Left: Iraq, 2003 Top Right: Thailand, 1995 Right: China, 1992 Below Left: Russia, 1992 Below Right: Hong Kong, 2009

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In Review

New World, New Words The frenetic pace of technological advance, barely slowed by the screeching brakes of economic downturn, has stirred seismic shifts and raised unsettling issues for practitioners of the profession that brought the FCC into being. Two heavyweight journalists from media giants and arch-rivals Reuters and Bloomberg give their take on what it all means.

Jonathan Sharp reports

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avid Schlesinger, Editorin-Chief of Reuters News at �omson Reuters, and Amanda Bennett, Bloomberg’s Executive Editor for Projects & Investigations, have at least two things in common. First, they have both been reporters in Beijing, Schlesinger as Reuters’ Bureau Chief in the early 1990s, and Bennett for the Wall Street Journal a decade earlier.

Second, both have awardwinning careers in journalism, not just as participants in the careening course of the media world but as persons charged with helping their employers to survive and thrive in the midst of change.

Schlesinger, under the title “News in the Digital World; Whither Journalists and Journalism?” spoke in terms that might sound unpalatable to hacks steeped in a traditional tradecraft and culture that has served them reasonably well in days not so long ago.

But he was refreshingly blunt. “�e profession of journalism is losing both value and respect,” he said, citing a Gallup poll showing a record 57% of Americans had little or no trust in the mass media to report fully, accurately and fairly.

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“Instead people look to the friends – their community – for information, for validation, for argument and for illumination.

What is great about 2010 is that technology has created a completely new concept of community. And it has given that community new powers to inform and connect,” he said.

“Facebook status updates become a newsfeed created by people I know and even often like.

A Twitter feed is a news service of facts, opinions and referrals from an ever-vigilant army of people with similar interests and proclivities.” �e public is willing to pay for tools such as iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. But what about the content and the journalists who create that content?

“Far too often the answer is ‘no’.”

He has further salutary prognostications.

“Pure facts don’t tell enough of the story; pure facts won’t earn their way…” �e old one-way relationship between editor and audience had no place any more, he said. “Today, it’s context, connectedness and community that matter. �at’s why the traditional agency or ‘wire’ pouring out a never-ending stream

of ’more’ can’t be the answer.”

Journalists who understand and embrace the rami�cations of the new technology will survive. “�ose that don’t will become irrelevant.”

He continues: “I’m as excited about content that gets created in a chat room by journalists and readers interacting together as I am about a good story being pushed out. Sometimes I’m even more excited because the intelligent interaction between people who all know something about a topic can create a much smarter product than any one writer struggling at the computer alone.

“Is it journalism? Sometimes it is pure journalism. Sometimes it’s commentary. Sometimes it’s just a sharing of ideas or the annotating of a graphic. But whatever you call it, it is an intelligent service between the journalist and the customer and that’s something we should be aiming for.”

Schlesinger reeled off what he sees as the rules for survival in today’s journalism. �ey include: Knowing the story is not enough; the conversation about the story is as important as the story itself; the more you try to be paternalistic and authoritative, the less people

In Review

will believe you; the more you cede control to your audience, the more people will respect you; the more you embrace new technology, the more your ideas will compete; the more you look beyond the story for connections, the more value you will have.

And, if you have value, and no one else does, you will get paid.

“Simple? No. But it is exciting and transforming.”

Bloomberg’s Bennett, speaking at an earlier lunchtime session, took a different slant on the challenges facing the profession, focusing on investigative journalism.

Is this time-honoured, but expensive, form of news gathering threatened by media budget cuts and journalist lay-offs? And is investigative journalism worth the effort by hard-pressed newspapers when the Internet cornucopia is laid out before us?

She said that there had been

nothing short of a bloodbath in journalism in the United States in the past �ve years, with media organisations struggling to �nd viable business models as advertising emigrated to the Internet.

But does this mean that only huge, deep pocketed organisations like Bloomberg could afford the time and cost of in-depth reporting?

Not necessarily, said Bennett, saying that during her brief visit to Hong Kong she had been impressed by examples of investigative reporting in the media, including probes into the tainted milk scandal in China.

And investigative reporting need not necessarily gobble up the efforts of hordes of reporters, added Bennett, who is co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board and therefore well placed to comment on journalism’s best and brightest.

One Pulitzer she said she was most proud of helping to award

went to a reporter at a 7,000circulation newspaper in Virginia. �e reporter had unearthed how oil and gas companies ripped off people by not paying them royalties.

“It was worth doing and it had an impact in that it got people who are very, very poor access to revenue that they should have had all along.”

She said while there had been no deterioration in the quality of work submitted to the Pulitzer Board, there had been some reduction in volume. “But we’ve seen a lot more creativity in how people are getting their stories.”

Is she optimistic or pessimistic about the future of investigative journalism? Yes, times are tough now, Bennett said, but added: “�e future of investigative reporting is going to be extraordinary. But it’s going to belong to the next generation.”

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Media

Publish and be banned As Malaysia appears to gear up for an early general election, sometime in the first half of 2011, the government media controllers are once again out in force – with censorship measures, court actions and a tight publishing permit system that attempts to control the editorial output of all of Malaysia’s newspapers. None of which is helping the country’s aspirations to be seen on the international stage as a fullyfledged democracy, writes Luke Hunt.

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pposition newspapers in Malaysia have always faced a difficult road. Dissent risks legal action and possible bankruptcy while government-imposed publishing laws have spawned local and well practised brands of selfcensorship.

In recent years, internet publications and bloggers like Raja Petra Kamarudin have ignored the official censors and challenged the perceived legitimacy of the mainstream press.

However, old habits die hard and a newspaper run by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Keadilan party is again being taunted by the authorities.

Banning orders have been imposed and law suits are pending amid intense speculation the government will call an early election in the �rst half of 2011, probably after Chinese New Year.

Muzzling of the opposition press is disappointing given Malaysia’s cherished dream of being seen among the rank and �le of genuine democracies.

But the poor performance of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) at the polls in 2008 has sorely tested the resolve of the party’s backroom 50

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BANNING ORDERS HAVE BEEN IMPOSED AND LAW SUITS ARE PENDING AMID INTENSE SPECULATION THE GOVERNMENT WILL CALL AN EARLY ELECTION IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2011, PROBABLY AFTER CHINESE NEW YEAR

boys who have been charged with winning back the lost ground.

Initially the publishers of the monthly Suara Keadilan, which had a circulation of up to 100,000, de�ed government suspension orders in July and pressed ahead.

Keadilan lawmaker Tian Chua told readers: “Yes, the latest issue has hit the streets. We feel the government has not banned the newspaper. It only has not renewed the printing permit.”

“We have the right to circulate information. We are a political party and it is our role to provide different perspectives,” he added.

Malaysia’s Home Ministry oversees local newspapers and said it would not renew Suara Keadilan’s permit because it was not satis�ed with the paper’s explanation for the allegedly inaccurate report.

Authorities claimed it had violated publishing laws through a report which claimed a government agency is bankrupt.

All newspapers need an official permit to print, which must be renewed annually, and critics argue the licensing system allows the government to close media outlets at will.

Ibrahim has vowed to scrap the law if elected. �e government insists it is not cracking down on the free press, “we are clamping down on lies,” a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Department was quoted as saying. �e clamp eventually proved effective. �e Suara Keadilan stopped operations in September after distribution disruptions were brought on by the non-renewal of its permit. �e publisher had relied on a

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Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim vows to scrap the permit system for newspapers, if elected in 2011. Image: AFP

legal loophole of becoming a nonserialised publication to continue with six editions changing mastheads, such as Obor Keadilan and Metro Keadilan in an attempt to skirt the prying censors.

But circulation declined and production ceased as distributors became wary of Home Ministry raids. “�is is why we have to look into what we can do for our distribution network. Since there is no permit, most of our main agents are afraid to take in our papers for distribution,” Suara Keadilan editor Dzulkarnain Taib said in an interview with a local Internet publication.

“After we hit a snag with the officials on our permit, we lowered our production to only about 50,000 to 60,000 copies. We also did not send our non-serialised papers to Sabah and Sarawak for distribution there because we were

ALL NEWSPAPERS NEED AN OFFICIAL PERMIT TO PRINT, WHICH MUST BE RENEWED ANNUALLY, AND CRITICS ARGUE THE LICENSING SYSTEM ALLOWS THE GOVERNMENT TO CLOSE MEDIA OUTLETS AT WILL

afraid that the copies would get con�scated at the airports.

“If this happens, then there goes our investment,” he said. �e closure came as local politician Zambry Abd Kadir applied for a judgment in his 100 million ringgit defamation suit against Keadilan party president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and three others for an alleged defamatory article published in Suara Keadilan.

Zambry claims Suara Keadilan had published an article entitled “Zambry disyaki pengganas gagal masuk ke Amerika Syarikat” (Zambry denied entry to US on suspicion of being a terrorist).

Zambry claimed the words meant that the plaintiff was suspected of terrorism and was un�t to be the chief of Perak state. �e publisher, chief editor and printer of the newspaper are also being sued.

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Press Freedom

Stiletto By Max Kolbe

Nineteen years in jail for blogging The creeps in Mindanao are issuing death threats to journalists. But at least there were some forward-thinking journalists on hand at Xinhua who followed up on the threats being issued against correspondents a year after the worst massacre in Philippine history.

The Chinese agency reported that several Filipino journalists in the southern Philippines, including a photographer for AFP, had received death threats.

It said Mark Navales, a stringer photographer for AFP, confirmed he was among those who received the threat after an unknown man sent a message to his mobile phone advising him to watch out for the media death squad.

“This is alarming. Whatever circumstances, we don’t want last year’s mass killings to happen again,” Navales said.

Xinhua said Navales had informed his colleague, Ali Macabalang, head of the Bureau of Public Information of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who also received the same message.

The threats came as a lawyer described Zaldy Ampatuan as a gentler, kinder Ampatuan.

Lawyers made the claim on behalf of the family head and former governor for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao after witnesses blamed the Ampatuans for the massacre of 57 people including 30 journalists and relatives of their clan’s political rival last year.

“Among friends and family members, Zaldy was always known as the gentler and kinder Ampatuan who is loving to his family, a doting father, a good husband and a religious man who made his pilgrim trips to Mecca,”

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lawyer Redemberto Villanueva told the courts.

Interestingly, the former governor also said that he was with then President Gloria Arroyo when the massacre was committed.

Zaldy said he and then Congressmen Yusop Jikiri and Munir Arbison, and other political leaders of Sulu province, were with Arroyo discussing how the administration could resolve the 2010 electoral contests in the province of Sulu.

While journalists in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq have been detained, harassed, beaten and worse, it is Iran that takes this month’s media-treatment prize.

An Iranian-Canadian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, was sentenced to an eye-watering 19 years in prison.

Hossein, also known as “Hoder”, is actually the Iranian blogger who has been credited with starting the blogging

revolution that has swept this Islamic Republic.

Hoder (pictured) was arrested on November 1, 2008 and then sentenced to an incredible 19 years in prison after a trial in September 2010. There is a growing international campaign calling for his release.

Also jailed is Iranian journalist Isa Saharkhiz, 56, who received the maximum penalty of two years for insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and another year for issuing propaganda against the regime.

During last year’s disputed elections this prominent reformist journalist had campaigned for reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi.

A jailed journalist who has done his time is Peter Lloyd, the former South Asia correspondent for ABC. His crime was different though. He bought the drug ice in Singapore. And since release, Pete now has his job back.

Speaking up on behalf of his mate, colleague Tim Palmer said he could not believe the risks some reporters took with alcohol and drugs while overseas and that at least half a dozen reporters at the ABC could have easily faced the same fate as Lloyd.

“But Pete, I’d... observed, was either working until two in the morning or getting an early night ... he would have been the last on my list,” Palmer told a magazine.

Lloyd served seven months of his 10-month sentence after being caught buying methamphetamines in July 2008. He avoided a more serious trafficking charge, which carried a sentence of 15 lashes and 20 years in prison. As we all know drug traffickers can be executed in Singapore.

And guess what? He just has a book out, called Inside Story.

Then and Now

Chai Wan. Images by Bob Davis

1973: Four decades ago, Chai Wan was a mix of military barracks, youth group campsites and low-rise housing

2010: Today, after extensive reclamation, the area is home to approximately 200,000 people and more than 200 high-rise buildings Š Bob Davis. www.bobdavisphotographer.com

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