In another example of unworthy, regressive pique, Singapore has turned the screws on a few high-profile foreign news publications just enough to let them know that they should not, by any means, assume that Singapore will tolerate open discourse when it comes to political matters:
The government announced that Newsweek, Time, the Financial Times, the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) and the International Herald Tribune were the media outlets that would be affected.

Since 1990, offshore papers have been required to appoint a publisher's representative in Singapore who could be sued, and to pay a security deposit of 200,000 Singapore (126,500 US) dollars.

The exemption for those publications named by the information and communication ministry was lifted due to what it called a changing media landscape.

"These newspapers now regularly report on political issues in the region and Singapore and have significant circulations in Singapore," the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA) said late Thursday.

MICA said the press act "serves to reinforce the government's consistent position that it is a privilege, and not a right, for foreign newspapers to circulate in Singapore.

"They do so as foreign observers of the local scene and should not interfere in the domestic politics of Singapore."
The regulations in effect ensure that the maximum-bore legal gun is held to the heads of uppity foreign publications with penchants for reporting on regional politics and birthrights that exempt them from the torpor-inducing "faint-praise" criticism style cultivated at government-owned SPH publications. This should encourage a no-doubt healthy degree of self-censorship, which is the point since Singapore would never --heaven forfend-- censor the media itself. That would be illiberal. It's all about a proper legal framework, you understand. Coming on the heels of the public pillorying of blogger and newspaper columnist Mr. Brown, this represents another high water mark for a country that really ought to have outgrown such measures. RSF has released a statement condemning the action.

At the risk of venturing off into conjecture, a FEER interview with oposition leader Chee Soon Juan appears to have been the catalyst. We, the audience, are left to wonder if the tightened regulations are really due to a "changing media landscape" or to a combination of a relatively poor election showing (by Singapore standards) for the PAP, anxiety about the ability of the somewhat charisma-challenged Lee Hsien Loong to carry his father's mantle, and a feeling that people are beginning to sense the shadow of mortality hovering over the revered and still politically active elder Lee and wondering over the inevitable consequences.

But, then, the opinions of foreign bloggers are, of course, informed by far too much wayward foreign journalism, and should probably be dismissed out of hand.