Malay Blogger Fights a System He Perfected

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has become an irritant and a spoiler five years after stepping down, turning against his handpicked successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and falling victim to the press controls he perfected as prime minister. "Where is the press freedom?" he asked two years ago, apparently surprised at being suddenly ignored. "Broadcast what I have to say! What I say is not even accurately published in the press!" This May, though, he discovered the power of the Internet. Like many other inconvenient critics, he joined what seemed to be a political wave of the future, creating his own blog where he vents in English and Malay several times a week. Around the region bloggers are becoming a Fifth Estate, challenging the government's monopoly on information in Singapore, evading censors in Vietnam, and influencing events in places like Thailand, Cambodia and China.