SCMP: Supine Cowardly Morning Post

Text of an email I just received from Avaaz.org, organisers of the petition on Burma which has now reached 600,000 signatures:

"Dear friends,

Today, our petition to China and the UN Security Council to stop the brutal crackdown on peaceful Burmese protesters is being delivered to the world in a full page ad in the Financial Times worldwide -- but the ad was rejected by other newspapers like the South China Morning Post and the Singapore Straits Times. Our message is an invitation to China to do the right thing in Burma, not an attack -- yet even that seemed too much for media that fear Chinese reprisals."

Sadly, this will not surprise anyone in Hong Kong, where the SCMP is well known for its craven subservience to China. Nor will it be much of a surprise to Singaporeans, whose country, which has a far from free press, just happens to be one of the biggest foreign investors in Burma. Obviously money talks far louder than human decency in both places.