Singapore Protests As Air Pollution From Fires Hits Record; Indonesia: "Stop Behaving Like A Child"

[hatrack]

EDIT

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index jumped to a record 371 at 1 p.m., a level deemed hazardous, the National Environment Agency, or NEA, said on its website. The reading was 231 at 8 p.m. Malaysia said air pollution in Johor, which borders Singapore, reached hazardous levels of as high as 383.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters today he expressed “serious concern” in a letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and requested evidence that Singaporean or Malaysian companies were responsible for the “illegal burning,” as suggested by some Indonesian officials.

The spat is the latest between the two neighbors, which regularly flares up over haze. The Malay Peninsula has been plagued for decades by forest fires in Sumatra to the west and Kalimantan on Borneo island to the east.

“Singapore should not be behaving like a child and making all this noise,” Agung Laksono, the minister coordinating Indonesia’s response to the haze, told reporters in Jakarta, according to the Jakarta Globe.

EDIT

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-20/smog-at-hazardous-high-as-singapore-spars-with-jakarta-on-fires

[liberal N proud]

1. It's only air and the need to breath

Singapore shouldn't complain!