950806

IHT to pay

Singapore

$678,000 for

libel

NEW YORK: The International Herald Tribune, which has been assessed $678,000 in libel damages in Singapore for an opinion article, said it will not fight the court decision, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

IHT president Richard Simmons told the Times that under the English libel law applicable in Singapore the IHT had no legal defence.

Singapore's Supreme Court on July 26 ordered the IHT to pay damages to Singapore's Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The opinion article, published in August 1994, suggested that "dynastic politics" exist in Singapore, the Southeast Asian city-state whose politics have been dominated for 30 years by its former Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, the Times reported.

The former prime minister said the opinion article implied he had engaged in nepotism, even though it did not name him or his son, whom the Times said is widely regarded as Goh's likely successor.

The Paris-based IHT, owned by The New York Times Company and the Washington Post Company, prints about 17,000 of its total circulation of 190,000 in Singapore, the Times said.

It said Simmons, who made his comments last week, added that the paper plans to continue printing and distributing its edition in Singapore, where it has a circulation of 7,000.

By staying in Singapore, Simmons said, the paper can continue to serve its readers.

"The International Herald Tribune was found to have libelled people, a situation which happens with unfortunate frequency in a large number of areas in this country and in the world, and we will pay the price for that," the Times quoted him as saying last week in the United States.-Reuter