COMMENT News that President Barrack Obama of the United States will not be meeting with Anwar Ibrahim is disappointing. It can be expected - if Obama was a cruel dictator.

But for the leader of the world's most influential democracy to give our country's opposition leader the official snub is  regrettable and an affront to the country's democrats.

America is the proven remover of despots and dictators. It is a country that sacrificed countless young American lives in the defence of a 'free world' in many places.

 It fought a civil war at home to free slaves and end racial discrimination. And if not largely for the Americans, we in Asia would still be part of the Japanese Imperial Empire...