As a Malaysian residing in Singapore, flipping through the Straits Times has becoming quite predictable. The kind of news items being picked up by this newspaper's senior editors inevitably relate to Muslims, Islam and the Malays.

Not so much that Malaysia is a working model of a multi-ethnic and democratic society.

During the era when PAS was making headlines with their own brand of preaching in Kelantan and Terengganu, the Straits Times functioned more like another arm of PAS' media network. PAS got 'better' coverage in Singapore than in their own country.

Singapore's Straits Times , of course, was not aiding PAS' propaganda efforts but merely manipulated the Islamisation policy of PAS to portray Malaysia as already under a Taliban-style of Islamic government.

It did this to scare off foreigners and tourists who would come to Malaysia and also to frighten Singaporeans themselves.

The strategy of portraying a negative image of Malaysia is believed by the Straits Times to help put Singapore in better light which is its true agenda. Nevertheless, the average Singaporean happily feeds on these daily doses of mind-poisoning news without fail.

Even with the diminishing PAS influence, the Singapore media maintains its bias focus on Malaysia with an unbalanced portrayal of Islamic-related developments.

News items that have appear in Malaysian newspapers today often appear in the Singapore press the day after - that is, after being rehashed to further mislead their readers.

I have had Singapore friends who, upon visiting Malaysia for the first time, expressed shock and disbelief when exposed to the true picture of Malaysia. Needless to say, up to that point, they had been well and truly misled by the Straits Times .