No one was more surprised than I was this morning, March 30, when I woke up in my California home, logged on to the Internet, and found out that I had been in Malaysia the day before. My trip to Malaysia certainly was news to me, but then - that is the kind of 'news' that one reads in Utusan Malaysia these days.

The American humourist Will Rogers said, "I don't care what they say about me in the newspapers, as long as they spell my name right." (And Utusan still doesn't know how to spell my name!) But what Utusan has done goes far beyond bad reporting or a failure to check facts. The article, with its screaming headline that I had attended a secret meeting in Malaysia, is a pure fabrication.

After his arrest, Anwar Ibrahim said, "If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone." Utusan clearly has written a false report about me - for I cannot be in two places, halfway around the world, at the same time.

But of greater concern, it once again shows the evil that this so-called newspaper is capable of. If it can write such a false and concocted story about me, then it can write it about anyone. When Utusan 's false stories are used to smear the political and personal reputations of good people in Malaysia and even lead to charges of sedition, it shows clearly that the paper is no longer a newspaper, but a political instrument.