I hope malaysiakini can check on this for the sake of fairness. The Associated Press is being criticised for quoting the prime minister out of context. An editorial in the New Straits Times (Oct 11) said "the AP must hold itself accountable and not turn a blind eye to its misdeed".

While that's true, may I please point you to a front-page report in the New Straits Times on Oct 9 titled, 'Dr Mahathir: Attacks will not resolve anything'. This article is also about the prime minister's statements in Parliament that the Associated Press wrote about.

In the eighth paragraph of that NST article, the newspaper quoted Mahathir as following: "However, I would support the US if it resorted to violence against Israel as it (Israel) is killing many innocent Palestinians".

This is the same quote that has gotten the AP into trouble. But the AP got the words in the quote correct, although it got the context wrong.

Here, the NST has 'tampered' with Mahathir's quote, as it changed the original word "they" (that Mahathir used, according to the Hansard) to "US" instead.

According the Prime Minister's Department, the PM never said that he would support the US if it attacked Israel. So this means the NST also made a mistake and misquoted Mahathir.

So why hasn't the PM's Department asked the New Straits Times for a correction and apology? And does this mean that the New Straits Times is also "mischievous" and has a political motive against Mahathir?