pls visit www.mfa.gov.sg for more news.thanks.
Erm, dun understand the title to this thread
anyway, Hamid Albar's letter looks abit like an attempt to save himself some face for being unable to give a reply of similar depth and coverage. He probably returned to his office, thought long and hard about a plausible reply, and published it in the newspapers. However, it is worthwhile to note that Prof Jayakumar gave credible replies not only to questions posed by the Singaporean media, but to the Malaysian one as well. So even if certain journalists from Singapore were 'plants', the fact that Prof Jayakumar gave better replies to the journalists than his Malaysian counterpart still stands.
On another note however, I doubt it wise to discredit the Malaysian govt because of the failings of one person. The ability to give tactful replies to save the 'face' of the country they serve is part of the job scope of a foreign minister. The fact that Hamid Albar has not done particularly well in this aspect does not mean that the rest of the Malaysian govt is just as pathetic, for want of a better word.
my two cents