Singapore warns plantation firms over haze

Singapore today warned of action against companies in Indonesia allegedly behind starting illegal fires in plantations in Sumatra, smoke from which has choked the city-state for the past three days.
"We will do everything we can," Foreign and Law Minister K Shanmugam said today, adding Singapore would offer "no succour nor refuge" to the companies found guilty.
He said there were limits in international commercial law to what Singapore can do about companies operating outside the country, but the Attorney General has been asked to look into this.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has also started investigating eight companies for allegedly causing fires that has led to thick haze in Singapore and Malaysia.

Though the companies have not been named, Indonesian officials working with non-governmental groups have identified 17 pulp and paper and 15 palm oil companies on whose land fires had been burning over the past nine days.
Some of these companies were linked to major corporations based in Singapore and Malaysia.

Singapore environment minister Vivian Balakrishnan visited Jakarta yesterday and met his Indonesian counterpart, Balthasar Kambuaya, for talks on the fires and haze.
"We have got to join the dots and get the train of accountability back to the companies and the stakeholders who are responsible for this disaster," Balakrishnan said.

The minister also took the Singapore Prime Minister's letter to the Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono conveying his grave concern at the impact the haze was having, and urging Indonesia to take timely and concrete action to solve the problem.
Lee also offered Singapore's help to put out the fires, including an aircraft for cloud seeding and satellite pictures and hotpot coordinates to identify the culprits behind them, according to local media reports today.
Indonesian authorities yesterday declared a state of emergency in Riau province on Sumatra, the epicenter of forest fires, reported The Jakarta Post today.
The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit a high of 401 yesterday afternoon in Singapore and has remained in the range of 200-300 since then.

The air becomes "very unhealthy" if PSI past 200 mark and "hazardous" past 300. Most of Singaporeans have started wearing face mask as protection against the thick haze.