Truly Asia. (Yeah, Right.)

And now, one comes across the dismaying information that the works of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anthony Burgess and Alan Hollinghurst, among others, have been banned by the Malaysian home ministry. A complete list of the proscribed books is here -- it also includes, oddly enough, a volume entitled 'Breastfeeding Your Baby'. (Perhaps they've stumbled upon a sociological finding indicating that breastfeeding as an activity will rip apart the social fabric?)

A bemused columnist says of another banned book: "My colleague and I had a good chuckle over the banning of Practice of Business Statistics. The cover shows coffee cups against a white background, so I suggested that Mr Home Ministry had just completed a course in lateral thinking, which led him to think: Cups. Cup size. Bras. Breasts. Sex. Rape. Bad. Ban!"

(Update: Oh, and their treatment of the press is dodgy, too.)