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Lion closes net on rogue sites

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Persian Kitty is no longer at her old address in Singapore. The 'gone away' sign has been put up over her risque web-site, making her one of the first to be banished from the Internet in the republic under new censorship requirements which came into effect at the weekend.

With Ms Kitty went easy access to the sites to which she acted as a one-click conduit: the Asian Babes, Perv Palaces and vendors of doubtful videos, CD-ROMS and 'live' girls offering interactive entertainment.

The prevention of access to the links to the hundreds of pornographic sites listed on the Persian Kitty pages was the latest move in the drive by Singapore to bring the Internet under tighter control.

With Singapore's reputation for efficient methods of controlling the media and other information, its experiment in taming the net will be closely watched by governments around the world, but particularly so in Asia, where many politicians are nervous of the open nature of the web, which they criticise as a polluting influence, full of decadent Western values.

Even Singapore's technocrats admit that closing every undesirable site is impossible, but the aim is to make Singapore's 150,000 Internet subscribers as immune as possible from the worst of the web sites.

The government is under no illusions that it can police every site, picture and video clip, but, explained one government officer, the intention was to set a standard which reflected its values, even though that standard would not always be attained.

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