The word 'haze' acquired an unpleasant connotation in Southeast Asia in 1997, quite unlike the mild image it usually conjures up.
'The Haze' that blanketed parts of Indonesia, all of Singapore and most of Malaysia for more than four months was not the 'thin atmospheric vapour' depicted in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary but, at its worst, a thick, noxious, if not toxic, brew of smoke, ash and exhaust fumes.