Asked how Singapore -- known as a tightly-controlled fortress of conservative ``Asian values'' -- might have handled a similar problem, he said yesterday, there would be no Kenneth Starr.

The leader involved ``would resign quietly, and after that we would give him a very good farewell dinner and send the girl with him,'' Lee, 75, said.

His answer brought laughter to an audience of 270 reporters and guests at a Singapore's foreign correspondents association dinner.

Lee, who was Singapore's prime minister from 1965 to 1990, said the Clinton sex scandal could disrupt the US role in a coordinated attack on the Asian economic crisis by the world's powers.

``I wish this hadn't happened, because I think it's no good for us,'' he said. ``I'm disappointed that events have turned out this way. It's not going to be good for Asia,it's not going to be good for the world.''

Meanwhile, in Berlin German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said he was outraged at the world's obsession with the sex scandal surrounding US President Bill Clinton. ``It's enough to make one throw up,'' he said.

Kohl said Clinton's private life was his business. Kohl said he hoped and expected that Clinton would remain in office and that Americans would soon be able to concentrate on other topics again.