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World Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.
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1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--LESSONS FOR IRAQ IN THE AFTERMATH OF AFGHAN WAR [Washington's claim of victory in Iraq has a hollow ring for the "winners" in a previous United States-led war. Eighteen months after the Taliban were overthrown in Afghanistan by a coalition of US and local forces, the transitional government of Hamid Karzai still enjoys direct control only in the capital, Kabul. The Deputy Defence Minister, Atiqullah Baryalai, who is on an official visit to Australia, admits he is a worried man. "We are being pushed by the {US-led} coalition to set up a centralised national army but for us disarming the various factions is the main priority," he said.]
2//IslamOnline.net, Qatar--KARZAI TO SECRETLY MEET TALIBAN DELEGATION: REPORT [Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to hold his first direct talks with members of the ousted Taliban government, the Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazaara said on Sunday, May 4... It is not clear whether the Karzai government was given the green light from the U.S. to take such an action. But the talks are widely expected to be okayed by Washington which had earlier failed to approach members of Taliban.]
3//The Jordan Times, Jordan--OPINION: PESSIMISTIC ON THE MIDEAST [It is hard to imagine how Arafat and Abbas can ever see eye to eye on the parameters of the peace plan that is now being orchestrated by the so-called Quartet. Arafat has a lot to gain politically if Abbas fails on the peace front. That would be the easy way for him to remove Abbas as a serious contender to the Palestinian throne...Contrary to early expectations, the fall of the Saddam regime in Iraq did not have a snowball effect on radicalism and extremism on the Palestinian side. Hamas and Jihad Al Islami are still militant, with no end to their campaign of suicide bombing in sight. Against this backdrop, it would take many miracles for the roadmap to succeed and come to fruition.]
4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--MOSCOW CLEARS WAY FOR PIPELINE TO CHINA [The Russian government seems at last to have ended months of arguments and infighting over its energy policies, clearing the way for new oil routes to China and the United States. The decisions announced this week by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signal a victory for privately-owned Russian oil companies and their plans to invest billions of dollars in new export outlets. As a result, Russia's monopolies and state-owned companies appear to have suffered blows on two fronts at once, boosting private investments in the west and the east...Private companies, including TNK, would build an ambitious pipeline and terminal project costing up to $4.5 billion and aimed at serving the European and US markets. The companies hope to provide 10 percent of US imports.]
5//The Japan Times, Japan--EDITORIAL: RUDDERLESS WORLD ECONOMY [Like globalization, U.S. unilateralism owes its advancement to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The Clinton administration's unilateralism was based on strong U.S. economic power. East Asian countries would not have achieved such amazing economic growth if they had not been able to export industrial products to the U.S. The IMF and the World Trade Organization, the foundation of the international economic order, were under effective U.S. control. World history changed dramatically with the U.S. presidential election in November 2000. Under President George W. Bush, U.S. unilateralism has come to be based on military power...Military unilateralism, backed by U.S. neoconservatives, will no doubt cast a shadow over the U.S. economy. With the Tokyo stock market affected by the New York stock market to an almost abnormal extent and East Asian economies highly dependent on exports to the U.S. for economic growth, this shadow could trigger a global recession.]
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1//The
Sydney Morning Herald May 5 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/04/1051987611285.html
LESSONS FOR IRAQ IN THE AFTERMATH OF AFGHAN WAR
By Christopher Kremmer
Washington's claim of victory in Iraq has a hollow ring for the "winners" in a previous United States-led war.
Eighteen months after the Taliban were overthrown in Afghanistan by a coalition of US and local forces, the transitional government of Hamid Karzai still enjoys direct control only in the capital, Kabul. The Deputy Defence Minister, Atiqullah Baryalai, who is on an official visit to Australia, admits he is a worried man.
"We are being pushed by the [US-led] coalition to set up a centralised national army but for us disarming the various factions is the main priority," he said. "There has never been a deeply considered focus on the issue of Afghanistan, either before or since US forces entered Afghanistan and Iraq."
At 39, the charismatic frontline commander in the offensive to oust the Taliban now heads the commission charged with reconstituting an Afghan national army.
Lieutenant-General Baryalai will sign a memorandum of understanding with Australia tomorrow on the repatriation of Afghan asylum seekers, which Kabul insists must be voluntary.
About 2 million Afghans have returned to their homeland since the fall of the Taliban. However, a failure to seriously tackle the problem of Afghanistan's security may eventually reverse the trend and produce a renewed exodus of refugees, General Baryalai fears.
[SNIP]
Meanwhile, Taliban remnants are regrouping in tribal areas along the border with Pakistan.
General Baryalai said the Taliban still posed a threat, especially in areas bordering Pakistan, where Kabul's influence is weak. The central government relies on wavering ethnic Pashtun militia leaders to secure the border. But the real villain, he said, was Pakistan. "Pakistan is still involved in interfering with the security of the border and is supplying the Taliban with firearms and ammunition and shelter."
2//IslamOnline.net May 4, 2003
http://www.IslamOnline.net/English/News/2003-05/04/article12.shtml
KARZAI TO SECRETLY MEET TALIBAN DELEGATION: REPORT
KABUL, May 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to hold his first direct talks with members of the ousted Taliban government, the Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazaara said on Sunday, May 4.
"A delegation of Taliban, led by former Health Minister Mullah Abbas, secretly arrived in the Afghan capital for the expected talks, the first since the Taliban regime crumbled one year and a half ago," the Qatar-based channel's correspondent told his channel.
"The step is meant to improve relations between the two sides and as part of the Afghan government's efforts to woo some Taliban members," he said.
The Afghan leader hailed some Taliban members in a meeting with Afghan scholars, saying the movement did a great service to the war-torn country and that it has some "good" elements.
The talks also came against several attacks against U.S. forces here, believed to be carried out by Taliban members.
It is not clear whether the Karzai government was given the green light from the U.S. to take such an action. But the talks are widely expected to be okayed by Washington which had earlier failed to approach members of Taliban.
[MORE]
3//The Jordan Times Sunday, May 4, 2003
http://www.jordantimes.com/Sun/opinion/opinion3.htm
OPINION: PESSIMISTIC ON THE MIDEAST
Walid M. Sadi
If body language is anything to go by, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is
not comfortable with sharing power with the newly sworn-in Palestinian Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas. This, indeed, is not surprising.
Arafat has been at the helm for decades on end and is not about to yield or share power with any other Palestinian official. No wonder the making of the Abbas Cabinet took a long and tortuous road, suggesting that its acceptance by Arafat has not been easy or unpainful.
This reality would suggest that coexistence between Arafat and Abbas may not be too long. The uneasy alliance could give way to open hostility over the first major policy issue facing the Palestinians. Roadmap or no roadmap, the divide among Palestinians' various factions could derail any peace plan that is in the offing.
It is hard to imagine how Arafat and Abbas can ever see eye to eye on the parameters of the peace plan that is now being orchestrated by the so-called Quartet. Arafat has a lot to gain politically if Abbas fails on the peace front. That would be the easy way for him to remove Abbas as a serious contender to the Palestinian throne.
[SNIP]
Contrary to early expectations, the fall of the Saddam regime in Iraq did not have a snowball effect on radicalism and extremism on the Palestinian side. Hamas and Jihad Al Islami are still militant, with no end to their campaign of suicide bombing in sight.
Against this backdrop, it would take many miracles for the roadmap to succeed and come to fruition. This is a pessimistic view of things, but the Middle East has been a fertile ground for pessimism for such a long time that it makes thinking optimistically about the future rather risky.
4//Asia Times Online May 4, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EE03Ag02.html
MOSCOW CLEARS WAY FOR PIPELINE TO CHINA
By Michael Lelyveld
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
BOSTON - The Russian government seems at last to have ended months of arguments and infighting over its energy policies, clearing the way for new oil routes to China and the United States.
The decisions announced this week by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signal a victory for privately-owned Russian oil companies and their plans to invest billions of dollars in new export outlets. As a result, Russia's monopolies and state-owned companies appear to have suffered blows on two fronts at once, boosting private investments in the west and the east.
On Tuesday, Kasyanov told Russian news agencies that the government had decided to back a plan by the private producer Yukos to pipe oil from eastern Siberia to China's petroleum center of Daqing. The decision means the government will put off a rival project for the Japanese market indefinitely, despite intense bidding from Tokyo to pull the oil its way.
[SNIP]
A final factor may have been the announcement on April 22 that Yukos would join with fifth-ranked Sibneft in a $35 billion merger to create the world's fourth-largest oil company. Kasyanov called it the new "flagship" of the Russian industry in a sign that Moscow now sees the country's interest in promoting private enterprise and investment. That conclusion may have been long overdue, since the growth of Russia's oil output has outpaced its ability to export and state-owned enterprises lack the funding to fix the problem.
That sense may have spilled over onto another Yukos-backed plan for the Arctic port of Murmansk, which has also been opposed by Transneft. Private companies, including TNK, would build an ambitious pipeline and terminal project costing up to $4.5 billion and aimed at serving the European and US markets. The companies hope to provide 10 percent of US imports.
[SNIP]
Speaking at an International Energy Agency meeting in Paris, Yusufov
made clear that the government has no plans to abandon its regulatory
powers, but it may now see few benefits for Russia in frustrating
the growth of the private oil industry.
5//The Japan Times May 5, 2003
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20030505ts.htm
EDITORIAL: RUDDERLESS WORLD ECONOMY
By Takamitsu Sawa
Takamitsu Sawa, professor of economics at Kyoto University, is also
director of the university's Institute of Economic Research.
From 1993 to 2001, the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton based its policies on the Democratic Party's platform of compassion toward the underprivileged and tolerance toward dissent. In the past, this ideology had prompted Democratic administrations to try to legislate an end to racial discrimination. It drove Clinton to mediate in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In the same spirit, Clinton gave policy priority to reforming a health care system in which more than 15 percent of Americans were without insurance.
In the 1990s, the United States transformed itself into a postindustrial economy. High-tech manufacturing industries, armed with information technology, and nonmanufacturing industries, such as banking and telecommunications, formed the two economic pillars. Income gaps between individuals widened to an alarming extent, as did the income gaps between nations affected by globalization.
There was no way the Democratic administration could have slowed either the acceleration toward a postindustrial economy or the pace of globalization. Meanwhile, U.S. companies, especially financial institutions, took advantage of globalization and prospered.
Under the Clinton administration, though, the U.S. -- with unrivaled military and economic power -- was able to govern the global market economy. The East Asian currency crises of 1997 and 1998 did not develop into a full-blown international financial crisis because the U.S. Treasury Department, in coordination with the International Monetary Fund, offered emergency assistance to troubled countries in exchange for "conditionality," or commitments on economic and financial policies.
Like globalization, U.S. unilateralism owes its advancement to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The Clinton administration's unilateralism was based on strong U.S. economic power. East Asian countries would not have achieved such amazing economic growth if they had not been able to export industrial products to the U.S. The IMF and the World Trade Organization, the foundation of the international economic order, were under effective U.S. control.
World history changed dramatically with the U.S. presidential election in November 2000. Under President George W. Bush, U.S. unilateralism has come to be based on military power.
[SNIP]
The question is, how will U.S. unilateralism change in the coming years?
Moving toward the 2004 presidential election, the Bush administration is likely to strengthen military unilateralism. After all, polls show the majority of U.S. voters approved of the U.S. military action in Iraq. However, the U.S. business community is likely to be divided over unilateralism. Defense, oil and pharmaceutical industries are among the sectors that have either benefited from the war or will benefit from reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Some media reports indicate that reconstruction contracts will be granted only to U.S. companies. The hackneyed phrase "military-industrial complex" sounds fresh today.
The U.S. financial industry, which reaped handsome profits through economic unilateralism in the 1990s, is likely to suffer under Bush's military unilateralism. If the world is destabilized and thrown into confusion, the industry will have trouble managing their portfolios; they won't find low-risk investments with yields exceeding 30 percent, as they did in the 1990s.
While the Clinton administration was supported by the Treasury Department and the financial industry, the Bush administration will likely derive support from the Defense Department and defense industry.
Military unilateralism, backed by U.S. neoconservatives, will no doubt cast a shadow over the U.S. economy. With the Tokyo stock market affected by the New York stock market to an almost abnormal extent and East Asian economies highly dependent on exports to the U.S. for economic growth, this shadow could trigger a global recession.
[MORE]
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©2003, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com
Radio for the Left at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/radio.htm
