July 21, 2003
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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 Chosun Ilbo, South Korea--SEOUL SKEPTICAL OF NEW REPROCESSING PLANT(The government on Sunday responded skeptically to the recent New York Times report that North Korea may have secretly built a second facility for reprocessing spent fuel rods. "The information is unconfirmed," a Cheong Wa Dae official said…"Japan and Russia also convert used fuel rods from nuclear development plants," the Cheong Wa Dae official said, "so the krypton 85 that was collected may make us suspicious, but it cannot be scientifically proven that it came from North Korea, so no one can say for sure.")
2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong—JIM LOBE COMMENTARY: WILL THE UN BAIL OUT BUSH? (Come September, these deep throats are likely to be singing publicly in hearings on Capitol Hill, unless something changes radically…"It's getting more and more obvious that the [Security] Council's leverage [vis-a-vis Washington] is increasing," said one source who noted the growing sense in the US capital that the optimistic predictions of the hawks had put the president in serious peril. The question is, what will be the UN's price for bailing the administration out, and will Bush be willing to pay it?)
3//The Jordan Times, Jordan--WORLD BANK WARNS OF TOUGH TIMES IN IRAQ (Iraq will have a difficult transition to a market economy after a decade of economic sanctions and must make social reforms to protect the most vulnerable members of society, the World Bank and United Nations warned Saturday…UN special representative to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello warned that corruption and other vices of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime could flourish in Iraq's transition to a market economy and lead to “greater injustice.” “There is a real danger that corruption, a weak legal/judiciary system leading to a lack of accountability, in-built distortions and vices of the previous system, (such as) unfair privileges, economic and social discrimination, would not only persist but flourish” during the transition. “What kind of democracy would that be in which political and economic transformation leads to greater injustice?” Vieira de Mello asked.)
4//The Moscow Times, Russia--4 YUKOS MURDER PROBES OPENED (Stepping up the pressure on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Prosecutor General's Office said Friday that it has opened four new investigations into his oil giant Yukos -- and they all involve murder or attempted murder in 1998…With the four new cases, the Prosecutor General's Office has opened a total of seven investigations into Yukos…The probes are widely seen as a political attack on Khodorkovsky for his increased involvement in big politics ahead of December's State Duma elections. He is thought to be trying to put together a pro-Yukos faction in the Duma.)
5//The Independent, UK--PUBLIC SPENDING FEARS DEEPEN GLOOM (The British economy is languishing "in the doldrums" a leading business organisation warned today as fears mounted that the Government is about impose a clampdown on public spending. The British Chambers of Commerce said further cuts in interest rates were needed to boost the economy unless the global recovery rebounded soon…"There is no sign of a sustainable recovery," said David Frost, its director general…he acknowledged the state of the public finances - which last week showed a cumulative £14bn deficit this year - meant it was unlikely the Government would be able to cut taxes.)
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1//The Chosun Ilbo Updated July.20, 2003 17:16 KST
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200307/200307200006.html
SEOUL SKEPTICAL OF NEW REPROCESSING PLANT
By Kim In-gu
The government on Sunday responded skeptically to the recent New York Times report that North Korea may have secretly built a second facility for reprocessing spent fuel rods. "The information is unconfirmed," a Cheong Wa Dae official said.
The Times wrote that "sensors set up on North Korea's borders have begun to detect elevated levels of krypton 85, a gas emitted as spent fuel is converted into plutonium." The Korean government said that because the krypton 85 was not collected in North Korea's atmosphere, but 100-200 miles away, it was too early to draw conclusions.
"Japan and Russia also convert used fuel rods from nuclear development plants," the Cheong Wa Dae official said, "so the krypton 85 that was collected may make us suspicious, but it cannot be scientifically proven that it came from North Korea, so no one can say for sure."
Another Cheong Wa Dae official said, "This rankles in our minds, but we cannot make an accurate judgment. We know that Yongdeok-dong, Guseong city in North Pyeongan province is a district used for high explosive tests, but are not sure whether there are nuclear facilities there."
Officials at the Foreign Ministry were also skeptical about the report, and insisted it would have little impact on talks to solve the nuclear crisis.
(SNIP)
While U.S. officials confirmed that the sensors set up at the Military Demarcation Line have begun to detect higher levels of krypton 85, they say they cannot verify the claim about the second plutonium plant. A senior Bush Administration official commented that it was very worrisome, but still not conclusive.
If the current evidence is properly interpreted and a second plutonium plant does exist, President George W. Bush may not have the option that his predecessor Bill Clinton once considered in 1994, to use a military strike or other sabotage plan to prevent Pyongyang from producing weapons-grade material, the Times said.
The report suggested that Washington's anxiety about a second plutonium plant in the North had been elevated after a report from the South Korean intelligence agency indicating that one of its agents had reported the presence of a second plant, northeast of Yongbyon.
2//Asia Times Online July 19, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG19Ak02.html
COMMENTARY:
WILL THE UN BAIL OUT BUSH?
By Jim Lobe (Inter Press Service)
WASHINGTON - Make no mistake: US President George W Bush is in big trouble.
Whereas a week ago, Americans were talking about the dread "V" word - for Vietnam - this week the dreaded "W" word - for Watergate - was back in vogue, even as the "V" word was still in use. Watergate plus Vietnam is about the worst combination for a sitting president that anyone could possibly imagine.
And the almost daily announcement on the news that another US soldier has been killed in an attack in Iraq, bringing to 32, 33, 34, the number of troops killed since Bush declared an end to major hostilities in the war, recalls nothing so much as the daily reminders on the evening news 23 years ago that killed the presidency of Jimmy Carter: "Day 385 of the American hostage crisis in Iran."
Short of a miracle - such as the discovery of a cache of weapons of mass destruction in an Iraqi mountainside in circumstances that clearly indicate that it was under Saddam Hussein's control as of March 18, 2003, or the return of robust US economic growth that can quickly bring the unemployment rate down to five percent - there is probably only one way that Bush can save his presidency at this point.
But the cost in personal pride and policy will be extremely high.
To save his administration, Bush must now essentially abandon the aggressive unilateralism that has dominated his foreign policy since even before September 11, 2001; ask forgiveness from US allies who refused to join his "coalition of the willing" in Iraq; and return to the United Nations Security Council for a new resolution that will give the world body control over the occupation.
As India - whose rejection of Bush's request for as many as 20,000 troops to act as mercenaries for US foreign policy struck a devastating blow to the imperial dreams of the Pentagon hawks - made clear this week, it, as well as other nations, would be willing to provide peacekeepers and other kinds of support to the Iraqi occupation only if the UN Security Council authorizes it.
(SNIP)
Come September, these deep throats are likely to be singing publicly in hearings on Capitol Hill, unless something changes radically.
(SNIP)
"It's getting more and more obvious that the [Security] Council's leverage [vis-a-vis Washington] is increasing," said one source who noted the growing sense in the US capital that the optimistic predictions of the hawks had put the president in serious peril.
The question is, what will be the UN's price for bailing the administration out, and will Bush be willing to pay it?
3//The Jordan Times Sunday, July 20, 2003
http://www.jordantimes.com/Sun/news/news9.htm
WORLD BANK WARNS OF TOUGH TIMES IN IRAQ
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq will have a difficult transition to a market economy after a decade of economic sanctions and must make social reforms to protect the most vulnerable members of society, the World Bank and United Nations warned Saturday.
“The main challenge is the security situation,” said Joseph Saba, the World Bank director for the Middle East.
Iraq faces a “very difficult economic transition ... that must not be underestimated,” Saba told AFP on the sidelines of a conference in Baghdad of UN, World Bank and Iraqi officials.
“The real challenge is creating jobs. Fifty per cent of the population is under 16 years. So how do you translate the growth into productive efficient employment? How do you create proper jobs for these young people?
“We have to be careful about our expectations because you don't recover from 20 years of beating in one day,” Saba cautioned.
(SNIP)
The World Bank, however, had not worked in a transitional country with as much wealth or as many qualified people as Iraq, Saba added, noting the state's vast water and oil resources.
But he warned that the “existence of resources alone in a transitional period will not provide successful job creation.”
UN special representative to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello warned that corruption and other vices of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime could flourish in Iraq's transition to a market economy and lead to “greater injustice.”
“Fundamental ethical and human rights concerns must prevail,” Vieira de Mello said.
“There is a real danger that corruption, a weak legal/judiciary system leading to a lack of accountability, in-built distortions and vices of the previous system, (such as) unfair privileges, economic and social discrimination, would not only persist but flourish” during the transition.
“What kind of democracy would that be in which political and economic transformation leads to greater injustice?” Vieira de Mello asked.
(MORE)
4//The Moscow Times Monday, Jul. 21, 2003. Page 1
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/07/21/001.html
4 YUKOS MURDER PROBES OPENED
By Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writer
Stepping up the pressure on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Prosecutor General's Office said Friday that it has opened four new investigations into his oil giant Yukos -- and they all involve murder or attempted murder in 1998.
A source at the prosecutor's office said the cases are united by "property disputes between the victims' official and private entities and the Yukos oil company," Interfax reported.
Prosecutors said they are investigating whether Yukos played a part in the June 26, 1998, murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Yukos' production capital, Nefteyugansk, in the Tyumen region.
Petukhov had been leading a public campaign against Yukos over tax arrears, and many Nefteyugansk residents blamed the oil company for his death -- which incidentally occurred on Khodorkovsky's 35th birthday. Yukos at the time offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer.
Investigators said Friday that they also were trying to establish a link between Yukos and a murder attempt against Yevgeny Rybin, an executive of Austrian-based oil company East Petroleum, in November 1998. Yukos acquired East Petroleum that year.
The third investigation is into the October 1998 murder of Alexander Berlyand, the general director of Tomsk-Neft-Vostok Ltd., a trading partner of East Petroleum before the acquisition.
The fourth involves the December 1998 murder of a Nefteyugansk businessman identified by prosecutors only as N. Filippov.
Yukos on Friday denied any involvement in the cases, saying in a statement that prosecutors were trying to "uphold the honor of the uniform" after failing to uncover any wrongdoing in the company's financial activities.
(SNIP)
With the four new cases, the Prosecutor General's Office has opened a total of seven investigations into Yukos. The investigations started on June 26, when Yukos security official Alexei Pichugin was arrested on suspicion of killing two people last year, and have since ballooned to include the July 2 arrest of key Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev on charges he stole state property in a 1994 privatization auction and allegations of tax evasion.
The probes are widely seen as a political attack on Khodorkovsky for his increased involvement in big politics ahead of December's State Duma elections.
He is thought to be trying to put together a pro-Yukos faction in the Duma.
The Yukos scandal has sent shudders through the stock market, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars. President Vladimir Putin has yet to take sides, and the government has sent conflicting signals over whether it would reexamine other 1990s privatizations.
The United States and the European Union have warned that the crisis is hurting the business climate and expressed hope of a quick resolution.
(MORE)
5//The Independent 21 July 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=426164
PUBLIC SPENDING FEARS DEEPEN GLOOM
BCC says economy languishing in the doldrums, Concern grows that Brown will tighten purse strings
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
The British economy is languishing "in the doldrums" a leading business organisation warned today as fears mounted that the Government is about impose a clampdown on public spending.
The British Chambers of Commerce said further cuts in interest rates were needed to boost the economy unless the global recovery rebounded soon.
It said the recovery in the second quarter of the year had been "feeble" with the rebound in the once-booming services sector even weaker than the revival in manufacturing.
The gloomy report came as speculation grew that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will impose a tight spending settlement in the upcoming Cabinet negotiations.
The move was being seen as a bid to head off talk of further tax rises following official figures on Friday showing public spending was in danger of running out of control.
Central government spending surged 14 per cent in the first three months of the fiscal year compared with a target of 6.8 per cent for the full year. Net investment has so risen by an astonishing 180 per cent.
Analysts believe that with tax revenues undershooting the Budget forecasts, the public finances could plunge into a £37bn deficit this year. Against this background, Mr Brown is drawing up the spending round for the three years after the current deal elapses in 2006.
However as the NHS has already secured a deal guaranteeing spending growth rising to more than 7 per cent a year by 2007-8, there are fears other departments will have to accept a freeze.
(SNIP)
The Treasury is relying a return to above-trend growth next year and in 2005 to boost revenues and fund his spending his plans without raising taxes.
However the BCC report showed both manufacturing and services sectors were significantly weaker than for most of 2002 despite a modest improvement over the last quarter.
"There is no sign of a sustainable recovery," said David Frost, its director general. "We hope that the Bank will persevere with its flexible stance and be prepared to act again if circumstances worsen."
(SNIP)
But he said that interest rates on their own would not be able to underpin a recovery. "Given the dangers to the economy, the Government must be ready to take further action to ease the tax and regulatory burden."
However he acknowledged the state of the public finances - which last week showed a cumulative £14bn deficit this year - meant it was unlikely the Government would be able to cut taxes.
(MORE)
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©2003, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com
Radio for the Left at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/radio.htm
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