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| September 3, 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. * * * 1//IslamOnline.net, Qatar--UNITED U.S. MUSLIMS TO VOTE AGAINST BUSH RE-ELECTION (Leaders of the U.S. Muslim community intend to deliver a bloc vote in next year's presidential elections, one that will go against the candidate they endorsed last time - President George W. Bush. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Muslim Council, the American Muslim Alliance, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council agreed this weekend to cooperate on a voter registration drive that they hope will send one million Muslims to say "No" to Bush's 2004 re-election bid...The message is to reflect widespread "dissatisfaction" in the Muslim American community with the Bush administration's treatment of Arab and Muslim Americans since the September 11 attacks, Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.) 2//Deutsche-Welle/dw-world.de, Germany--AFGHANISTAN - "DANGEROUS DEPLOYMENT FOR SEVERAL YEARS" (German Defense Minister Struck has confirmed Afghanistan, though "dangerous", will be the new focal point for future foreign military deployments and German troops will be reduced in the Balkans. After the controversial decision this week to send German peacekeepers to the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, taking them outside the capital Kabul for the first time, German Defense Minister Peter Struck went a step further over the weekend. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, the defense minister said he estimated troops would remain in the country for several years. In December this year, the German parliament is expected to extend Germany's Afghanistan mandate by a year. "It the parliament does approve, then German soldiers will possibly support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan for several years," he said. Afghanistan, he said, will be "the focal point for German foreign deployments.") 3//The News International, Pakistan--PAKISTAN TO SEND MORE TROOPS TO SAUDI ARABIA (Civil and military authorities in Pakistan have decided to provide additional military and security personnel to Saudi Arabia to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of the US and other Western troops from the Kingdom, reliable defence sources told The News...Additional Pak forces in Saudi Arabia, besides other operations, would put in action the expansion plan of the existing light weapons and ammunition production venture in the Kingdom by including the project to produce mortar and heavy munitions, the defence source said.) 4//Inter Press Service, Italy--ARAFAT BACK IN THE FOREFRONT (With the appointment of the old chief of preventive security on the West Bank Jibril Rajoub as his national security adviser, Arafat has staked his claim to be once again the sole power dominating the Palestinian political landscape. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, it appears now in political circles in Ramallah, will have to back down or back out.) 5//The Moscow Times, Russia--CNN, CNBC ON BOARD FOR RBC-TV LAUNCH (RBC-TV, the country's first 24-hour business news channel, is set to go on air Sept. 2, after signing cooperation agreements with CNN International and CNBC Europe...RosBusinessConsulting, a Russian business information agency founded a decade ago, has secured $23 million for the project; $17 million from the agency itself and the remaining $6 million through a private debt placement with Western investors...Its partnership agreements with London-based CNN International and CNBC Europe were not mentioned at the preliminary launch in May, though CNBC employees had been brought in to help train the new staff.) * * * 1//IslamOnline.net September 2, 2003 UNITED U.S. MUSLIMS TO VOTE AGAINST BUSH RE-ELECTION CHICAGO, September 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Leaders of the U.S. Muslim community intend to deliver a bloc vote in next year's presidential elections, one that will go against the candidate they endorsed last time - President George W. Bush. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Muslim Council, the American Muslim Alliance, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council agreed this weekend to cooperate on a voter registration drive that they hope will send one million Muslims to say "No" to Bush's 2004 re-election bid. Representatives of the four leading U.S. Muslim advocacy groups have begun voter registration drives at mosques and Islamic centers across the nation in hopes of ensuring a strong turnout in the 2004 presidential elections. The message is to reflect widespread "dissatisfaction" in the Muslim American community with the Bush administration's treatment of Arab and Muslim Americans since the September 11 attacks, Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying. "Feelings are running strongly against Bush in the community ... We feel that civil liberties have deteriorated in this country," he stressed. Among the policies that have alienated Muslims are those allowing racial profiling of Arab and Muslim men, the use of secret evidence in cases said to touch on national security, and the detention and deportation of many Arab and Muslim nationals without the right to legal representation. Further to their outrage, Bush appointed in August Daniel Pipes, an outspoken anti-Muslim scholar, to the board of the government-funded U.S. Institute of Peace. "Such an appointment, along with other actions helping discrimination against Muslim and Arab Americans could lead Bush to lose that support base in the coming presidential elections," Laila Al-Qatami of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told ISlamOnline.net. She warned that unlike the 2000 elections in which Arabs and Muslim Americans voted overwhelmingly for Bush, things could not stand a repeat in the 2004 presidential elections. "Bush should realize that such rising racism and bigotry against Arab and Muslims here would have ramifications for him." Awad declined to say the Democratic candidate, if any, the Muslims coalition would endorse. (MORE)
AFGHANISTAN - "DANGEROUS DEPLOYMENT FOR SEVERAL YEARS" German Defense Minister Struck has confirmed Afghanistan, though "dangerous", will be the new focal point for future foreign military deployments and German troops will be reduced in the Balkans. After the controversial decision this week to send German peacekeepers to the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, taking them outside the capital Kabul for the first time, German Defense Minister Peter Struck went a step further over the weekend. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, the defense minister said he estimated troops would remain in the country for several years. In December this year, the German parliament is expected to extend Germany's Afghanistan mandate by a year. "It the parliament does approve, then German soldiers will possibly support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan for several years," he said. Afghanistan, he said, will be "the focal point for German foreign deployments." Struck: Afghan deployment "very dangerous" The minister (photo) added the Afghanistan deployment remained "very dangerous". He said there was no foolproof protection against attacks, but added, "This terror isn't perpetrated by Afghans, but rather by the Taliban and al Qaeda." The Afghans, Struck said, didn't look upon the Germans as an occupying force. At the same time the minister stressed that a larger German peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was only possible if German troop presence in the Balkans was scaled back. "We want to end our Macedonia mandate early next year and gradually reduce German presence in Kosovo and Bosnia," the minister announced. Concern over relevant U.N. mandate Struck's comments come at a time when there is growing resistance in the German government against sending about 250 German soldiers to Kunduz before the U.N. expands the mandate for the multinational International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which currently only operates in and around Kabul for security reasons. Both Struck and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek Zeul, back from a one-day visit to Kabul, have voiced concern that Chancellor Schröder could be considering giving the go-ahead for troops without waiting for the U.N. decision. "A resolution by the U.N. Security Council is indispensable," Zeul said on Friday. (MORE)
PAKISTAN TO SEND MORE TROOPS TO SAUDI ARABIA BRUSSELS: Civil and military authorities in Pakistan have decided to provide additional military and security personnel to Saudi Arabia to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of the US and other Western troops from the Kingdom, reliable defence sources told The News. Saudi Arabia has already given a pledge to Pakistani authorities it would welcome additional Pakistani military and security advisers and troops primarily to replace the Western military personnel who have left the kingdom over the last year. Pakistani military personnel in Saudi Arabia would play an effective role in several projects designed to bolster the defence and security of the kingdom. "Pakistani military and security personnel sent to Saudi Arabia would play two-pronged security related role: first, to replace some of the westerners who have left or leaving the kingdom and secondly, to help in the expansion of the security related projects already being executed by Pakistani personnel in Saudi Arabia," the defence source underlined. The defence sources indicated that the need of Pakistan military and security personnel in Saudi Arabia would increase enormously in the days to come as the acceptability of the American troops in the Kingdom is affected by the recent cleavage in the US-Saudi relations created by a 28 pages of the joint congressional report on the events leading up to the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, which American refuse to declassify despite repeated requests by Saudi Arabia. The changed circumstances have provided yet another opportunity to further bolster the defence and security relations in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has already conveyed to the government of Pakistan its decision to get more Pakistani military and security advisers and personnel, the defence source indicated. The report on new enthusiasm in Pak-Saudi defence and security relations has perplexed none in the West as Western governments are aware of the fact that Pakistan is a leading ally of Saudi Arabia. Pakistani armed forces are regarded as the most reliable source always available to bolster the defence and security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. (SNIP) Additional Pak forces in Saudi Arabia, besides other operations, would put in action the expansion plan of the existing light weapons and ammunition production venture in the Kingdom by including the project to produce mortar and heavy munitions, the defence source said.
ARAFAT BACK IN THE FOREFRONT RAMALLAH, Aug 30 (IPS) - The seeming collapse of the peace road map has brought Yasser Arafat back to centre stage even though he was never quite outmanoeuvred by Israel and the United States. With the appointment of the old chief of preventive security on the West Bank Jibril Rajoub as his national security adviser, Arafat has staked his claim to be once again the sole power dominating the Palestinian political landscape. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, it appears now in political circles in Ramallah, will have to back down or back out. "There is a conflict between Abu Mazen (as Abbas is popularly known) and Arafat," says Kadura Fares, a young guard in the Fatah movement who pushed for the appointment of Abbas just a few months ago. "In the end if it's a matter of one of them going, it will have to be Abbas." This is new from Fares, who over the last few years has put pressure on Yasser Arafat and the old guard to introduce reforms. He is a member of the Legislative Council, the parliament of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and a prominent member of the Fatah movement. Fares and his colleagues are disappointed in Abbas. The Prime Minister should never have resigned his position in the central committee of Fatah during an earlier spat with the movement, he says. "He has turned out to be weak tactically, and we haven't seen enough happening in the area of political reforms." While most people in both the Abbas and the Arafat camp deny there is a problem, Fares who is in the middle is blunt. "There is a struggle for power and it is overshadowing the suffering of the Palestinian people now, and we are not happy with that." The jostling for position between Abbas and Arafat is crucial to the future of the road map. Political reforms within the PA are part of the road map, and both Israel and the United States refuse to deal with Yasser Arafat. The apparent conflict between the two men is remarkable because for years they were the closest of allies as fellow founders of the Fatah movement. Now their rivalry threatens to overshadow all the important issues they confront. (SNIP) Kadura Fares says things are slipping back to the way they were. "I don't want to defend Yasser Arafat," he says, "but he is the only elected leader we have and under the circumstances that is what we have to work with."
CNN, CNBC ON BOARD FOR RBC-TV LAUNCH RBC-TV, the country's first 24-hour business news channel, is set to go on air Sept. 2, after signing cooperation agreements with CNN International and CNBC Europe. The channel is to be "equal to leading Western news and analytical TV channels and adapted for the Russian audience," the company said in a statement. RosBusinessConsulting, a Russian business information agency founded a decade ago, has secured $23 million for the project; $17 million from the agency itself and the remaining $6 million through a private debt placement with Western investors. RBC said Monday that it expects the project to break even in two years. Its partnership agreements with London-based CNN International and CNBC Europe were not mentioned at the preliminary launch in May, though CNBC employees had been brought in to help train the new staff. The agreements allow RBC-TV to broadcast some of their content and vice versa. CNN will provide general world news coverage in exchange for the rights to use RBC-TV's reporting. CNBC, meanwhile, signed a two-year agreement with RBC to allow the network to translate and use its daily market reports from Europe, Asia and the United States. (MORE) | |||||
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