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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//Turkish Daily News, Turkey--US
DELEGATION TO DISCUSS PKK IN ANKARA TALKS (A group of U.S.
officials is expected to hold talks in Ankara on Friday to
discuss ways to work together against the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, a critical issue that could
affect Turkey's decision to whether or not to send troops
to the southeastern neighbor, Turkish and U.S. officials
said...Among the details discussed are the size, location
and command structure of the Turkish mission, Turkish military
officials have said. But Ankara also demands clear assurances
and concrete steps from the United States to crack down on
the PKK, also known as KADEK, based in northern Iraq before
committing itself to send troops to Iraq.) 3//The Moscow Times, Russia--IRANIAN DEMANDS HOLDS UP BUSHEHR (To address concerns that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, Russia has said it will freeze construction on the $1 billion plant and will refuse to supply fuel unless Iran agrees to return all of the spent fuel. Both sides in recent weeks have said that an agreement was close to being signed. On Wednesday, however, Deputy Nuclear Power Minister Valery Govorukhin said Iran is now demanding that Russia pay for the spent fuel, Itar-Tass reported. Usually it is the other way around; countries get paid for receiving and storing spent fuel, he said.) 4//Inter
Press Service, Italy--AFGHANISTAN: TWO YEARS AFTER, COUNTRY'S
BIGGEST WOES NEGLECTED (War-weary Afghanistan continues
to suffer from stereotypical images about its political problems,
but its biggest woes have to do with livelihood and economic
issues that remain ignored, says a Japanese doctor who is
a winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award, Asia's equivalent
of the Nobel prize, this year..."Drought is the biggest
problem now facing the people in Afghanistan and the international
community must be more concerned about this than the political
images of war," he explained in an interview with IPS..."Western
countries and Japan are aiding violence in Afghanistan by
ignoring these urgent needs,'' he argued. ''The solution
is to share the local concerns and uplift the lives of 20
million Afghans by pouring money into stopping the drought
and saving lives if they want to eradicate the Taliban," he
said in the interview.) RELATED: The Moscow Times, Russia--BIG BUSH'S VISIT FUELS TALK OF BIG DEALS * * * 1//The
Turkish Daily News 11 September 2003 US DELEGATION TO DISCUSS PKK IN ANKARA TALKS ANKARA - A group of U.S. officials is expected to hold talks in Ankara on Friday to discuss ways to work together against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, a critical issue that could affect Turkey's decision to whether or not to send troops to the southeastern neighbor, Turkish and U.S. officials said. Ankara is considering to send troops to Iraq to help stabilization of the war-weary country and a U.S. military delegation held consultations in Ankara last week to discuss details of a possible Turkish deployment most probably in central Iraq, where attacks on U.S. targets are most frequent. Among the details discussed are the size, location and command structure of the Turkish mission, Turkish military officials have said. But Ankara also demands clear assurances and concrete steps from the United States to crack down on the PKK, also known as KADEK, based in northern Iraq before committing itself to send troops to Iraq. The inter-agency delegation led by U.S. State Department officials will discuss with Turkish officials the "ways in which Turkey and the United States can work together to eliminate the PKK-KADEK threat in northern Iraq," a U.S. Embassy official in Ankara told the Turkish Daily News. Although led by the State Department, the delegation was expected to include members from the military and intelligence. (SNIP) "We have designated PKK-KADEK as a terrorist organization and we're going to be discussing this further with the Turkish authorities," the same official added. Parliament enacted a partial amnesty a month ago for members of the PKK-KADEK offering reduced prison terms in exchange of cooperation with security forces but the number of PKK militants laying down arms to benefit from the law is so far insignificant. The U.S. side might be willing to wait more to see whether the law, due to stay in force for five more months, would lead to disarmament and surrender of more PKK militants. (SNIP) Military to finish assessments in two weeks A decision to send troops to Iraq would contribute to improvement of ties between Ankara and Washington, strained after Turkish Parliament's stunning March 1 rejection of a demand to deploy U.S. troops in Turkey to open a northern front on Iraq. The government and military also believe that Ankara would end up with no say in Iraq's restructuring if it remains aloof now. The government is waiting for assessments from the General Staff on possible risks that could stem from involvement in Iraq. Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug said Tuesday that consultations with the U.S. side are expected to be completed in two weeks time. (MORE)
ASSAD ACCEPTS MIRO'S RESIGNATION DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa Miro and asked Parliament Speaker Mohammad Naji Otri to form a new government, the state news agency SANA said Wednesday. (SNIP) Assad asked the outgoing government, formed in December 2001, to "quickly complete the outstanding tasks on its agenda until a new government is formed." The resignation of the government headed by Miro had been expected since Assad's announcement in early August that a new government would soon be formed to accelerate political and economic reforms. The announcement was made amid mounting demands by the media and from members of parliament to speed up reforms, especially of the administration and of the centralised socialist-leaning economy, in the light of the changed situation in the Middle East since the US invasion of neighbouring Iraq. Miro, 62, had been also criticised for not outlining specific measures to counter corruption and reform the administration. Otri, parliament speaker since March 2003, is close to Assad and one of the politicians that the young president wants at the forefront of efforts to bring change, according to Syrian sources. One analyst, who asked not to be named, sees a willingness to "give way to competent individuals" in the new government, and not hand out portfolios on the basis of party credentials, as has been the case previously. (SNIP) At
the meeting in early August of the ruling National Progressive
Front, a seven-party coalition led by Baath, Assad insisted
that new ministers must be chosen with "objectivity." The new government "must be empowered to take important decisions" and "fight against corruption and emergency laws, put forward new rules on political parties and grant a general amnesty" for political prisoners, said Hassan Abdul Azim. Emergency laws have applied in Syria since the Baath Party came to power in 1963. Assad succeeded his late father Hafez in July 2000 on a platform of bringing increased openness and freedom of expression and liberalising the economy. But hopes for swift change took a turn for the worse in the summer of 2001 when 10 intellectual opposition figures leading a nationwide debate on reforms were rounded up and imprisoned.
IRANIAN DEMANDS HOLDS UP BUSHEHR To address concerns that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, Russia has said it will freeze construction on the $1 billion plant and will refuse to supply fuel unless Iran agrees to return all of the spent fuel. Both sides in recent weeks have said that an agreement was close to being signed. On Wednesday, however, Deputy Nuclear Power Minister Valery Govorukhin said Iran is now demanding that Russia pay for the spent fuel, Itar-Tass reported. Usually it is the other way around; countries get paid for receiving and storing spent fuel, he said Govorukhin chose to go public with Iran's demand as the board of directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna debated a U.S.-backed resolution that would find Iran in noncompliance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has signed. The draft resolution -- put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany -- gives Iran until the end of October to prove that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. If Iran fails to meet the deadline, the IAEA would refer the issue to the Security Council, which would vote on whether to slap sanctions on Tehran. (SNIP) Iran maintains that its nuclear program is designed solely for generating electricity, but it has avoided signing an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that would allow for comprehensive IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. Govorukhin insisted the dispute was commercial and said both sides have agreed to start talks, Itar-Tass reported. Should Iran refuse to withdraw its demand, Russia would have to charge Iran a higher price to include the cost of buying it back, he said. (MORE)
AFGHANISTAN: TWO YEARS AFTER, COUNTRY'S BIGGEST WOES NEGLECTED TOKYO, Sep 10 (IPS) - War-weary Afghanistan continues to suffer from stereotypical images about its political problems, but its biggest woes have to do with livelihood and economic issues that remain ignored, says a Japanese doctor who is a winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel prize, this year. Testu Nakamura accepted the award for peace and humanitarian work from the Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Foundation this month, the same month that marks the anniversary of the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that led to U.S. military campaign that ousted the Taliban in November that year. But Nakamura says that Afghanistan's real problems -- beyond the reports of U.S. troops' search for Taliban remnants -- seem to have been forgotten in the nearly two years since the military raids made in retaliation for the attacks in the United States blamed on Osama bin Laden. Nakamura, who runs a hospital in Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan and clinics in Afghanistan with 140 staff, most of them local, says he does not want to get involved in politics. But drawing from his more than two decades' experience in the region, he says that the western and Japanese media focus too heavily on political and cultural aspect of the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. This often gives the wrong picture of what life is like on the ground, says the doctor who is well-respected in Japan for his independent views on development aid. "Drought is the biggest problem now facing the people in Afghanistan and the international community must be more concerned about this than the political images of war," he explained in an interview with IPS. More than half of Afghanistan's 20 million people have been affected by the drought, which has also been affecting Central Asia to China, India, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Nakamura cites estimates that 4 million Afghans are on the verge of starvation and one million might starve to death in the near future. ''It is said that 90 percent of livestock in Afghan villages died two years ago,'' he recounted. ''In some areas of Afghanistan, we have seen people walk several kilometres for water, sometimes for a whole day. Outbreaks of gastro-intestinal infections such as dysentery, amoebiasis and typhoid hit the area too,'' he said in his lecture accepting the award in Manila last week. ''So many children died,'' he said, adding that many get ill from drinking contaminated water. ''We have seen many children expiring in their mothers' arms in outpatients' waiting rooms at our clinics.'' ''It may not be appropriate for a doctor to say this, but, at one point, I couldn't care less about treating diseases, because the situation had become so desperate that simply staying alive itself became very difficult,'' he added. (SNIP) Amid all these, Nakamura points out that 70 percent of the aid from western donors to Afghanistan has gone to foreign non-government organisations and U.N. groups, leaving the government with little to contribute to pressing needs identified by the local people. He adds that continued military action by U.S. troops against the Taliban - just this week, U.S. officials were quoted as saying Taliban members were going across the border into Afghanistan from Pakistan -- has created war zones nearly two years after that ruling militia was ousted. This, he points out, has added to the already large number of people who need priority help in Afghanistan. "Western countries and Japan are aiding violence in Afghanistan by ignoring these urgent needs,'' he argued. ''The solution is to share the local concerns and uplift the lives of 20 million Afghans by pouring money into stopping the drought and saving lives if they want to eradicate the Taliban," he said in the interview. Already, Afghans are saying they feel let down by foreign governments after the Taliban's ouster and the achievement of the military and political objectives in the U.S.-led 'war against terrorism'. "We want the Americans to do something constructive for the Afghan people," opposition politician Ishaq Gailani was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corp as saying. "All they are interested in is their pursuit of al-Qaeda - which is basically a military objective." (MORE)
GEORGE BUSH SENIOR ARRIVES IN SAINT PETERSBURG Former US President George Bush arrived in Saint Petersburg yesterday with his wife Barbara, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, the visit to Saint Petersburg is a private one and the former US president has not planned any official engagements. (SNIP) After visiting Saint Petersburg Mr and Mrs Bush will travel to Sochi to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and then to Moscow where they will meet former president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev. RELATED: You name it and market players were buzzing Thursday about the real reasons behind the former American leader's visit -- an $18 billion play by U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco for a blocking stake in the new Yukos-Sibneft combo? The launch of a $500 million private tie-up between Alfa Group and Pentagon-connected Carlyle Group? Divvying up the hydrocarbon resources of postwar Iraq? Late Wednesday, before Bush Sr. had even left, traders in New York had already heard word that he was heading to Russia to help clear the way for the sale of a strategic stake in YukosSibneft to ChevronTexaco, which named one of its tankers after Condoleezza Rice, a former board member who is now his son's national security adviser. (MORE) | |||||
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