 |
||||||
| May 3, 2004 |
||||||
World Media Watch by Gloria R. Lalumia BUZZFLASH NOTE: WMW provides BuzzFlash readers foreign views and perspectives that are not usually available from the media here in the U.S. The presentation of these articles from these international publications is not an endorsement of their viewpoints. * * * WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR MAY 3, 2004 1//The Scotsman, UK--BLAIR DISTRACTS CRITICS WITH SWERVE TOWARD HOME POLICY (Tony Blair yesterday ended a frantic weekend of engagements with an attempt to refocus the political agenda on domestic affairs as criticism of his foreign policy intensified...It appeared last night that the demands for ministers to close ranks and support Mr Blair had finally been heeded, with several heavyweights making clear their support for him as Prime Minister if Labour wins the next general election.) 2//Deutsche-Welle/dw-World.de, Germany--GERMANY TO SHORTEN MISSIONS ABROAD, STOP GUARDING U.S. BASES (German Defense Minister Peter Struck calls for shortening the length of military missions abroad and removing guards from U.S. bases by the end of the year in order to save money. The German military, the Bundeswehr, has more troops deployed in peacekeeping missions abroad than any country apart from the United States. From Kosovo to Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, some 7,700 German soldiers participate in international security forces. But the country is undergoing massive cost-cutting reforms, and the finance ministry has targeted the defense department as one of the areas where the government needs to cut back.) 3//Inter Press News Agency Service, Italy--EUROPEAN
UNION: THE WORLD'S NEW LEADING ECONOMIC POWER (According
to figures from Eurostat, the Statistical Office
of the European Communities, the EU's combined
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow to 12.1
trillion dollars, slightly higher than the 12.04
trillion dollar GDP of the United States, which
will thus lose its position as the world's leading
economic power...Nevertheless, Sarfield Cabral
says the enlargement process has been accompanied
by doubts with respect to the future of the EU.
He says the most frequent questions are ''whether
it will be diluted into a mere free trade area,
the objective of many opponents of integration
who have nonetheless applauded the expansion. Or
will a directorate of the big members (France,
Germany, Italy and the UK) be in control, leading
to a loss of the sense of community?'') 5//The Independent, UK--OUTCRY AS ITALY STARTS TO SELL OFF ITS HERITAGE (Italy's great asset-strip has begun. Desperate for revenue, Silvio Berlusconi's government has already made billions of euros out of amnesties to illegal builders and tax evaders. Now it plans to sell off the family silver, starting today...As a result, some extraordinary properties are going to come on the market. It may not be immediately obvious what one can do with a well- preserved 2,000-year-old nymphaeum (shrine of the nymphs) in central Rome or the Auditorium of Mecenate, which was once the property of the Emperor Tiberius. But these, along with a former convent and an ex-monastery, various disused barracks and some thundering 19th-century public buildings, are among the first 21 assets to be put on the list.) * * * 1//The
Scotsman, UK Mon 3 May 2004 BLAIR DISTRACTS CRITICS WITH SWERVE TOWARD HOME
POLICY The Prime Minister flew from Dublin, where he had been among the 25 heads of state celebrating European Union expansion, to address head teachers at an education conference in Cardiff. His speech had been deliberately kept low key by aides at No 10 as part of a strategy that was being seen as a deliberate attempt to re-strengthen Mr Blair's position at one of the most testing times of his premiership. It appeared last night that the demands for ministers to close ranks and support Mr Blair had finally been heeded, with several heavyweights making clear their support for him as Prime Minister if Labour wins the next general election. Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, emerged to declare Mr Blair's leadership of Labour as "indispensable". And she claimed the party's record of "unprecedented success" in the opinion polls was due to Mr Blair's vision and Gordon Brown's stewardship, as Chancellor, of the economy. "It is the most successful partnership in modern history and Tony Blair must go down as one of the most successful prime ministers and his leadership is indispensable," Ms Jowell said. In the most significant move of all, sources close to Mr Brown confirmed he plans to stage an extraordinary show of solidarity with Mr Blair this week as the Prime Minister fights to end speculation about his future. The two will share a platform twice in one day as they join forces to try to end the frenzied debate about Mr Blair's intention to serve a third term. The decision, which Mr Brown's allies described as unusual, underlines the extent to which ministers fear that the speculation about a change of leader has got out of control and could damage their electoral chances. (MORE)
GERMANY TO SHORTEN MISSIONS ABROAD, STOP GUARDING U.S. BASES German Defense Minister Peter Struck calls for shortening the length of military missions abroad and removing guards from U.S. bases by the end of the year in order to save money. The German military, the Bundeswehr, has more troops deployed in peacekeeping missions abroad than any country apart from the United States. From Kosovo to Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, some 7,700 German soldiers participate in international security forces. But the country is undergoing massive cost-cutting reforms, and the finance ministry has targeted the defense department as one of the areas where the government needs to cut back. According to the weekly Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Struck plans to shorten the length of missions abroad. "We will reduce the duration of international missions from six months to four months in the second half of the year," he said on Sunday. The minister, however, resisted plans to trim down defense spending even more. "The finance minister wants to push through budget reforms in all areas, but I cannot accept that," he was quoted in the newspaper. The defense ministry's current finance plan is based on an annual budget of €24.2 billion euros, of which only €1.15 billion went towards underwriting foreign deployments in 2003. Cutting that amount even further would jeopardize several international missions, to which the Bundeswehr has pledged itself, Struck argued. No more protection of U.S. bases Instead of withdrawing itself from its international military commitments such as the international fight against terrorism, the minister proposed terminating the protection of U.S. military installations in Germany. Since the start of the war in Iraq last January, around 2,500 German soldiers have been providing guard duty for 100 U.S. bases throughout the country. "At the end of the year, we want to stop the German federal armed forces guarding American military bases," Struck told the newspaper, adding that negotiations were already underway for ending the policing process. The U.S. defense department is currently studying a "base realignment and closure" program aimed at relocating installations around the world so the Pentagon can react quickly to new military threats. Under the plans, a number of bases are likely to close in Germany as tens of thousands of troops leave the country, probably for central and eastern Europe. (MORE)
EUROPEAN UNION: THE WORLD'S NEW LEADING ECONOMIC
POWER LISBON, Apr 30 (IPS) - Even the most far-sighted observers probably did not imagine in 1952, when six countries created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), that the treaty would be the embryo of a bloc that is becoming the world's leading economic power, even slightly surpassing the size of the U.S. economy. May 1, 2004 marks the birth of today's new Europe, no longer separated by the ''Iron curtain'', which for 45 years divided the continent between ''capitalists'' and ''communists''. For the first time, 10 countries are joining the bloc simultaneously, including eight from the defunct Soviet bloc; Cyprus; and the tiny island of Malta, a British colony until 1964. To better understand the origins of today's newly expanded bloc, it is necessary to go back to the 1952 treaty and the integrationist trend that five years later led ECSC members Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the then Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) to sign the Rome Treaty, which created the European Economic Community (EEC). The EEC was joined by Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1973; Greece in 1981; and Spain and Portugal in 1986. In 1992 the Maastrict Treaty officially created the European Union (EU), which was joined by Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. With the admission of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia on Saturday, the 15-member bloc of 378 million people expands to a 25-nation EU with a combined population of 453 million. According to figures from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, the EU's combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow to 12.1 trillion dollars, slightly higher than the 12.04 trillion dollar GDP of the United States, which will thus lose its position as the world's leading economic power. Joining the EU amounts to ''staking our bets on peace,'' Gunter Verheugen, the bloc's commissioner for enlargement, said this week in Lisbon. Verheugen recalled that ''men like Robert Schuman and Jean Monet (in France) and Konrad Adenauer (in Germany) not only understood (in the 1950s) the absolute urgency of restoring peace on our continent once and for all, but they also knew that the only way to achieve that objective was through economic integration and the development of common policies.'' The political spectrum of the new 25-member EU has been dominated by the right since four years ago, when the then-candidate countries took part in European Parliament elections for the first time. The conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats)/European Democrats holds 231 of the 622 seats in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, followed by the Party of European Socialists, with 173. After that come the centrist European Liberal Democrats and Reformists (52 seats), the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (49), the Greens/European Free Alliance (44), and the extreme-right Union for a Europe of Nations (23). The remaining 50 parliamentarians represent small parties or are ''non-attached'' members, who describe themselves as independent. Portuguese economic analyst Luis Sarfield Cabral says that ''despite all of the defects of the European community, adhering to it was and is a priority for many countries,'' because joining the bloc ''means strengthening still-insecure democracies.'' Nevertheless, Sarfield Cabral says the enlargement process has been accompanied by doubts with respect to the future of the EU. He says the most frequent questions are ''whether it will be diluted into a mere free trade area, the objective of many opponents of integration who have nonetheless applauded the expansion. Or will a directorate of the big members (France, Germany, Italy and the UK) be in control, leading to a loss of the sense of community?'' (MORE)
IMAGE RELOADED, MACAPAGAL NOW ON WINNING STREAK 'Insurmountable' lead (SNIP) Judging from the decibel of the screams that Kashiwahara described as "hindi ordinaryong tili kundi mga tiling may brilyo (not ordinary but with a particular sheen or brilliance), the President's fans -- in Bacoor and elsewhere -- appear to have a winner in their hands. "No way can you say this has been stage-managed. This is a very spontaneous outpouring of emotion for the President, and believe me, it is like this all over the country," says Kashiwahara, an award-winning movie and television director and now the President's campaign coordinator, who should know her real scenarios from the reel. "How can you simulate this when you see it at countryside crossings, in areas where it is hard to muster a crowd?" Eight days before the elections on May 10, Kashiwahara had reason to be happy. Ms Macapagal had been on top of survey charts in the last few weeks, and "positive" (if cautionary) reports of her impending victory from two US-based firms had come out in the papers, along with long-awaited support from the influential local business community which said it chose her because of her proven track record. Palace officials were clearly elated, calling the lead of the President over her closest rival, actor Fernando Poe Jr., "insurmountable." Last week, a private polling firm, NFO Trends, showed Ms Macapagal getting 36.9 percent of the votes of 1,200 respondents it interviewed, compared to Poe's 26.4 percent, in the April 20-22 period. And before that, Social Weather Stations, an old hand in the poll survey business headed by Poe's cousin Mahar Mangahas, gave her a 5-percent lead with 35.3 percent, followed by Poe's 30.8 percent. An investment company based in New York, Bear Stearns, also indicated a likely win for the President in its April 27 research report, although it cautioned that it would be a slim margin, and that the victory could be tainted with allegations of cheating. Eurasia Group, a consultancy firm with headquarters also in New York, similarly predicted the triumph of the incumbent based on the recent SWS and NFO Trends surveys, adding that it could even surpass that of deposed President Estrada's overwhelming vote tally in 1998. "We were slowly gaining ground from various sectors, but now we have a snowballing of support from all over the country," says Michael Defensor, who had gone on leave as housing secretary to become Ms Macapagal's campaign spokesperson. "The campaign is really very upbeat now and things are turning out better than what we originally expected." In a race that many say has come down (from a field of five) to a close fight between the President and the actor, the "tsunami" that was supposed to be Poe appeared to have weakened into a minor squall, judging from his continuing slide in the surveys. Observers had attributed the plummeting ratings to what they called the disorganized political machinery of Poe's Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP/Coalition of United Filipinos), further hobbled by an engine running low on fuel and perceptions that the actor had disappointed an anxious electorate eager to hear his platform by choosing to remain silent or evasive. In contrast, the Macapagal campaign is backed by a vaunted political machinery with overflowing resources, an advantage frequently used by the opposition as an example of electioneering activities by the incumbent (and leading to a number of disqualification suits against the President), proceeding from an uneasy start to what jubilant Macapagal supporters now call "an obvious victory." (MORE)
OUTCRY AS ITALY STARTS TO SELL OFF ITS HERITAGE Italy's great asset-strip has begun. Desperate for revenue, Silvio Berlusconi's government has already made billions of euros out of amnesties to illegal builders and tax evaders. Now it plans to sell off the family silver, starting today. The Italian state, says the Minister of Culture, Giuliano Urbani, owns far too much: thousands and thousands of buildings and plots of land, some of immense value, such as the Colosseum or Trevi Fountain, others of no real value. Many were properties bought as part of the practice of lottizzazione, by which the state forked out taxpayers' money to its friends and favourites for their often semi-useless buildings. "First in the Fascist period and then in the [post-war] republic ... the public sphere became greatly over-extended," the minister said. "We are not talking about selling the Colosseum, but for the first time we will establish what can be sold and what cannot." What makes the sale possible is an elaborate regulatory code for cultural assets that comes into force today, laying down in detail how Italy's patrimony must be treated. Now state-owned buildings and land deemed of no real value can be listed for sale. If the cultural curators responsible for them do not object within 120 days, they can be sold. Mr Urbani said: "We have a demesne which is the product of a form of socialism that functioned like royalty. We don't have the money to conserve the works of art: we possess crumbling barracks, tumbledown historical palaces, uncultivated land, property of no interest. All this must go." As a result, some extraordinary properties are going to come on the market. It may not be immediately obvious what one can do with a well- preserved 2,000-year-old nymphaeum (shrine of the nymphs) in central Rome or the Auditorium of Mecenate, which was once the property of the Emperor Tiberius. But these, along with a former convent and an ex-monastery, various disused barracks and some thundering 19th-century public buildings, are among the first 21 assets to be put on the list. (MORE) | ||||||
|
©2004, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com Radio for the Left at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/radio.htm BACK TO TOP |
||||||
 |
||||
| DAILY BUZZ | ||||
| INTERVIEWS | ||||
| ANALYSIS | ||||
| MEDIA LINKS | ||||
|
Unless
otherwise noted, all original |
 |
|||
