November 12, 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.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR NOVEMBER 12, 2004

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--A THOUSAND FALLUJAHS (Once again the US has been caught in a giant spider's web. Fallujah now is a network: it's Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra, Latifiyah, Kirkuk, Mosul. Streets on fire, everywhere: Hundreds, thousands of Fallujahs - the Mesopotamian echo of a thousand Vietnams. The Iraqi resistance has even regained control of a few Baghdad neighborhoods…Massive US military might is useless against a mosque network in full gear. In a major development not reported by US corporate media, for the first time different factions of the resistance have released a joint statement, signed among others by Ansar as-Sunnah, al-Jaysh al-Islami, al-Jaysh as-Siri (known as the Secret Army), ar-Rayat as-Sawda (known as the Black Banners), the Lions of the Two Rivers, the Abu Baqr as-Siddiq Brigades, and crucially al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Unity and Holy War) - the movement allegedly controlled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The statement is being relayed all over the Sunni triangle through a network of mosques. The message is clear: the resistance is united.)

2//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--IRAQ: ECONOMY HURTING MORE THAN VIOLENCE (Nearly 20 months into the occupation, Iraqis find themselves in a desperate situation, with countless struggling to survive. U.S. President George W. Bush said at a speech at the U.S. Army War College May 24 this year that the United States wants "freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people." Prosperity now looks like 70 percent unemployment. A recent study found that if the food ration programme set up by Saddam Hussein's regime during the U.S.-led sanctions was disbanded, more than 25 percent of Iraqis would starve to death. Bush had also praised "a growing private economy" in Iraq after the former governing council approved a new law "that opens the country to foreign investment for the first time in decades." But Antonia Juhasz, project director at the International Forum on Globalisation based in San Francisco in the United States says that orders to this effect by the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority have allowed the economy of Iraq to be sold from under Iraqis.)

3//The News International, Pakistan--EU-IRAN NUKE TALKS REMAIN INCONCLUSIVE (The crucial talks between Iran and the European Union over suspension of Tehran’s nuclear activities failed to reach a conclusion on Thursday, but the discussions will continue on Friday, said a source close to the talks. The meeting on Thursday evening between Iranian negotiators and the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany took place in a very positive atmosphere, the source said, requesting not to be named. "We can hope for an imminent or otherwise a quick result," the source said, without saying what was holding up an agreement.)

4//The Independent, UK--RUSSIA STARTS MORAL CRUSADE AGAINST MEDIA (The Russian parliament has embarked upon a moral crusade to eradicate graphic scenes of sex and violence from the country's television screens, prompting fears of a return of Soviet-style censorship… In its present form, the ban would cover news programmes, feature films and documentaries and would prevent the factual or fictional representation of corpses, acts of murder, physical violence, acts that result "in harm to a person's well-being," rape or other violent acts of a sexual nature. Deputies in the Duma appear determined to take action, although the government, industry regulators and President Vladimir Putin believe self-regulation is the way forward…the heads of Russia's predominantly state-controlled TV stations have warned that the Bill borders on the absurd and risks ruining news reports, preventing the broadcast of classic Russian and foreign films and even cartoons. They have formed a working group hoping to persuade MPs to water down the legislation.)

5//The Toronto Star, Canada--SOARING LOONIE CUTS FILMING (For years, Hollywood companies looking to save money on productions were drawn to Canada by a less-expensive dollar and the promise of provincial and federal labour tax credits. With the Canadian dollar's rapid climb, however, coupled with aggressive tax credit programs in at least 44 U.S. states, that advantage is weakening, industry officials said. "We have a pretty empty slate staring at us in January," said Kenneth Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios Inc., which boasts 15 shooting stages on its 12.1-hectare downtown property. "There are so many things going against the Canadian film industry right now.")

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong November 12, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FK12Ak04.html

A THOUSAND FALLUJAHS
By Pepe Escobar

"The bombs being dropped on Fallujah don't contain explosives, depleted uranium or anything harmful - they contain laughing gas - that would, of course, explain [Pentagon chief Donald] Rumsfeld's misplaced optimism about not killing civilians in Fallujah. Also, being a 'civilian' is a relative thing in a country occupied by Americans. You're only a civilian if you're on their side. If you translate for them, or serve them food in the Green Zone, or wipe their floors - you're an innocent civilian. Just about everyone else is an insurgent, unless they can get a job as a 'civilian'." -- Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl, author of the blog Baghdad Burning

Once again the US has been caught in a giant spider's web. Fallujah now is a network: it's Baghdad, Ramadi, Samarra, Latifiyah, Kirkuk, Mosul. Streets on fire, everywhere: Hundreds, thousands of Fallujahs - the Mesopotamian echo of a thousand Vietnams. The Iraqi resistance has even regained control of a few Baghdad neighborhoods.

Baghdad residents say there are practically no US troops around, even as regular explosions can be heard all over the city. Baghdad sources confirm to Asia Times Online that the mujahideen now control parts of the southern suburb of ad-Durha, as well as Hur Rajab, Abu Ghraib, al-Abidi, as-Suwayrah, Salman Bak, Latifiyah and Yusufiyah - all in the Greater Baghdad area. This would be the first time since the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, that the resistance has been able to control these neighborhoods.

Massive US military might is useless against a mosque network in full gear. In a major development not reported by US corporate media, for the first time different factions of the resistance have released a joint statement, signed among others by Ansar as-Sunnah, al-Jaysh al-Islami, al-Jaysh as-Siri (known as the Secret Army), ar-Rayat as-Sawda (known as the Black Banners), the Lions of the Two Rivers, the Abu Baqr as-Siddiq Brigades, and crucially al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Unity and Holy War) - the movement allegedly controlled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The statement is being relayed all over the Sunni triangle through a network of mosques. The message is clear: the resistance is united.

The mobile mujahideen
Fallujah civilians have told families and friends in Baghdad that the US bombing has been worse than Baghdad suffered in March 2003.

The Fallujah resistance for its part seems to have made the crucial tactical decision of clearing two main roads - called Nisan 7 and Tharthar Street - thus drawing the Americans to a battle in the center of town. Baghdad sources close to the resistance say that now the Americans seem to be positioned exactly where the mujahideen want them. This is leading the resistance to insist they - and not the Americans, according to the current Pentagon spin - now control 70% of the city.

There are at least 120 mosques in Fallujah. A consensus is emerging that almost half of them have been smashed by air strikes and shelling by US tanks - something that will haunt the United States for ages. The mosques stopped broadcasting the five daily calls for prayer, but Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi reporter for BBC World Service in Arabic and one of the very few media witnesses in Fallujah, writes that "every time a big bomb lands nearby, the cry rises from the minarets: 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great]."

Badrani also disputes the Pentagon spin: "It is misleading to say the US controls 70% of the city because the fighters are constantly on the move. They go from street to street, attacking the army in some places, letting them through elsewhere so that they can attack them later. They say they are fighting not just for Fallujah, but for all Iraq." The mujahideen tactics are a rotating web - Ho Chi Minh's and Che Guevara's tactics applied to urban warfare by the desert: snipers on rooftops, snipers escaping on bicycles, mortar fire from behind abandoned houses, rocket-propelled-grenade attacks on tanks, Bradleys being ambushed, barrages of as many as 200 rockets, instant dispersal, "invisible" regrouping.

(MORE)


2//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy Nov 9, 2004
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26212

IRAQ: ECONOMY HURTING MORE THAN VIOLENCE
Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (IPS) - Violence is taking a heavy toll in Iraq, but everyday economic difficulties could be hurting people more.

Nearly 20 months into the occupation, Iraqis find themselves in a desperate situation, with countless struggling to survive.

U.S. President George W. Bush said at a speech at the U.S. Army War College May 24 this year that the United States wants "freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people."

Prosperity now looks like 70 percent unemployment. A recent study found that if the food ration programme set up by Saddam Hussein's regime during the U.S.-led sanctions was disbanded, more than 25 percent of Iraqis would starve to death.

Bush had also praised "a growing private economy" in Iraq after the former governing council approved a new law "that opens the country to foreign investment for the first time in decades."

But Antonia Juhasz, project director at the International Forum on Globalisation based in San Francisco in the United States says that orders to this effect by the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority have allowed the economy of Iraq to be sold from under Iraqis.

In a paper 'The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the U.S. a Lock on Iraq's Economy', she wrote that order no. 39 allows for "(1) privatisation of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) 'national treatment' -- which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licences."

Iraqis are therefore not given preference in reconstruction efforts in their own country. Foreign corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel have been allowed "to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and send all of their money home," Juhasz said. "They cannot be required to hire Iraqis or to reinvest their money in the Iraqi economy. They can take out their investments at any time and in any amount."

The consequences of those decisions are being felt in Iraqi homes. Abu Ahmed al-Hadithi, 40, sells vegetables in the al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad. "The economic situation is very bad now," he said as he stood waiting to sell some cucumbers. "The costs of gas and food are going up so high. So even if we make more now, everything is costing more."

The vegetables he sells now are imported. "I make less profit now, I have nine people to take care of, and it has made my life very difficult," he said.

This is the consequence of order no. 12 of the Bremer orders as they came to be called after former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer. The order suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq."

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3//The News International, Pakistan Friday November 12, 2004-- Ramadan 28, 1425 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/...

EU-IRAN NUKE TALKS REMAIN INCONCLUSIVE

TEHRAN: The crucial talks between Iran and the European Union over suspension of Tehran’s nuclear activities failed to reach a conclusion on Thursday, but the discussions will continue on Friday, said a source close to the talks.

The meeting on Thursday evening between Iranian negotiators and the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany took place in a very positive atmosphere, the source said, requesting not to be named.

"We can hope for an imminent or otherwise a quick result," the source said, without saying what was holding up an agreement. Iran is supposed to give its response to the demands to halt its uranium enrichment in order to avoid possible UN sanctions. The terms of a preliminary accord were hammered out during the tough two-day negotiations in Paris last week.

The Europeans are pushing for Iran to accept a suspension of its work on the nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment, to ease international alarm over its ‘covert weapons drive.’ In return, the big three of the EU are offering Iran civilian nuclear technology, including access to nuclear fuel and increased trade. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been probing Iran for nearly two years, has told the country to respond in writing this week to the European deal if it wants its position included in a report for an IAEA meeting on November 25.

(SNIP)

Iran has already agreed to prolong a one-year-old suspension of enrichment and also suspend the making of the uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) that is the actual feed for the enrichment process. But it appears unwilling to suspend other stages in the fuel cycle.

"There are still internal discussions at a high level and it is not yet clear if the Iran’s leadership would approve or reject a deal," said Iranian diplomat and top negotiator Hossein Moussavian on Thursday. "It is imperative that our response takes into account our national interests," said spokesman for foreign ministry Hamid Reza Asefi while talking to the state television: The 25-nation EU, led by Britain, France and Germany, says Iran must indefinitely and fully suspend uranium enrichment activities, while Iran continues to insist on its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes — permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and cannot be called into question.


4//The Independent, UK 12 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=582022

RUSSIA STARTS MORAL CRUSADE AGAINST MEDIA
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow

The Russian parliament has embarked upon a moral crusade to eradicate graphic scenes of sex and violence from the country's television screens, prompting fears of a return of Soviet-style censorship.

Alarmed that Russia's youth is being corrupted and brutalised by an endless diet of violence and hardcore erotica, deputies have voted to ban such images from 7am till 10 pm.

In its present form, the ban would cover news programmes, feature films and documentaries and would prevent the factual or fictional representation of corpses, acts of murder, physical violence, acts that result "in harm to a person's well-being", rape or other violent acts of a sexual nature. Deputies in the Duma appear determined to take action, although the government, industry regulators and President Vladimir Putin believe self-regulation is the way forward.

In the first of three readings, 420 MPs backed the new Bill. Andrey Skoch, an MP from Mr Putin's United Russia party, is behind the new legislation. He says the aim is to protect children from extreme images which have proliferated since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russian viewers are routinely treated to ultra-violent TV series or feature films about the country's criminal underworld, documentaries and news programmes which think nothing of broadcasting images of mutilated and bomb-blasted corpses, and Crimewatch-style shows which hold nothing back.

(SNIP)

The older generation, which grew up on ultra-conservative Soviet TV, strictly censored and sanitised, has long demanded action, and Russia's newest generation of patriotic politicians say they are eager to "restore order" and clean up the nation's morals. Boris Gryzlov, the Duma Speaker, said; "In the pursuit of ratings and commercial success [TV stations] have forgotten about their enormous educational role for the next generation of Russians."

Deputies have been particularly unhappy about coverage of Chechen separatist-inspired acts of terror which the Russian media has a tendency to show in all their gory detail. Months ago, one MP tried and failed to impose a blanket ban on the live TV coverage of domestic terror acts, saying in situations such as the Beslan school siege the media was in effect disseminating "terrorist propaganda."

Nationalist MPs such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky say the new Bill is just what is needed. "We cannot make TV sterile but we can at least keep some cruelty off the screen at peak times," he said.

But the heads of Russia's predominantly state-controlled TV stations have warned that the Bill borders on the absurd and risks ruining news reports, preventing the broadcast of classic Russian and foreign films and even cartoons. They have formed a working group hoping to persuade MPs to water down the legislation.

(MORE)


5//The Toronto Star, Canada Nov. 11, 2004. 06:32 AM
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagen...

SOARING LOONIE CUTS FILMING

Subsidies drawing movies elsewhere
One studio offers 78-cent U.S. dollar

Rick Westhead, Business Reporter

When Hollywood titans such as Steven Spielberg want to make movies in Canada, Michael Prupas is usually one of the first people to field a phone call.

The trouble is, Prupas said, his phone hasn't been ringing as often in recent weeks.

The 53-year-old producer is among a growing number of stakeholders in Canada's once vibrant film industry who worry that a robust Canadian dollar is bad for business.

"There's a real danger with the dollar rising as much as it has, as fast as it has," said Prupas, whose credits include The Terminal, which starred Tom Hanks and Catch Me if You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Prupas said he's already lost several prospective productions to Louisiana and he isn't the only one feeling the pinch.

Producer Don Carmody's plans to work for a unit of Universal Films on Revolver, a psychological thriller starring Sarah Michelle Geller, were scuppered in recent weeks when Universal pulled the production out of Toronto.

"The studios have no loyalty," said Carmody, who was co-producer of the Academy Award winning film Chicago.

For years, Hollywood companies looking to save money on productions were drawn to Canada by a less-expensive dollar and the promise of provincial and federal labour tax credits.

With the Canadian dollar's rapid climb, however, coupled with aggressive tax credit programs in at least 44 U.S. states, that advantage is weakening, industry officials said.

"We have a pretty empty slate staring at us in January," said Kenneth Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios Inc., which boasts 15 shooting stages on its 12.1-hectare downtown property. "There are so many things going against the Canadian film industry right now."

(MORE)