December 8, 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 DECEMBER 8, 2004

1//The Moscow Times, Russia--PUTIN URGES IRAQ TO WELCOME BUSINESS (President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he expects the new Iraqi leadership to respect Russian business interests after Moscow's announcement that it would write off $9 billion in debt owed by Baghdad.

"We did it in the spirit of solidarity with the Iraqi people. But at the same time we based our action on the expectation that the interests of our companies will be taken into account," Putin said in televised remarks after a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi…Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's announcement last week that Moscow will cancel 90 percent of Iraq's $10.5 billion debt to Russia by 2008 could be seen as an olive branch to Baghdad. Putin said that Russia is writing off more Iraqi debt than any other member of the Paris Club.)

2//The Daily Star, Lebanon--ANALYSIS: WHY PUTIN TIED THE ENERGY KNOT WITH ANKARA (Turkey is a key piece in Putin's overall strategy to re-establish a sphere of influence. Behind the Kremlin's rhetoric against a unipolar world is not only veiled criticism of U.S. hegemony, but a reminder that Siberian fields hold the largest deposits of natural gas. This is no idle talk. A global switchover at electricity plants from oil to natural gas has already begun. And Russia is by far the largest source of European gasoil imports (390,000 barrels per day in 2002, or 80 percent of West European imports). Gazprom, Russia's state-owned giant, is responsible for European energy security. But in order to stay competitive, Russian energy firms need full-scale pipeline infrastructure.)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--PUTIN’S PUSH FOR A STRATEGIC TRIANGLE (Russia is again calling for a Moscow-New Delhi-Beijing axis, an alliance of three nuclear-armed countries of some 2.5 billion people that theoretically would be able to balance US power in coming years. Cooperation among Russia, India and China "would make a great contribution to global security," Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in New Delhi. The Kremlin leader, on a visit to India over the weekend, accused the West of pursuing a dictatorial foreign policy and setting double standards on terrorism. A unipolar world could entail dangerous trends globally, Putin said, adding that unilateralism increased risks that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of terrorists. Putin refrained from naming the unilateral power in question, but it is widely assumed he was referring to the United States when he lashed out at "unipolar world" policies.)

4//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--ONE GIANT STEP – AND 32 SMALL ONES (The South American community that will be born this week in Peru -- the most ambitious integration initiative in the region's history -- will mark its debut with 32 physical infrastructure projects with a combined cost of over 4.2 billion dollars, to be carried out over the next five years. The new bloc will comprise the four Southern Common Market (Mercosur) countries, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and the members of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, along with Chile, Guyana and Suriname… The South American community will constitute an enormous market, encompassing 17 million square kilometres in territory and 350 million consumers, with a combined gross domestic product of 1.2 trillion dollars and 190 billion dollars in annual exports. The region is home to enough oil, gas and mineral reserves to supply its industries for over a century, as well as eight million square kilometres of forests and 27 percent of the world's freshwater reserves…Guarnieri told IPS that the bloc being created this week in Peru "will need a body responsible for developing programmes and proposals and monitoring progress from a technical and administrative point of view, like the executive commission of the European Union, and we have proposed that SELA serve as its basis.")

5//The Independent, UK--GERMANY’S CONSERVATIVES BEGIN TO LOSE FAITH IN FEMALE LEADER (Yesterday's unexpectedly weak support for Mrs Merkel showed that the CDU still faces an uphill battle. Until recently, the party had sustained a clear 10 per cent lead in the opinion polls over Mr Schröder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, which was attributed to the unpopularity of the government's economic reform programme. But with public opposition to reforms waning, the conservatives' lead slipped to only 7 per cent last month, and polls showed only 31 per cent of voters believed that Mrs Merkel had any chance of beating Mr Schröder in a general election.)

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1//The Moscow Times, Russia Wednesday, December 8, 2004. Page 1.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/...

PUTIN URGES IRAQ TO WELCOME BUSINESS
By Valeria Korchagina, Staff Writer

President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he expects the new Iraqi leadership to respect Russian business interests after Moscow's announcement that it would write off $9 billion in debt owed by Baghdad.

"We did it in the spirit of solidarity with the Iraqi people. But at the same time we based our action on the expectation that the interests of our companies will be taken into account," Putin said in televised remarks after a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Allawi's visit is the first trip to Moscow by top officials representing Iraq since the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Following the U.S.-led invasion of the country last year, Russia has run into problems protecting its long-standing interests there.

Allawi's visit has not yielded concrete deals, with both sides apparently waiting until after the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

The two governments announced the creation of a special bilateral commission that will meet in Moscow in February to hammer out unresolved issues.

A number of contracts that Russian companies signed with the Hussein regime have yet to be recognized by the new Iraqi leadership.

Furthermore, Russia got a slap in the face last year when the U.S. government barred Russia, as well as other countries that opposed the war, from bidding for multibillion-dollar contracts to rebuild Iraq's economy.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's announcement last week that Moscow will cancel 90 percent of Iraq's $10.5 billion debt to Russia by 2008 could be seen as an olive branch to Baghdad.

Putin said that Russia is writing off more Iraqi debt than any other member of the Paris Club.

(MORE)


2//The Daily Star, Lebanon Wednesday, December 08, 2004
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?...

ANALYSIS: WHY PUTIN TIED THE ENERGY KNOT WITH ANKARA
By Paul de Zardain
Special to The Daily Star

MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin's visit to Turkey this week deserves the label of historic. For centuries, Russia and the Ottoman Empire clashed along geographic fault lines. The Soviet breakup in 1991 reawakened old ghosts in the Caucasus and Balkans. Some argue that even Ukraine's "orange revolution," playing out in Kiev these days, is yet another moving piece.

Until this week, the distrust between Moscow and Ankara ran deep. The war in Chechnya has further frayed relations. But considering that bilateral trade is forecast to reach $10 billion in 2004, it no longer makes sense to ignore each other.

Turkey is a key piece in Putin's overall strategy to re-establish a sphere of influence. Behind the Kremlin's rhetoric against a unipolar world is not only veiled criticism of U.S. hegemony, but a reminder that Siberian fields hold the largest deposits of natural gas.

This is no idle talk. A global switchover at electricity plants from oil to natural gas has already begun. And Russia is by far the largest source of European gasoil imports (390,000 barrels per day in 2002, or 80 percent of West European imports). Gazprom, Russia's state-owned giant, is responsible for European energy security. But in order to stay competitive, Russian energy firms need full-scale pipeline infrastructure.

Blue Stream, a pipeline through the Black Sea, carried 1.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian natural gas to Turkey in 2003. Exports this year will likely reach 2 bcm. Gazprom's CEO Aleksei Miller is especially interested in Turkish distribution networks. Prior to Putin's visit, Miller met with Mehmed Gueler, Turkey's Energy Minister, to discuss investment opportunities.

For years, Russian investors have placed bids on Turkish electricity plants, oil refineries and LNG projects. But privatization in the 1990's was trumped by political instability in Ankara. As a bargaining tool, the Turkish side never tires of bringing up tanker traffic volume in the Bosphorus. Developing safer pipeline infrastructure is now in both parties' interest.

(MORE)


3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Dec. 8, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FL08Ag02.html

PUTIN’S PUSH FOR A STRATEGIC TRIANGLE
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - Russia is again calling for a Moscow-New Delhi-Beijing axis, an alliance of three nuclear-armed countries of some 2.5 billion people that theoretically would be able to balance US power in coming years.

Cooperation among Russia, India and China "would make a great contribution to global security," Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in New Delhi. The Kremlin leader, on a visit to India over the weekend, accused the West of pursuing a dictatorial foreign policy and setting double standards on terrorism. A unipolar world could entail dangerous trends globally, Putin said, adding that unilateralism increased risks that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of terrorists.

Putin refrained from naming the unilateral power in question, but it is widely assumed he was referring to the United States when he lashed out at "unipolar world" policies. Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a joint call for "multipolar world" and a greater role for the United Nations. The Russian leader also backed India's bid for a permanent United Nations Security Council seat.

(SNIP)

So far, the "strategic triangle" concept is yet to be formally coined. However, Russia, China and India are all understood to have a number of converging interests that could add substance to the axis talk. All three were opposed to the war on Iraq and protested against what they viewed as a rejection of the rules of the international game. They continue to back the primacy of the UN Security Council in solving crises, and support the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Apart from shared concerns of US dominance, the three have other common interests and mutually reinforcing needs. All three are weary of militant Islamic groups on their soil, and want stability in Central Eurasia.

There is also a growing arms sale relationship between Russia and the two Asian countries. The trade provides Moscow with billions of much-needed dollars and important arms-export markets, while Beijing and New Delhi receive sophisticated armaments ranging from combat aircraft to submarines.

All three countries have opposed missile defense systems, seen as detrimental to their respective nuclear deterrence. Incidentally, Russian generals have hinted they have cheaper ways to defeat an anti-missile system by using some of the Soviet-era blueprints of "asymmetric warfare." These include schemes to confuse and overwhelm a missile-defense system by the use of dummy warheads as well as multiple maneuverable warheads. China and India are reportedly interested in investigating how weaker powers can defeat stronger ones by "asymmetric warfare." Therefore, all three could be potentially interested in pursuing anti-satellite, anti-radar and anti-computer techniques designed to deny a technologically superior military power the ability to operate.

(SNIP)

There is, thus, a motivation in all three capitals to cooperate on strategic, security and economic issues. But aside from calls for a "multipolar world," the idea of an axis seemingly has yet to evolve into a clear-cut strategy. The would-be "strategic triangle" is still short of an implementation system, a prerequisite to ensure the future success of any stratagem. In the meantime, none of the troika wants to give the impression that they are banding together against the sole superpower.

As the international situation is undergoing a major shift, Moscow may feel a necessity for some "asymmetric" moves to offset its own weaknesses. If Russian policies in Ukraine fail, the Kremlin's response could be the acceleration of alliances with India and China, or at least the acceleration of axis talk. However, "strategic triangle" talk failed to impress the West in the past, and axis rhetoric is even less likely to have an impact now.


4//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy Dec. 7, 2004
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26583

ONE GIANT STEP – AND 32 SMALL ONES
Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, (IPS) - The South American community that will be born this week in Peru -- the most ambitious integration initiative in the region's history -- will mark its debut with 32 physical infrastructure projects with a combined cost of over 4.2 billion dollars, to be carried out over the next five years.

The new bloc will comprise the four Southern Common Market (Mercosur) countries, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and the members of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, along with Chile, Guyana and Suriname.

"We had always foreseen that this South American community would be formed through the gradual convergence of the Andean group and Mercosur," CAN secretary-general Allan Wagner told IPS.

"We cannot begin from square one when we already have foundations that can be built upon," he added.

The presidents of the South American countries will sign the new community's founding document during a two-day summit to be held in the southern Peruvian cities of Cusco, on Wednesday, and Ayacucho, on Thursday.

In deciding to take "the most important step ever towards the integration of the region," as it was described by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the South American nations debated over whether to create a new institutional structure or combine the regional integration structures that already exist.

In the end, they decided upon the latter, and agreed that the new community would be built upon three pillars: the coordination of common policies regarding multilateral organisations, the integration of physical infrastructure, and convergence between the CAN and Mercosur.

(SNIP)

The South American community will constitute an enormous market, encompassing 17 million square kilometres in territory and 350 million consumers, with a combined gross domestic product of 1.2 trillion dollars and 190 billion dollars in annual exports.

The region is home to enough oil, gas and mineral reserves to supply its industries for over a century, as well as eight million square kilometres of forests and 27 percent of the world's freshwater reserves.

It links the planet's two largest oceans, the Pacific and Atlantic, and could become a world leader in biodiversity and food production.

"Nevertheless, and despite the underlying economic interest, what has been most decisive in this regional process is political will, which is what must take precedence," said Roberto Guarnieri of Venezuela, the permanent secretary of the Caracas-based Latin American Economic System (SELA), made up of 25 Latin American and Caribbean states.

Guarnieri told IPS that the bloc being created this week in Peru "will need a body responsible for developing programmes and proposals and monitoring progress from a technical and administrative point of view, like the executive commission of the European Union, and we have proposed that SELA serve as its basis."

(MORE)


5//The Independent, UK 07 December 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=590444

GERMANY’S CONSERVATIVES BEGIN TO LOSE FAITH IN FEMALE LEADER
By Tony Paterson in Berlin

The chances of the Conservative opposition leader Angela Merkel becoming Germany's first woman chancellor suffered a setback yesterday after her party re-elected her with a substantially reduced majority that cast doubt on her being selected as the party's front-runner for the country's 2006 elections.

More than 1,000 delegates at a Christian Democrat (CDU) party conference in Düsseldorf re-elected the east German Mrs Merkel with only 88.4 per cent of the vote compared to the 93.7 per cent she got at a key party conference two years ago.

The surprise result showed 110 delegates had voted against her, contradicting earlier conservative claims that 50-year-old Mrs Merkel was firmly in line to challenge Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Germany's 2006 general election.

One senior CDU source was quoted as saying: "The field is wide open and we are now unlikely to make a decision about who will be front-runner until early 2006."

Mrs Merkel insisted yesterday that after months of factional infighting over reform policy, the party was now united. "We have stopped firing at each other and we are now ready to join forces and attack the government over its policies," she said.

Earlier, Roland Koch, the right-wing conservative Prime Minister of Hesse state and one of the main contenders to be the CDU candidate for chancellor, underscored the simmering unease in the party by publicly denouncing claims that Mrs Merkel had already been chosen for the job. "I have never been privy to any such arrangement," he said.

The party congress was designed to end months of speculation over the choice of a conservative candidate for chancellor. The CDU had been at loggerheads over the issue since Edmund Stoiber, the conservative Bavarian Prime Minister and former chancellor candidate, narrowly lost to Mr Schröder's Social Democrats in Germany's 2002 election.

Yesterday's unexpectedly weak support for Mrs Merkel showed that the CDU still faces an uphill battle. Until recently, the party had sustained a clear 10 per cent lead in the opinion polls over Mr Schröder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens ,which was attributed to the unpopularity of the government's economic reform programme. But with public opposition to reforms waning, the conservatives' lead slipped to only 7 per cent last month, and polls showed only 31 per cent of voters believed that Mrs Merkel had any chance of beating Mr Schröder in a general election.

(MORE)