December 29, 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 29, 2004


1//The Independent, UK--PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY AT WAR: KIM JONG Il PURGES RELATIVES AFTER ALLEGED COUP BID (North Korea's Kim Jong I has purged some of his closest relatives, accusing them of trying to seize power, reports in Beijing and Seoul said… The regime is being supported largely with aid from China and South Korea as Kim has tried to trade his nuclear weapons programme with sweeping security guarantees from Washington. But with the re-election of George W Bush, Kim Jong Il has little realistic chance of realising his hopes, and there are growing signs that even China is beginning to lose patience with him. Beijing has moved some 60,000 troops from the Shenyang garrison to the border in case it needs to intervene. A trickle of reports coming out of North Korea paint a picture of a regime in its dying days, with leading members of the ruling family at each other's throats.)

2//The News International, Pakistan--PAKISTAN, IRAN CALL FOR DEBATE ON UN REFORMS (Pakistan and Iran on Tuesday called for a debate on proposed reforms of the United Nations and supported the creation of eight new Security Council seats, a Foreign Ministry statement said… Kasuri and Kharrazi discussed the situation in Iraq and threw their weight behind efforts to set up a broad-based government in the war-torn country, it said. The two ministers also discussed economic cooperation as well as a proposed gas pipeline between Iran and Pakistan, it said… The Iranian minister appreciated Pakistan's efforts for peace in the region. He stated that Iran was keen to further develop its close ties with Pakistan especially in the areas of trade and investment.)

3//The Daily Star, Lebanon--SYRIA'S MEDIA WITNESSING GIANT CHANGE—BUT IS IT ENOUGH? (When Mehdi Dakhlallah wrote an article earlier in the year calling for the abolition of a clause in the Syrian constitution granting preferential treatment to the ruling Baath party, many thought he would lose his job as editor of Al-Baath newspaper… However, instead of being sacked, Dakhlallah was promoted to minister of information and since then has launched an accelerated shake-up of Syria's media. Journalists are growing bolder as traditional red lines blur, taboos are broken and fear of imprisonment for writing articles critical of the regime recedes.)

4//The Moscow Times, Russia--OPINION: LESSONS IN ORANGE FOR UKRAINE AND THE EU
(Viktor Yushchenko is the new president of a new Ukraine. This is the main outcome of the dramatic five weeks of revolution that changed the country. The Orange Revolution proved the old saying that freedom is when the people can speak, but democracy is when the government listens. The remarkable unwillingness and inability of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and his regime to listen to the people and respect their will eventually contributed to peoples' outrage and brought them to the streets. In doing so, Ukrainians reinvented themselves as a nation and Ukrainian society rediscovered itself as a civil society. Thus, Homo sovieticus died peacefully in Ukraine.)

5//Interfax, Russia--KYRGYZ PUBLIC SUSPECTS U.S. DIPLOMAT OF PREPARING REVOLUTION (The Council of the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan has criticized the U.S. ambassador in Bishkek, Steven Young, saying his activities can be regarded as preparations for a velvet revolution. His activities can be considered as preparation in Kyrgyzstan of a velvet revolution comparable to the revolution in Georgia which is believed to have been orchestrated by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lynn Pascoe, says a council statement received by Interfax on Tuesday.)

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1//The Independent, UK 29 December 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=596607

PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY AT WAR: KIM JONG Il PURGES RELATIVES AFTER ALLEGED COUP BID

By Jasper Becker in Beijing

North Korea's Kim Jong Il has purged some of his closest relatives, accusing them of trying to seize power, reports in Beijing and Seoul said.

The purge began some months ago when Kim Jong Il put his brother-in-law, Chang Song-taek, under house arrest along with 80 other officials and their family members. Many have reportedly been sent to North Korea's Gulag in the largest purge in a decade.

Some diplomats believe the power struggles may be connected [to] the pace and scope of economic reforms. Kim Jong Il is reportedly preparing to announce new changes to the political and economic system in late February when the country celebrates his birthday.

Kim Jong Il took over from his father 10 years ago and managed to hold on to power as the economy collapsed and an estimated three million perished from hunger and disease.

The regime is being supported largely with aid from China and South Korea as Kim has tried to trade his nuclear weapons programme with sweeping security guarantees from Washington.

But with the re-election of George W Bush, Kim Jong Il has little realistic chance of realising his hopes, and there are growing signs that even China is beginning to lose patience with him. Beijing has moved some 60,000 troops from the Shenyang garrison to the border in case it needs to intervene.

A trickle of reports coming out of North Korea paint a picture of a regime in its dying days, with leading members of the ruling family at each other's throats.

Government sources in Seoul said Austrian intelligence was reported to have foiled an attempt last month to assassinate Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, when he was visiting the country. Austria's Foreign Ministry has denied the story.

Another report circulating in Seoul says that in September Kim Jong Il's sister, Kim Kyong-hee, was seriously injured in a traffic accident, which is assumed to have been an attempt on her life.

(MORE)

2//The News International, Pakistan Wednesday December 29, 2004-- Ziq'a Qad 16, 1425 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2004-daily...

PAKISTAN, IRAN CALL FOR DEBATE ON UN REFORMS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran on Tuesday called for a debate on proposed reforms of the United Nations and supported the creation of eight new Security Council seats, a Foreign Ministry statement said.

(SNIP)

Kasuri and Kharrazi discussed the situation in Iraq and threw their weight behind efforts to set up a broad-based government in the war-torn country, it said. The two ministers also discussed economic cooperation as well as a proposed gas pipeline between Iran and Pakistan, it said.

Iran's recent talks with European countries on nuclear issues and its contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency also came under discussion during the talks. Pakistan welcomed Iran's agreement last month with Britain, France and Germany, acting for the European Union, to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for trade, technology and security rewards. Kharrazi later held talks with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and discussed the plans for a proposed gas line from Iran to India via Pakistan.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said close ties between Iran and Pakistan are a source of strength and peace in the region and reiterated government's commitment to expand bilateral relations, especially in trade and economy.

"These ties are deep and historic and cover broad areas, including cultural, social, political and economic," he said. He said establishment of joint investment companies and banks between the two countries would further promote economic relations. They discussed possibilities of enhancing economic cooperation and more people-to-people contact between the two countries.

The prime minister said Pakistan was exploring gas pipelines to meet its growing energy needs. These options will be pursued on bilateral basis. Transit to third country will be considered on the basis of mutual advantage and agreement. They agreed to enhance border trade to promote bilateral economic relations between the two countries.

The Iranian minister appreciated Pakistan's efforts for peace in the region. He stated that Iran was keen to further develop its close ties with Pakistan especially in the areas of trade and investment.

3//The Daily Star, Lebanon Wednesday, December 29, 2004
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?...

SYRIA’S MEDIA WITNESSING GIANT CHANGE—BUT IS IT ENOUGH?
Even the new interior minister called local papers 'unreadable'

By Nicholas Blanford
Special to The Daily Star

DAMASCUS: When Mehdi Dakhlallah wrote an article earlier in the year calling for the abolition of a clause in the Syrian constitution granting preferential treatment to the ruling Baath party, many thought he would lose his job as editor of Al-Baath newspaper.

After all, Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam responded that the constitutional clause, Article 8, was "holy" and could not be touched.

However, instead of being sacked, Dakhlallah was promoted to minister of information and since then has launched an accelerated shake-up of Syria's media.

Journalists are growing bolder as traditional red lines blur, taboos are broken and
fear of imprisonment for writing articles critical of the regime recedes.

"This is new, this is very new," said Ziad Haydar, Damascus correspondent of the
Al-Arabiyya Arabic satellite channel and Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper.

Dakhlallah's impact on media reforms was illustrated last month with the publication of an article containing unprecedented criticism of the Syrian intelligence services.

(SNIP)

The state's stranglehold on the media began to loosen in the wake of Bashar Assad becoming president in 2000. In 2002, the first privately-owned political weekly, Abyad wa Aswad (White and Black), was granted a license and has since become a keen critic of government performance.

"The general trend is for change now... If we want this country to progress, we have to focus on the bad points," said the editor Ayman Daquq.

The number of foreign magazines and newspapers distributed in Syria has almost doubled. Last year, four private radio stations took to the air waves, although they can only broadcast music and advertisements; politics and news items are not permitted.

But the pace of change increased from October following a cabinet reshuffle in which a number of reformist-minded people were given key ministerial posts. The new interior minister, Ghazi Kenaan, voiced what most Syrians thought when he declared the local press "unreadable." Dakhlallah began telephoning journalists and urging them to adopt a bolder approach.

(SNIP)

But Dakhlallah said that the changes to the media are not a personal initiative but are part of the government's overall reform package.

"The government of Syria works as a team," he said. "One minister might play a bigger role than another but it's within the general policy of the government." Indeed, he argued that political reforms so far have outstripped the pace of media reform.

"I hope that the media reforms can keep up," he said.

That may not be much of a challenge given widespread criticism that the process of political reform is too slow.

"There just doesn't seem to be any real movement on the political reform process. It's all being held up by the Emergency Law," a European diplomat said.

"What we have now is a condition of benign tolerance, not legal acceptance," Abdulhamid said. "The existing legal framework is, in fact, quite restrictive, and unless it is improved, drastically, no true gains can be said to have been made." Even Baba, whose article on the intelligence services helped highlight the recent changes to the media, remains skeptical of the government's intentions.

"There's some simple features (of reform)," he said, "but there's no strategic development."

4//The Moscow Times, Russia Wednesday, December 29, 2004. Page 7.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/12/29/007.html

OPINION: LESSONS IN ORANGE FOR UKRAINE AND THE EU

By Hryhoriy Nemyria
Hryhoriy Nemyria is director of the Center for European and International Studies at the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev.

Viktor Yushchenko is the new president of a new Ukraine. This is the main outcome of the dramatic five weeks of revolution that changed the country. The Orange Revolution proved the old saying that freedom is when the people can speak, but democracy is when the government listens. The remarkable unwillingness and inability of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and his regime to listen to the people and respect their will eventually contributed to peoples' outrage and brought them to the streets. In doing so, Ukrainians reinvented themselves as a nation and Ukrainian society rediscovered itself as a civil society. Thus, Homo sovieticus died peacefully in Ukraine.

(SNIP)

A closer look reveals further differences between Ukraine and many of the other former Soviet republics in the very fabric of society. Ukraine has no superpower or imperial ambitions, while these sentiments remain a crucial part of President Vladimir Putin's nation-building project in Russia. Ukraine does not engage in the security versus democracy discourse. Finally, trust in political competition is much stronger in Ukraine.

Despite what many Russian and Western observers believe, the recent crisis was a clash of perceptions and misperceptions, not civilizations. Ukraine's image in the West was one of a country too big, too poor -- with per capita GDP just slightly more than a third of the average for the 10 new EU members -- and, of course, too Soviet to become part of the European Union. Ukraine occupied a peripheral place in the mental map of the EU bureaucracy, which suffered from so-called Ukraine fatigue. The European political mainstream, in general, became comfortably reconciled to the increasing institutionalization of Ukraine's peripheral status as a country struggling away at the margins of Europe. The Orange Revolution rendered this pattern totally irrelevant. While still big and still relatively poor, Ukraine is no longer Soviet.

Ukraine fatigue has passed. Several weeks of "Ukraine euphoria" lie ahead. As does a Herculean task for Viktor Yushchenko: to reinforce the social momentum powering healthy domestic political change. This will demand a sustained effort to further the rule of law and speed up the modernization of Ukraine's economy. The formula of integration into the EU and NATO and development of a strategic partnership with Russia will be the centerpiece of Yushchenko's strategy. Both domestic and foreign policy agendas remain extremely challenging for both the new president and society at large. What makes it different this time, however, is that the Orange Revolution taught Ukrainians a simple lesson: Nothing is impossible, if there is the political will, social enthusiasm and solidarity.

5//Interfax, Russia Dec 28 2004 6:03PM
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.htm...

KYRGYZ PUBLIC SUSPECTS U.S. DIPLOMAT OF PREPARING REVOLUTION

MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) - The Council of the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan has criticized the U.S. ambassador in Bishkek, Steven Young, saying his activities can be regarded as preparations for a velvet revolution.

His activities can be considered as preparation in Kyrgyzstan of a velvet revolution comparable to the revolution in Georgia which is believed to have been orchestrated by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lynn Pascoe, says a council statement received by Interfax on Tuesday.

The statement quotes Young as saying that it is his objective as ambassador to guarantee the development of Kyrgyzstan into a prosperous, modern, democratic and stable state.

END