January 24, 2005

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 JANUARY 24, 2005

1//The Jordan Times, Jordan--IRAQI VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE WON’T BE EXTENDED – IOM (A two-day extension of voter registration for Iraqi expatriates will not be stretched further despite a low turnout worldwide, organisers said on Sunday. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) official Peter Erben, who heads the Out of Country Voting (OCV) programme, told a press conference that the deadline will not be extended because of technical reasons related to rechecking data and verifying the number of voters at each designated registration and polling centre. Erben added that 188,000 Iraqi expatriates in 36 cities around the world registered for the elections since January 17 — of which 11,000 [are] in Jordan. The IOM, which is conducting the OCV on behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, predicted that around a million Iraqi expatriates would register for the elections… News reports said there was a general sense of apathy for the polls. The Associated Press said some of the Iraqis waiting in line at registration centres in Amman refused to be photographed or give their names to reporters. It quoted many as saying they were afraid that Iraqis who oppose the vote might recognise them… One Iraqi residing in Amman said she wasn't interested in voting for a national assembly that would act under US occupation, adding that she was not aware of any of the candidates running.)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--THE KIRKUK TINDERBOX (…In October/November, 2004 it was widely reported that the Turkish military had begun drafting contingency plans for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in early 2005, with at least 20,000 troops. Officials said that the Turkish General Staff had urged approval from the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and to sound out the US. "The current phase is to show the United States that we're serious," a Turkish government source said. "After the Iraqi elections in January, the Turkish military will be ready to move." It would be a major offensive in northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish militias from controlling the area. The Turks were very concerned by the reported Kurdish effort to squeeze out ethnic Turks from Kirkuk… While relations between Turkey and US have cooled down primarily over Iraq, Turkey has come closer to its historic enemy Russia. After the exchange of visits by Erdogan and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Ankara, relations between them, historically soured by Shi'ite and Sunni rivalry and enmity, are improving in the background of the turmoil in Iraq and increasing chaos in the region...relations between Syria and Turkey have warmed up, with an exchange of visits by Syrian President Bassar Assad and Erdogan. There is talk of Russia supplying state-of-the-art missiles to Syria. In the past Turkey would have denounced such a deal. At the same time relations between Turkey and Israel, which were very close during the Cold War and reached an almost "allies" level after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have deteriorated sharply, with Erdogan accusing Israel of state terrorism and asking it to leave Kurdish north Iraq alone. Israel has been training Kurdish Peshmergas to operate in the neighborhood, specially in Iran and Syria.)

3//Albawaba.com, Jordan--IRAN SAYS US WAGING "PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR" ON TEHRAN
(Iran's Information Minister Ali Younessi said in Tehran Sunday that threats issued by US officials were part of a psychological war waged on Iran. "The Americans issued those statements to influence ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the Europe," Younessi told reporters, according to the official IRNA news agency. Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in the capital Sunday that threats recently hurled by US officials against his country are part of a psychological war aimed at exerting pressure on Europe to tow the US line. Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Asefi said that the United States actually wants Europe to fail in its talks with Iran… "No country listens and even European states and President Bush's comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency.)

4//The Moscow Times, Russia--LIBERAL MINISTERS TAKE THE BLAME (Liberal ministers Alexei Kudrin, German Gref and Mikhail Zurabov, the architects of the Kremlin's controversial benefits reform, have said they are ready to take the blame for the way it has been handled and for exposing President Vladimir Putin to criticism. The attempt to take the heat off Putin came as he faced mounting anger over the loss of millions of pensioners' Soviet-era benefits and opinion polls showed his approval rating plummeting by 20 percentage points over the last year… Analysts across the political spectrum said the pressure on the liberal ministers was another sign of growing panic within the siloviki over Putin's position, which now looks under genuine threat for the first time in years. Independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky said that the siloviki are not only tired of a government that they consider too liberal, but of Putin as well. "If Putin's rating drops much more, they will likely decide to ditch him," he said. The benefit reform has now alienated a group that had previously been one of Putin's biggest support bases, Piontkovsky said. "Putin disappointed the liberals and the intelligentsia when they understood that he was stepping back from democracy. The governors hate him after he pushed through a bill abolishing their direct election. After the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the business elites now look on him as an enemy. And now the pensioners are disappointed," he said.)

5//The Guardian, UK--SCOURGE OF POLIO RETURNS TO AFRICA (An international team of doctors is set to launch a desperate, last-ditch bid to save Africa from polio, a scourge once believed to have been defeated but which has recently returned to haunt the continent. Scientists say the attempt is a make-or-break effort to eradicate this crippling, sometimes fatal illness. Success would see poliomyelitis follow smallpox and become the second disease to be completely eradicated from the planet. Failure, and the disease could slip though the net of international controls set up to contain it, and undo 17 years of international effort costing £1.6 billion…. In Nigeria - which had reduced its cases to a few dozen - there was an outbreak of more than 800 cases. This last figure represents the tip of an iceberg, however. Polio - which is spread by person to person contact and invades a victim's nervous system - only causes detectable paralysis in about one in 200 victims. This means that at least 160,000 people must have been infected. Unaware of their condition, they will then have gone on to infect others.)

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1//The Jordan Times, Jordan Monday, January 24, 2005
http://www.jordantimes.com/mon/news/news2.htm

IRAQI VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE WON’T BE EXTENDED -- IOM
By Sahar Aloul with agency dispatches

AMMAN — A two-day extension of voter registration for Iraqi expatriates will not be stretched further despite a low turnout worldwide, organisers said on Sunday.

International Organisation for Migration (IOM) official Peter Erben, who heads the Out of Country Voting (OCV) programme, told a press conference that the deadline will not be extended because of technical reasons related to rechecking data and verifying the number of voters at each designated registration and polling centre.

Erben added that 188,000 Iraqi expatriates in 36 cities around the world registered for the elections since January 17 — of which 11,000 [are] in Jordan.

The IOM, which is conducting the OCV on behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, predicted that around a million Iraqi expatriates would register for the elections.

According to estimations, around 16 per cent of eligible expatriates worldwide had signed up through Saturday to vote. Of those who have registered, the biggest turnout of 22 per cent was in Iran.

In Jordan, an estimated 6 per cent of the assessed 200,000 expatriates registered, while in Syria only 4 per cent of the 500,000 Iraqis residing there signed up.

(SNIP)

News reports said there was a general sense of apathy for the polls. The Associated Press said some of the Iraqis waiting in line at registration centres in Amman refused to be photographed or give their names to reporters. It quoted many as saying they were afraid that Iraqis who oppose the vote might recognise them.

Under attempts to assure reluctant voters, the IOM placed posters and flyers in main squares of Amman, promising all information about voters will be confidential. It ran large ads detailing the 12 centres in Jordan where Iraqis can vote.

“We assure [Iraqis] that the security personnel guarding the centres are there for their safety and they will not be harassed or questioned of their legal residency status in the country,” head of the Jordan IOM office Lazhar Aloui said during the conference.

But many remained nonchalant.

One Iraqi residing in Amman said she wasn't interested in voting for a national assembly that would act under US occupation, adding that she was not aware of any of the candidates running.

Another Jordanian said his Iraqi wife will not vote for fear of her family's safety in Iraq.

(MORE)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jan 22, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East...

THE KIRKUK TINDERBOX
By K Gajendra Singh

[K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.]

There is much media focus on the inauguration of US President George W Bush for his second term, as well as the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 30. But the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk in north Iraq remains a dangerous tinderbox. Even the losing US presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, who voted against the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the next secretary of state in the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, felt compelled to warn of possible turmoil in Kirkuk, which has been a bone of contention between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens - Turkey's ethnic cousins, with Ankara taking up their cause regularly.

Kurdish influx into Kirkuk

Namik Tan, the Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a press conference on January 19 that the Iraqis, the United Nations and the entire international community should take measures against "fait accomplis that will not contribute to lasting peace in Iraq...and have negative impacts on the stability of the region". "No one in the 21st century can subject others' land to illegal fait-accomplis," Tan said, without explicitly naming the Kurds. "It is unacceptable for groups which object to the wrong policies and practices of the past to commit the same mistakes themselves now, under the cover of freedom, justice and democracy," he added.

Tan said that many people in Kirkuk were now concerned that "some elements are drifting toward a mistake which may have grave consequences. They say that hundreds of thousands of settlers are being shifted to Kirkuk, and the majority of them have neither personal nor family bonds with Kirkuk. The methods and mechanisms of return have been clearly determined. They should be implemented in a legitimate way," Tan concluded.

Last week, the Kurds reached a deal with the Iraqi government that will allow nearly 100,000 Kurds, said to have been expelled from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein's regime, to vote in the January 30 elections. This agreement would change the demographic balance and risks the eruption of tensions in the ethnically divided and volatile city between Kurds and Arabs, and a large number of Turkmens. Ankara is strongly opposed to Kurdish control of Kirkuk, which many Kurds would like to make the capital of an independent Kurdish state.

(SNIP)

Military contingency plans for north Iraq

In October/November, 2004 it was widely reported that the Turkish military had begun drafting contingency plans for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in early 2005, with at least 20,000 troops. Officials said that the Turkish General Staff had urged approval from the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and to sound out the US. "The current phase is to show the United States that we're serious," a Turkish government source said. "After the Iraqi elections in January, the Turkish military will be ready to move." It would be a major offensive in northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish militias from controlling the area. The Turks were very concerned by the reported Kurdish effort to squeeze out ethnic Turks from Kirkuk.

In mid-October, Erdogan and his cabinet reviewed first the plan with Chief of Staff General Hilmi Ozkok and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, with a planned rapid deployment of up to 40,000 troops in northern Iraq, operational within 18 hours of approval. A scaled-down version of the military plan was then discussed in the National Security Council on October 27. The first goal of the ground operation, supported by fighter-jets and attack helicopters, would be to destroy PKK strongholds in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq.

The General Staff warned the government that it could no longer ignore the Kurdish threat, more so as Kurds from Iran and Syria had reportedly supported the PKK, and some even participated in PKK attacks in southeastern Turkey. Turkish officials said that the Peshmerga (paramilitary) had dug tunnels and established outposts outside Dahouk, near the Turkish border. In spite of Turkish complaints and US assurances to begin with, the US has refused to eliminate PKK strongholds. Washington also did not give any implicit approval of Turkish contingency plans.

(SNIP)

Conclusions

(SNIP)

Erdogan recently completed a visit to Moscow, soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin's postponed visit to Ankara last month, the first since 1973. While relations between Turkey and US have cooled down primarily over Iraq, Turkey has come closer to its historic enemy Russia. After the exchange of visits by Erdogan and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Ankara, relations between them, historically soured by Shi'ite and Sunni rivalry and enmity, are improving in the background of the turmoil in Iraq and increasing chaos in the region. It is going to get worse.

In 1999, Ankara threatened to invade Syria if it did not expel Abdullah Ocalan (which it did and he was captured and imprisoned in Turkey ), but since then relations between Syria and Turkey have warmed up, with an exchange of visits by Syrian President Bassar Assad and Erdogan. There is talk of Russia supplying state-of-the-art missiles to Syria. In the past Turkey would have denounced such a deal. At the same time relations between Turkey and Israel, which were very close during the Cold War and reached an almost "allies" level after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have deteriorated sharply, with Erdogan accusing Israel of state terrorism and asking it to leave Kurdish north Iraq alone. Israel has been training Kurdish Peshmergas to operate in the neighborhood, specially in Iran and Syria.

3//Albawaba.com, Jordan 23-01-2005 , 06:27
http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/179196

IRAN SAYS US WAGING "PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR" ON TEHRAN

Iran's Information Minister Ali Younessi said in Tehran Sunday that threats issued by US officials were part of a psychological war waged on Iran.

"The Americans issued those statements to influence ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the Europe," Younessi told reporters, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in the capital Sunday that threats recently hurled by US officials against his country are part of a psychological war aimed at exerting pressure on Europe to tow the US line.

Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Asefi said that the United States actually wants Europe to fail in its talks with Iran.

"American accusations (against Iran) are not new. Washington wages psychological wars against Iran every now and then. Militarism is the main reason behind those remarks.

"No country listens and even European states and President Bush`s comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency.

He further said that remarks of this kind are clear examples of a desire to wage religious and cultural wars against supporters of other religions and cultures, adding that they will bear no fruit except hatred at US policies at the regional and international levels as well as isolation for the United States.

(SNIP)

"Iran has enough power and defense capability to resist threats," he stressed, adding "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not be threatened or coerced by such threats."

Shifting to the reports of a possible US military attack on Iran, Asefi said, "In politics it does not make sense to make predictions, but actually we see no real possibility of an attack on Iran."

"These remarks and accusations are but attempts to wage a psychological war. A military attack on Iran is improbable unless the one who contemplates such attack desires to commit a strategic mistake."

Referring to the ongoing dialogue with the Europeans on Iran`s nuclear program, the spokesman said that expert committees to work at various levels were set up last week and negotiations are proceeding favorably.

"We achieved our primary goals in the political committee. The economic committee placed Iran`s demands on the European agenda and the nuclear committee held comprehensive discussions toward extracting tangible guarantees from both sides.

"Iran`s proposals for continuing with its nuclear energy programs and for completing a fuel cycle were explained in the meeting."

4//The Moscow Times, Russia Monday, January 24, 2005. Page 1.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/01/24/001.html

LIBERAL MINISTERS TAKE THE BLAME
By Francesca Mereu, Staff Writer

Liberal ministers Alexei Kudrin, German Gref and Mikhail Zurabov, the architects of the Kremlin's controversial benefits reform, have said they are ready to take the blame for the way it has been handled and for exposing President Vladimir Putin to criticism.

The attempt to take the heat off Putin came as he faced mounting anger over the loss of millions of pensioners' Soviet-era benefits and opinion polls showed his approval rating plummeting by 20 percentage points over the last year.

The three ministers are also coming under fire from other factions within the political leadership, who want them to take the fall for the government's failure to ensure that cash payments reach former benefit recipients.

Rodina party leader Dmitry Rogozin said Friday he was going on a hunger strike in an effort to secure the Cabinet's resignation. Earlier last week, Rogozin also called for the ouster of Finance Minister Kudrin, Health and Social Development Minister Zurabov and Economic Development and Trade Minister Gref over the affair. The three ministers are seen as the main opposition within the Kremlin to the hard-line siloviki faction of serving and former security service officers.

At Friday's session of the State Duma, Kudrin said that ministers would "accept full responsibility" for the way the reform had been introduced, while Zurabov acknowledged that the Cabinet had shown excessive "self-confidence" in regional authorities being ready to make the cash payments to millions of pensioners and other socially vulnerable groups.

"We, of course, partly exposed the president and the Duma in areas that require quick correction," Kudrin said. "We recognize this and accept full responsibility."

In a policy U-turn, Kudrin also said he might be prepared to dip into the government's stabilization fund, a reserve account created to insulate Russia from the inflationary effects of windfall oil revenues, to pay for an emergency spending package for pensioners. "I'm not denying the possibility of using this source, but we would need to do it in such a way that it does not hurt pensioners' pockets," he said.

(SNIP)

According to a poll published by the independent Levada Analytical Center this month, at the end of 2004 only 39 percent of Russians considered Putin a politician to trust, compared to 2003 when Putin's trust rating was 58 percent.

The pro-Kremlin Public Opinion Foundation also has gloomy figures. Its poll, conducted in mid-January and published last Thursday, shows Putin's electoral support falling by 22 percentage points over the last year.

In January 2004, 65 percent of respondents said they were ready to vote for Putin, compared to 43 percent this year. The poll, conducted among 600 respondents all over Russia, has a margin of error of 2.5 percent.

Analysts across the political spectrum said the pressure on the liberal ministers was another sign of growing panic within the siloviki over Putin's position, which now looks under genuine threat for the first time in years.

Independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky said that the siloviki are not only tired of a government that they consider too liberal, but of Putin as well. "If Putin's rating drops much more, they will likely decide to ditch him," he said.

The benefit reform has now alienated a group that had previously been one of Putin's biggest support bases, Piontkovsky said. "Putin disappointed the liberals and the intelligentsia when they understood that he was stepping back from democracy. The governors hate him after he pushed through a bill abolishing their direct election. After the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the business elites now look on him as an enemy. And now the pensioners are disappointed," he said.

Kremlin-connected analyst Sergei Markov agreed that the difference with the benefits crisis, as opposed to earlier problems Putin's government has faced, is that this time protesters are calling not just for top ministers to resign, but also for the president to go. "This, in particular, is what is worrying the Kremlin most," Markov said.

Markov said that the polls have shocked Kremlin officials who thought that nothing could dent Putin's positive ratings. "They thought that Putin would lose a maximum of 2 percentage points on his ratings. Nobody was expecting him to lose 20 percentage points," he said.

(MORE)

5//The Guardian, UK Sunday January 23, 2005
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international...

SCOURGE OF POLIO RETURNS TO AFRICA
Medics face £50m vaccine challenge

Robin McKie, Science Editor
The Observer

An international team of doctors is set to launch a desperate, last-ditch bid to save Africa from polio, a scourge once believed to have been defeated but which has recently returned to haunt the continent.

Scientists say the attempt is a make-or-break effort to eradicate this crippling, sometimes fatal illness. Success would see poliomyelitis follow smallpox and become the second disease to be completely eradicated from the planet. Failure, and the disease could slip though the net of international controls set up to contain it, and undo 17 years of international effort costing £1.6 billion.

'It is now or never,' said Sona Bari, of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 'We are going to have to be very determined, however. The disease has come back because we slackened our effort and became complacent. We cannot let that happen again.'

Until last year, an international campaign to rid the planet of polio had proceeded almost flawlessly. Numbers of cases had dropped from more than 300,000 a year to fewer than a thousand. A disease that in the 1990s was found in 125 nations was confined to a few pockets of Asia, and to Africa where most cases are concentrated into parts of Nigeria, Niger and Egypt.

But in 2003, anti-Western hostility erupted among Muslims in northern Nigeria's Kano region. They claimed vaccines were tainted with HIV and poisons to make women infertile and refused to cooperate with doctors.

'All kinds of rumours were going around,' said Jonathan Majiyagbe, a Kano resident and a past president of Rotary International which has played a key role in funding the polio eradication programme. 'Some clerics made all sorts of wild accusations.'

The consequences were devastating. The eradication programme was brought to a sudden halt and, within months, the disease reappeared in countries that had struggled for years to eliminate it with hard-fought success. They included the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Sudan. In Nigeria - which had reduced its cases to a few dozen - there was an outbreak of more than 800 cases.

This last figure represents the tip of an iceberg, however. Polio - which is spread by person to person contact and invades a victim's nervous system - only causes detectable paralysis in about one in 200 victims. This means that at least 160,000 people must have been infected. Unaware of their condition, they will then have gone on to infect others.
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