March 4, 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 MARCH 4, 2005


1//KurdishMedia.com, UK--SHIITES PRESSURE KURDS ON GOVERNMENT (Senior Kurdish official and interim deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told AFP that the Shiite list was putting heavy pressure on the Kurds… With the bartering in full swing, a senior Kurdish official in Baghdad, Sadoun Shafi of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the new government might be announced next week. Jaafari’s deputy Jawad al-Maliky and Ahmed Chalabi, a onetime Pentagon favourite now on the Shiite list, warned that the 275-member national assembly would open next week with or without an agreement on the government line-up. "People have voted for this list and they are waiting for this parliament to meet," Chalabi told AFP, adding that the assembly can convene if 20 percent of members request this. In a sign of moderation, Chalabi, who backed the dissolution of Saddam’s army and purging Baathists from government, said he was now in favour of talks with insurgents to try to stop the violence. "We have already started this process, we are meeting with people [insurgents] who want to fight occupation," said Chalabi. It was the latest evolution for the political survivor who fell out of favour with his US backers last May over suspicion of leaking intelligence to Iran and is wanted in Jordan on fraud charges.)

2//The Moscow Times, Russia--ROSNEFT, GAZPROM IN AN OPEN BATTLE (Rosneft battled publicly over the terms of its merger with Gazprom on Thursday in unprecedented infighting over economic spoils that could threaten President Vladimir Putin's plans to build a national energy behemoth and could shake the unity of his administration… The standoff, if continued, could derail Putin's plans to forge a major national energy champion through the merger of Gazprom and Rosneft, in a deal long awaited by the market that would also lift barriers to greater foreign ownership of Gazprom shares. If Putin fails to rein in Rosneft, the conflict could end up posing a threat to political stability and raise questions over whether Putin is in control.)

RELATED: 3 POLLS INDICATE SLIDE IN PUTIN’S POPULARITY (President Vladimir Putin's approval rating has sunk to one of its lowest levels over painful social reforms that kicked off in January, according to three new opinion polls.)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--CHINA’S PEARL IN PAKISTAN’S WATERS (When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits Pakistan this month to inaugurate the Gwadar deepsea port, China will take a giant leap forward in gaining a strategic foothold in the Persian Gulf region. It will advance what a recent Pentagon report describes as Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy that aims to project Chinese power overseas and protect China's energy security at home… A presence in Gwadar provides China with a "listening post" where it can "monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean," writes Haider. A recent report titled "Energy Futures in Asia" produced by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for the Pentagon notes that China has already set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar, which are monitoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.)

4//The Daily Times, Pakistan--BENAZIR WON’T RETURN TO CONTEST 2007 ELECTIONS: SHEIKH RASHID (Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said on Thursday that Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto would not return to Pakistan in 2007 to contest the general elections. Giving an interview to a private television channel, he said Benazir had to face legal proceedings and there was a case pending against her in a Swiss court. He also said she had no role in politics… The information minister admitted to the contact between the government and Benazir. However, he gave no details, but said it would be in Pakistan’s interest if the deal went through.)

RELATED: BENAZIR MIGHT MEET RICE TODAY (The source said Benazir’s meeting with Rice would change Pakistan’s political situation.)

5//The Daily Star, Lebanon--KUWAITI HARD-LINE ISLAMISTS TARGET WOMEN’S RIGHTS
(Kuwait's hard-line Islamists, citing foreign interference, have embarked on a counteroffensive in the face of a determined government-led drive to grant disenfranchised women their suffrage. The anti-women rights campaign kicked off late Tuesday with a public rally hosted by tribal Islamist lawmaker Daifallah Buramya under the slogan that "based on Islamic Sharia law, women have no political rights." Buramya vowed to oppose a government-sponsored draft law that would grant women the right to vote and run for public office, citing fatwas, or religious edicts, that prohibit participation of Muslim women in politics.)

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1//KurdishMedia.com, UK 03/03/2005
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=6357

SHIITES PRESSURE KURDS ON GOVERNMENT

BAGHDAD, March 3 (AFP) - 11h29 - Two suicide car bombs exploded outside Iraq’s interior ministry Thursday, killing five policemen, as Shiite political parties piled pressure on the Kurds to join them in a governing coalition.

(SNIP)

Iraq’s Shiite parties meanwhile upped their pressure on the Kurds to join them in a new government.

Elections held at the end of January confirmed the rise to power of Iraq’s long-oppressed Shiite majority and the political decline of the Sunni Arabs who dominated under Saddam.

But more than a month later the government has still not been formed.

The front-running Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, travelled north this week to Kurdistan to meet the top two Kurdish leaders to try to bolster his position.

Senior Kurdish official and interim deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told AFP that the Shiite list was putting heavy pressure on the Kurds.

"It took them two to three weeks before they settled on a candidate (Jaafari), and they demand from us immediately to give a yes or no vote. Be patient," Saleh said.

With the bartering in full swing, a senior Kurdish official in Baghdad, Sadoun Shafi of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the new government might be announced next week.

Jaafari’s deputy Jawad al-Maliky and Ahmed Chalabi, a onetime Pentagon favourite now on the Shiite list, warned that the 275-member national assembly would open next week with or without an agreement on the government line-up.

"People have voted for this list and they are waiting for this parliament to meet," Chalabi told AFP, adding that the assembly can convene if 20 percent of members request this.

In a sign of moderation, Chalabi, who backed the dissolution of Saddam’s army and purging Baathists from government, said he was now in favour of talks with insurgents to try to stop the violence.

"We have already started this process, we are meeting with people (insurgents) who want to fight occupation," said Chalabi.

It was the latest evolution for the political survivor who fell out of favour with his US backers last May over suspicion of leaking intelligence to Iran and is wanted in Jordan on fraud charges.

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats in the election, while the Kurdish Alliance took 77 seats.

The Kurds are pressing demands for written guarantees on a federal state and on the final status of the disputed northern rich oil city of Kirkuk.

Outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqi List took 40 seats in the elections, is still in the running for the post of prime minister and is also in talks with Kurdish leaders.

His spokesman has denied persistent rumours that Chalabi had settled for a role in the opposition.

(MORE)

2//The Moscow Times, Russia Friday, March 4, 2005. Page 1.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/03/04/001.html

ROSNEFT, GAZPROM IN AN OPEN BATTLE
By Catherine Belton, Staff Writer

Rosneft battled publicly over the terms of its merger with Gazprom on Thursday in unprecedented infighting over economic spoils that could threaten President Vladimir Putin's plans to build a national energy behemoth and could shake the unity of his administration.

Just one day after the heads of Rosneft and Gazprom appeared on television together to say the terms of their long-awaited merger had been approved, Rosneft issued a statement bluntly contradicting Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller's view of the deal.

(SNIP)

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told NTV television late Thursday that Miller was right and that Rosneft's statement was a "technical mistake."

A source familiar with the situation called Rosneft's statement "a last gesture of desperation," which had no chance of becoming reality.

But in a sign of how deeply Rosneft had cut across Kremlin attempts to get it back on course, a Kremlin source on Thursday evening said Rosneft had retracted its statement, but then later said he had been misinformed after Rosneft spokesman Vladimir Voyevoda denied the company had any such plans.

Throwing matters even further into confusion, Interfax also later cited a source close to Rosneft's board of directors as saying the statement was "a technical mistake" which had not been sanctioned by Bogdanchikov because he was away on vacation.

Voyevoda could not be reached for comment late Thursday, but earlier he said the Rosneft statement had been issued on the orders of senior management.

The standoff, if continued, could derail Putin's plans to forge a major national energy champion through the merger of Gazprom and Rosneft, in a deal long awaited by the market that would also lift barriers to greater foreign ownership of Gazprom shares.

If Putin fails to rein in Rosneft, the conflict could end up posing a threat to political stability and raise questions over whether Putin is in control.

Signs are growing of a rift over the division of spoils at the top of Putin's administration that pits Putin's chief of staff and Gazprom board chairman Dmitry Medvedev against his deputy in the presidential administration, Rosneft board chairman Igor Sechin, analysts said.

"The worrying thing about all of this is that the Rosneft statement strongly suggests there is a split at the top," said Alfa Bank chief strategist Chris Weafer. "There is no way that Rosneft would come out with such a statement without the approval of ... Sechin."

Putin may have to rein in Sechin or face a breakdown of unity at the top of his inner circle, the cornerstone of stability under his presidency so far, he said.

"This is an absolutely critical acid test for the unity of the Kremlin. If they can preserve unity over dividing the spoils, then Russia has a stable future. But if not, they risk bringing the house down with them," he said.

Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the Council for National Strategy, said the conflict between Sechin and Medvedev was "coming out into the open."

"The main rule of Putin's presidency -- don't air your dirty laundry in public -- is being broken. Putin's machine is collapsing as we speak," he said.

(MORE)

RELATED:

3 POLLS INDICATE SLIDE IN PUTIN’S POPULARITY

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/03/04/011.html

President Vladimir Putin's approval rating has sunk to one of its lowest levels over painful social reforms that kicked off in January, according to three new opinion polls.

Putin's rating has slipped to 64 percent, a record low for his presidency, said a survey released by the state-controlled All-Russia Center for Public Opinion, or VTsIOM on Wednesday.

(MORE)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong March 4, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC04Df06.html

CHINA’S PEARL IN PAKISTAN’S WATERS
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits Pakistan this month to inaugurate the Gwadar deepsea port, China will take a giant leap forward in gaining a strategic foothold in the Persian Gulf region. It will advance what a recent Pentagon report describes as Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy that aims to project Chinese power overseas and protect China's energy security at home.

Gwadar is a fishing village on the Arabian Sea coast in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. Balochistan shares borders with Afghanistan and Iran to the west - Gwadar is just 72 kilometers from the Iranian border. More important is Gwadar's proximity to the Persian Gulf. It is situated near the mouth of this strategic body of water, and about 400km from the Strait of Hormuz, a major conduit for global oil supplies.

Pakistan identified Gwadar as a port site in 1964. However, it was only in 2001 that significant steps toward making the proposal a reality were taken, when China agreed to participate in the construction and development of the deepsea port. The arrival of the United States in late 2001 in Afghanistan - at China's doorstep - nudged Beijing to step up its involvement in the Gwadar project. In March 2002, Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo laid the foundation for Gwadar port.

China's involvement in the Gwadar project is immense. The total cost of the project is estimated at US$1.16 billion, of which China has contributed about $198 million for the first phase - almost four times the amount Pakistan has forked out for this phase - which includes construction of three multi-purpose ship berths. China has invested another $200 million toward building a highway connecting Gwadar port with Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, which is also a port on the Arabian Sea.

The second phase, which envisages nine more berths, an approach channel and storage terminals, will also be financed by China. In addition to its financial contribution, China has sent about 450 engineers and provided technical expertise for the project.

China's gains
Zia Haider, an analyst at the Washington-based Stimson Center, writes that Gwadar provides China "a transit terminal for crude-oil imports from Iran and Africa to China's Xinjiang region". The network of rail and road links connecting Pakistan with Afghanistan and Central Asian republics that is envisaged as part of the Gwadar project and to which China will have access would provide Beijing an opening into Central Asian markets and energy sources, in the process stimulating the economic development of China's backward Xinjiang region.

But it is the strategic significance of Gwadar port that is perhaps more important for Pakistan and China - and a number of other countries as well. For Pakistan, Gwadar's distance from India is important. The value of this distance becomes evident if one considers how vulnerable Karachi port, which handled 90% of Pakistan's sea-borne trade in 2001, is to Indian pressure.

(SNIP)

For China, Gwadar's strategic value stems from its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz. About 60% of China's energy supplies come from the Middle East, and China has been anxious that the US, which has a very high presence in the region, could choke off these supplies to China. "Having no blue-water navy to speak of, China feels defenseless in the Persian Gulf against any hostile action to choke off its energy supplies," points out Tarique Niazi, a specialist in resource-based conflict, in the Jamestown Foundation's China Brief.

A presence in Gwadar provides China with a "listening post" where it can "monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean", writes Haider. A recent report titled "Energy Futures in Asia" produced by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for the Pentagon notes that China has already set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar, which are monitoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.

Drawing attention to China's "string of pearls" strategy, the report points out that "China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China's energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives". The port and naval base in Gwadar is part of the "string of pearls."

The other "pearls" in the string include facilities in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and the South China Sea that Beijing has acquired access to by assiduously building ties with governments in these countries.

The Pentagon report sees China's efforts to defend its interests along oil shipping sea lanes as "creating a climate of uncertainty" and threatening "the safety of all ships on the high seas". This perception overlooks the fact that China's "string of pearls" strategy has been triggered by its sense of insecurity. The United States' overwhelming presence in the Gulf and the control of its exercises over the Malacca Strait, through which 80% of China's oil imports pass, has contributed enormously to Beijing's fears that Washington could choke off its oil supply, in the event of hostilities over Taiwan.

China's foothold in the Arabian Sea has set off alarm bells in India, Iran and the US. For India, China-Pakistan collaboration at Gwadar and China's presence in the Arabian Sea heightens its feeling of encirclement by China from all sides. Iran sees the development of Gwadar port in its neighborhood as likely to erode the significance of its ports - especially Chabahar port that India has helped construct - to Central Asia and Afghanistan. However, Iran's good relations with Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics would help it maintain its advantage vis-a-vis Pakistan's Gwadar port.

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4//The Daily Times, Pakistan Friday, March 04, 2005
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...

BENAZIR WON’T RETURN TO CONTEST 2007 ELECTIONS: SHEIKH RASHID

ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said on Thursday that Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto would not return to Pakistan in 2007 to contest the general elections.

Giving an interview to a private television channel, he said Benazir had to face legal proceedings and there was a case pending against her in a Swiss court.

He also said she had no role in politics. Sheikh Rashid made it clear that Benazir would not be given amnesty and that references against the corrupt would remain. Her case was the only one that had gone to a court outside Pakistan, he said, adding, “The whole world is keeping an eye on her Swiss case.”

The information minister admitted to the contact between the government and Benazir. However, he gave no details, but said it would be in Pakistan’s interest if the deal went through.

Sheikh Rashid also acknowledged that Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir’s husband, had shown political maturity and that he (Asif) was more balanced in Pakistani politics. “If he chooses the right path, it will be appreciated,” he added. About Nawaz Sharif, he said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader had wanted to go abroad. “But I can’t say anything about Shahbaz Sharif or his contact with President Pervez Musharraf,” he said.

(MORE)

RELATED:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page...

BENAZIR MIGHT MEET RICE TODAY

WASHINGTON: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians chairperson, is expected to call on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today, a source close to Benazir said on Thursday. The source said Benazir’s meeting with Rice would change Pakistan’s political situation.

5//The Daily Star, Lebanon Thursday, March 03, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition...

KUWAITI HARD-LINE ISLAMISTS TARGET WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Government-led drive to grant suffrage is opposed

By Omar Hasan

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait's hard-line Islamists, citing foreign interference, have embarked on a counteroffensive in the face of a determined government-led drive to grant disenfranchised women their suffrage. The anti-women rights campaign kicked off late Tuesday with a public rally hosted by tribal Islamist lawmaker Daifallah Buramya under the slogan that "based on Islamic Sharia law, women have no political rights."

Buramya vowed to oppose a government-sponsored draft law that would grant women the right to vote and run for public office, citing fatwas, or religious edicts, that prohibit participation of Muslim women in politics.

"Ninety percent of Kuwaiti women reject political rights because they know it is against religion," said the lawmaker who warned MPs of a "big shame" if they approved the bill.

The leader of the fundamentalist Islamic Salaf Alliance, Khaled al-Issa, criticized liberals and what he branded "agents of some foreign embassies," who are trying to distance Muslims from their religion by forcing women's rights.

"The Constitution must represent the will of the Kuwaiti people and not foreign demands to change the political course we have chosen," said Issa, speaking at the same rally.
More rallies are scheduled before Parliament votes on the draft legislation and Islamist activists have started using SMS text messages in their campaign.

Kuwait's Islamist Ummah Party, however, announced on Feb. 21 its total backing for women's full political rights, becoming the first Sunni Muslim group in the Gulf emirate to support women's suffrage.

A second group, the Islamic Constitutional Movement, or Muslim Brotherhood, said it was still considering the issue as some of its leaders have publicly supported women's right to vote.

The bill, approved by the Cabinet last May, calls for amending the election law, which limits voting and candidacy to Kuwaiti males while the emirate's Constitution stipulates complete gender equality.

The Kuwaiti government in February called on Parliament to hold a special session to debate the bill. State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Mohammed Daifallah Sharar said it will be debated this month.

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