March 25, 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 25, 2005

1//The Jordan Times, Jordan--EU STUDYING IRAN PLAN FOR SMALL-SCALE ENRICHMENT (The EU is considering an Iranian proposal to allow the Islamic republic to produce enriched uranium on a small scale, despite the bloc's demand that Tehran abandon enrichment to guarantee it will not make atom bombs, officials and diplomats said Thursday. Iran made the written proposal to be allowed to run a pilot centrifuge project for uranium enrichment at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday with EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany, according to a European official who asked not to be named. The European trio said in a joint statement released after the meeting that Iran had "presented certain ideas on objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes." But neither they nor Iran provided details. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said Thursday that the proposal it has made to the European Union on easing international concerns over its nuclear programme demonstrated the Islamic republic's "seriousness" in resolving the issue.)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--BUSH WINS BIG AS CHINA OVERPLAYS ITS HAND (The apparent decision by European leaders to delay the lifting of their 16-year-old arms embargo on China beyond June marks a clear-cut foreign-policy victory for US President George W Bush, who made the issue a major priority in his visit to Europe last month. China itself may have inadvertently made Bush's victory possible. Its enactment last week of an Anti-Secession Law that lays the foundation for a possible military attack on Taiwan if, in Beijing's judgment, it were to move toward formal independence, gave the administration powerful new ammunition against ending the ban - as well as political cover to those European governments that were wary about confronting Bush on the issue. … Germany and France, the strongest champions of lifting the embargo, had tried to reassure the US that they did not intend to sell the kinds of sophisticated military or dual-use equipment that Washington fears could be used by Beijing. … But these assurances were not sufficient to diminish the Bush administration's opposition, which was given momentum by a 411-3 vote last month in the US House of Representatives on a resolution that deplored the possible lifting of the embargo and warned that doing so would be "inherently inconsistent" with US policy and "necessitate limitations and constraints" on US-European relations. The vote was followed by the circulation among Republican senators of a policy paper that lifting the embargo would force the US "to redouble its efforts to build ad hoc coalitions of the willing on key tests and issues in the US national interest [and] ... reduce its reliance on collective institutions such as the EU.")

3//The Moscow Times, Russia--TRADING HARD POWER FOR SOFT POWER (Burned by revolutions that ousted allies in Ukraine and Georgia, the Kremlin has formed a new department that will ditch the heavy-handed tactics used in the past for a softer, kinder approach aimed at preventing further power upheavals in former Soviet republics. The presidential administration's new department -- officially known as the Department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and the CIS -- was quietly set up a few weeks ago, and public relations veteran Modest Kolerov, who reportedly advised Ukraine's losing presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was just appointed as its head. … Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, said the new department is a sign that Russian foreign policy is changing. "The Kremlin is trying to use 'soft power,'" he said. But he added: "So far it is difficult to say exactly what the Kremlin's policy on the former Soviet republics will be in the near future. What I can say for sure is that it will be more active.")

4//The Scotsman, UK--MPs CALL FOR RE-WRITE ON LAWS OF CREATION (MPs will today recommend giving the go-ahead to couples to create "designer babies" and allowing the experimental implantation of human embryos into animals, as part of a radical shake-up in fertility laws. If accepted, it could allow couples, in consultation with their doctors, to select embryos on the basis of their sex, to weed out genetic imperfections, or to create a "saviour sibling" - a child that can provide life-saving treatment to an ill brother or sister. … The report will call for less regulation over human reproductive technologies and place an emphasis on "patients making decisions in consultation with their doctors.")

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--BANNED: CHOOSING A BABY’S SEX (Couples will no longer be able to choose the sex of their baby in Sydney fertility clinics, after Australia's highest ethics authority ruled the procedure was not in the interests of resulting children. But critics say the clampdown - which in effect ends non-medical sex selection in Australia - reflects religious and other partisan interests and does not represent public attitudes towards the increasingly popular procedure. … In its report to the council, the ethics committee said "admission to life should not be conditional upon a child being a particular sex" and using the technology might undermine the parent-child relationship. But it backed sex selection in families with an inherited genetic disorder that affected only one sex. The guidelines were drafted by a specially convened sub-committee headed by Bernadette Tobin, a bioethicist. Dr Tobin, who could not be reached for comment last night, is director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, a research centre within the Australian Catholic University that tries to bring "a Catholic perspective to all its endeavours.")

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1//The Jordan Times, Jordan Friday-Saturday, March 25-26, 2005
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news4.htm

EU STUDYING IRAN PLAN FOR SMALL-SCALE ENRICHMENT

PARIS (AFP) — The EU is considering an Iranian proposal to allow the Islamic republic to produce enriched uranium on a small scale, despite the bloc's demand that Tehran abandon enrichment to guarantee it will not make atom bombs, officials and diplomats said Thursday.

Iran made the written proposal to be allowed to run a pilot centrifuge project for uranium enrichment at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday with EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany, according to a European official who asked not to be named.

The European trio said in a joint statement released after the meeting that Iran had "presented certain ideas on objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

But neither they nor Iran provided details.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said Thursday that the proposal it has made to the European Union on easing international concerns over its nuclear programme demonstrated the Islamic republic's "seriousness" in resolving the issue.

Iran suspended uranium enrichment in November as a confidence-building measure to get EU-Iran talks going.

But it refuses to permanently abandon enrichment, saying its nuclear programme is peaceful and pointing out that it has a right to make nuclear fuel under the provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regardless of US charges that Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons.

The pilot plant would have a relatively small number of centrifuges, the officials said.
Centrifuges, placed in sequence, refine increasingly enriched uranium with each cycle.
In highly-refined form, the substance can be used in the explosive core of nuclear weapons, but less refined forms of enriched uranium can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors.

Experts have told AFP the pilot plant would have 500 to 2,000 centrifuges instead of the 54,000 centrifuge cascade Iran has said it wants to build.

The Iranians said they would allow close monitoring of a pilot facility by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the official said, adding that the European trio would "look at this (proposal) with experts."

"If the experts find a way to monitor this in an effective way, then why not?" the official said.

The United States, which wants to haul Iran before the UN Security Council over what it says is a covert nuclear weapons programme, has softened its stance and agreed to support European countries in offering Tehran trade, technology and security incentives if it gives up enrichment.

US officials, however, say that if Iran is allowed to keep any sort of enrichment capability, it would gain the capacity to make nuclear weapons.

The Europeans told the Iranians on Wednesday that "for us it is clear Iran should not be doing enrichment," the European official said.

The European trio made it clear that Tehran must give "objective guarantees that (the Iranians) take away from their nuclear programme everything that can be dangerous" in terms of nuclear weapons proliferation, the official said.

(MORE)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Mar 25, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GC25Ad03.html

BUSH WINS BIG AS CHINA OVERPLAYS ITS HAND
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The apparent decision by European leaders to delay the lifting of their 16-year-old arms embargo on China beyond June marks a clear-cut foreign-policy victory for US President George W Bush, who made the issue a major priority in his visit to Europe last month.

China itself may have inadvertently made Bush's victory possible. Its enactment last week of an Anti-Secession Law that lays the foundation for a possible military attack on Taiwan if, in Beijing's judgment, it were to move toward formal independence, gave the administration powerful new ammunition against ending the ban - as well as political cover to those European governments that were wary about confronting Bush on the issue.

Europe's decision also marks the latest in a series of Bush administration moves to try to keep rising tensions between China and Taiwan from getting out of control as part of a larger strategy to "contain" Beijing militarily, despite China's fast-growing economic and political influence in Asia.

Particularly significant in that regard was the issuance last month of a joint Washington-Tokyo statement in which both countries declared a peaceful Taiwan Strait as among their "common strategic objectives" - the first time that Japan, which has long enjoyed close but awkward ties with Taiwan, had mentioned the area as a matter of strategic importance.

The European Union, which had committed itself in December to lifting the embargo no later than July, has yet to make a formal announcement, and negotiations are expected to continue with Washington regarding the terms on which it will be eventually lifted, led by the EU's foreign-policy representative, Javier Solana.

But reports out of European capitals this week made it virtually certain that the final date for ending the embargo, which was imposed in the aftermath of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989, will indeed be put off, possibly until next year.

Germany and France, the strongest champions of lifting the embargo, had tried to reassure the US that they did not intend to sell the kinds of sophisticated military or dual-use equipment that Washington fears could be used by Beijing, which has relied primarily on Russia and, until recently, Israel for arms sales, for an assault on Taiwan or for attacking US naval forces that could be deployed to defend the island.

They also stressed that ending the embargo was designed mainly to upgrade general commercial relations with Beijing, which had suggested that big European companies, such as Airbus, might be treated more favorably if the arms ban were lifted.

But these assurances were not sufficient to diminish the Bush administration's opposition, which was given momentum by a 411-3 vote last month in the US House of Representatives on a resolution that deplored the possible lifting of the embargo and warned that doing so would be "inherently inconsistent" with US policy and "necessitate limitations and constraints" on US-European relations.

The vote was followed by the circulation among Republican senators of a policy paper that lifting the embargo would force the US "to redouble its efforts to build ad hoc coalitions of the willing on key tests and issues in the US national interest [and] ... reduce its reliance on collective institutions such as the EU."

(MORE)

3//The Moscow Times, Russia Thursday, March 24, 2005. Issue 3131. Page 1.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/03/24/003.html

TRADING HARD POWER FOR SOFT POWER
By Francesca Mereu, Staff Writer

Burned by revolutions that ousted allies in Ukraine and Georgia, the Kremlin has formed a new department that will ditch the heavy-handed tactics used in the past for a softer, kinder approach aimed at preventing further power upheavals in former Soviet republics.

The presidential administration's new department -- officially known as the Department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and the CIS -- was quietly set up a few weeks ago, and public relations veteran Modest Kolerov, who reportedly advised Ukraine's losing presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was just appointed as its head.

Kolerov vowed Wednesday that the department "would not be involved in any PR stunts," saying his brief was to promote Russian culture in other former Soviet republics and elsewhere.

"The department will promote Russian language, education and culture abroad. We will organize discussions about Russian culture. This is our main task," Kolerov said by telephone.

Asked whether the department would have any political goals, Kolerov said: "Social problems evolve into political problems when they go unsolved. We will try to resolve social issues to avoid political problems. My duty is to study, audit and revise those problems and prepare proposals to solve them.

"Russia should defend its own interests in the post-Soviet space," he added, without elaborating.

In his post, Kolerov answers to Dmitry Medvedev, head of the presidential administration.

Kolerov, 41, said he left his job as editor of the Regnum news agency to accept the new post. Regnum, which specializes in regional news, has published a number of editorials complaining that "enemies of Russia" were organizing revolutions in neighboring countries and wanted to damage Russia's authority in these countries. Those foes hope to introduce "Brussels management in the European parts of Russia," according to one recent editorial.

The creation of the new department indicates that the Kremlin realizes that the old political methods it used in Ukraine and Georgia failed and it is now testing softer measures -- such as promoting Russian culture -- to spread its influence in the former Soviet bloc, political analysts said.

"They are very worried about revolutions in other CIS countries -- look at Ukraine, Georgia and what is going on in Kyrgyzstan," said Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with Indem, a think tank.

(SNIP)

Independent analyst Andrei Piontkovsky said the Kremlin would have to abandon its "imperialist ambitions" if it hoped to gain influence in the so-called "near abroad."

(SNIP)

He said the new Kremlin department faced a tough task in wooing back countries in the former Soviet bloc. He noted that shortly after the Beslan tragedy last year Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko campaigned for a referendum to extend his reign under the slogan, "The situation in Russia is terrible, but everything is fine in our country."

"This is an example that shows Moscow is not the point of reference for these countries anymore," Piontkovsky said.

He said the new department could bring back a lot of Russia's prestige and influence. "The idea of cultural influence is good," he said. "You cannot forcefully influence those countries through military bases, as the Kremlin tried to do in Georgia, or by using Kremlin-linked PR gurus, as they did in Ukraine."

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, said the new department is a sign that Russian foreign policy is changing. "The Kremlin is trying to use 'soft power,'" he said.

But he added: "So far it is difficult to say exactly what the Kremlin's policy on the former Soviet republics will be in the near future. What I can say for sure is that it will be more active."

(MORE)

4//The Scotsman, UK Thursday, 24th March 2005
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=313952005

MPs CALL FOR RE-WRITE ON LAWS OF CREATION
Karen McVeigh

MPs will today recommend giving the go-ahead to couples to create "designer babies" and allowing the experimental implantation of human embryos into animals, as part of a radical shake-up in fertility laws.

If accepted, it could allow couples, in consultation with their doctors, to select embryos on the basis of their sex, to weed out genetic imperfections, or to create a "saviour sibling" - a child that can provide life- saving treatment to an ill brother or sister.

The science and technology select committee report, which will also recommend the scrapping of regulators, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority, has criticised the precautionary approach used up until now, instead arguing that new technologies should be used until harm is proved.

But late last night, a few hours before the study was due to be officially published, half of the committee launched a scathing attack on its findings and condemned a "rush to publish" by the other members.

In a statement, five of the ten committee members branded the long-awaited study "flawed, unbalanced, light on ethics ... too far in the direction of deregulation ... too dismissive of public opinion and much of the evidence."

They dismissed the conclusions as unrepresentative and "extremely libertarian" and said that they could never sign up to them. The split - right down the middle of the committee - reflects a fierce public debate on the subject, which continued yesterday, with watchdogs also condemning the findings as "libertarian and unethical.

Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "The kind of ethics we see in this report, which is incapable of saying a clear no to anything, is no ethics at all. Even when dealing with human genetic engineering, cloning or the creation of human-animal hybrids, the committee wants to remove existing protections."

The report will conclude that the 1984 Warnock Report’s recognition that the embryo had a special status, deserving of respect, should be retained.

But in the light of the "changes in social attitudes" and practice of assisted reproduction, the reproductive decisions of individuals should be limited only if "there is evidence of harms or potential harms" to individuals or society.

The report will call for less regulation over human reproductive technologies and place an emphasis on "patients making decisions in consultation with their doctors."

(MORE)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia March 25, 2005
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Banned...

BANNED: CHOOSING A BABY’S SEX
By Julie Robotham, Medical Editor

Couples will no longer be able to choose the sex of their baby in Sydney fertility clinics, after Australia's highest ethics authority ruled the procedure was not in the interests of resulting children.

But critics say the clampdown - which in effect ends non-medical sex selection in Australia - reflects religious and other partisan interests and does not represent public attitudes towards the increasingly popular procedure.

The medical director of IVF Australia, Michael Chapman, confirmed the group's member clinics would no longer accept new patients seeking the procedure, but said he believed the technique still had merit.

"I'm concerned that the views of the ethics committee aren't necessarily representative of larger groups in the community," he said.

Professor Chapman said he thought it was reasonable to balance the sexes of children in a family.

The procedure involves fertile couples undergoing an in vitro fertilisation cycle so that their embryos can be screened for their sex and other genetic characteristics.

Mark Bowman, the deputy medical director of Sydney IVF, said his clinic was also turning away new sex selection patients. "They feel aggrieved that an arbitrary decision has been made. They're wondering why their autonomy has been taken away from them," he said. Prospective patients were serious and sincere about the make-up of their families and paid the full cost of the procedure, about $13,000.

(SNIP)

In its report to the council, the ethics committee said "admission to life should not be conditional upon a child being a particular sex" and using the technology might undermine the parent-child relationship. But it backed sex selection in families with an inherited genetic disorder that affected only one sex.

The guidelines were drafted by a specially convened sub-committee headed by Bernadette Tobin, a bioethicist. Dr Tobin, who could not be reached for comment last night, is director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, a research centre within the Australian Catholic University that tries to bring "a Catholic perspective to all its endeavours."

The ethics committee chairman, Kerry Breen, said the membership of the sub-committee had been balanced and included IVF doctors. He said sex selection for non-medical reasons was "undoubtedly one of the most controversial issues in IVF" and the committee had recommended the procedure be suspended "pending further community discussion."

He hoped there would be debate, and said the federal Health Minister could order a reinvestigation if there was sufficient concern.