June 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 JUNE 24, 2005

1//IranMania, UK--IRAN’S NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY SEEN AT STAKE IN RUN-OFF (A victory in Iran's presidential run-off by hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad would remove a moderating influence from within the regime and could put the Islamic republic on a collision course with the West, diplomats and analysts said.  Seen as being most at stake is Iran's relatively pragmatic approach in diplomacy over its nuclear programme, which Iran maintains is for peaceful purposes but is seen by many as the cover for weapons development. … "It is extremely important to understand that what is at stake is this process concerning dangerous nuclear materials," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy cautioned after Ahmadinejad was thrust into a shock run-off against Rafsanjani. … According to Ahmadinejad, currently Tehran's mayor, "those who are handling the talks are terrified, and before they even sit down at the negotiating table they retreat 500 kilometres."  "A popular and fundamentalist government," he added, "will quickly change that."  An Ahmadinejad win would also place every Iranian elected and non-elected institution under the control of Iran's anti-Western religious right, ending what has up to now been a delicate equilibrium in decision making between moderates and hardliners.)                             

2//The Daily Star, Lebanon--BLIX CLAIMS IRAN YEARS AWAY FROM NUCLEAR BOMB  (STOCKHOLM: Iran is years away from achieving a nuclear capacity sufficient to create a bomb, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq Hans Blix said. Speaking in an interview with a Swedish public radio, Blix said: "They are many years away from being able to convert enriched uranium into a bomb." … News on Wednesday that Iran could within months take delivery of Russian nuclear fuel to fire up its first nuclear power station has exacerbated international concerns that the new Bushehr plant in southern Iran could be a cover for weapons development. Blix told Ekot news program the concerns over that plant were exaggerated, pointing out that while the shell of the plant was built with German group Siemens before the Iran-Iraq war, Russia had stepped in after the war with only low-grade nuclear technology. "It's like putting the motor of a Lada in a Mercedes car," he joked, adding that the light-water reactors being used are also not ideal for creating plutonium.)    

3//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK--THOUSANDS OF PESHMERGA DRAFTED INTO ARMY (Iraqi Kurdistan is to bolster Iraqi army and interior ministry units by providing the beleaguered security forces 32,000 of its peshmerga fighters - a little more than half the elite militia, according to Kurd officials. The remaining thirty thousand Kurdish troops will come under the control of a planned peshmerga ministry in the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan, said Mustafa Sayyed Qadir, deputy chief of units belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK. … The continued presence of a peshmerga force has alarmed some Iraqis, especially Sunnis, who are concerned that it might be deployed by the Kurds in a future independence struggle. Plans to halve the militia have failed to allay these worries. … The former Coalition Provision Authority had issued orders for militias to be disbanded but the decision has not been followed through. … While the rest of Iraq might not like it, Kurds believe it is paramount that they retain substantial numbers of pershmerga fighters.)                  

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--REVOLUTION WITHOUT BULLETS OR BALLOTS (From the shores of the Caspian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, there are violent reactionaries in the Muslim world who will kill and get killed, but beyond these fanatics there exists a real hardcore silently swaying the hearts and minds of many in the Muslim world. Their religion is not obvious from their demeanor or the cut of their clothes, yet it is embedded in the very core of their hearts, and is the driving force behind all their actions. They are an overwhelming emerging force, and even though they have been widely banned, they don't believe in retaliation. They have made a hub in Pakistan, where they outnumber many large religious parties, yet they remain difficult to pinpoint as they are political, but have been forced underground. They are the largest single movement in the Islamic world, the Liberation Party - Hizb ut-Tahrir [HT].)              

5//The Independent, UK--ANALYSIS: HOW ‘PRESIDENT’ BLAIR PLANS TO CAPITALISE ON EU CRISIS (Until recently, Foreign Office officials were saying that Britain's six-month spell in the European Union's rotating presidency would be a workmanlike but deliberately low-key event. There is now little prospect of that. The blood on the Brussels carpet from the acrimonious summit of EU leaders a week ago is still not dry, and Tony Blair is being blamed for spilling it by refusing to sign a deal on the EU budget. Whatever happens, the British presidency is unlikely to be dull. … In theory, holding the presidency should allow Britain to set the EU's agenda. "Europe needs strong leadership and that's what we will offer," said a Blair ally. In practice, the country chairing EU meetings must be conciliatory and seek compromises. So it must be trusted as an honest broker. Mr Blair has work to do, as shown by the sceptical reaction by some MEPs yesterday to his declaration that he was a "passionate pro-European.")

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1//IranMania, UK, Thursday, June 23, 2005
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default...

IRAN’S NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY SEEN AT STAKE IN RUN-OFF

LONDON, June 23 (IranMania) - A victory in Iran's presidential run-off by hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad would remove a moderating influence from within the regime and could put the Islamic republic on a collision course with the West, diplomats and analysts said.

Seen as being most at stake is Iran's relatively pragmatic approach in diplomacy over its nuclear programme, which Iran maintains is for peaceful purposes but is seen by many as the cover for weapons development.

Ahmadinejad's rival for the presidency, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been considered as the man in driving seat on the Iranian side -- sticking by a freeze of sensitive nuclear activities and talks with Britain, France and Germany.

"It is extremely important to understand that what is at stake is this process concerning dangerous nuclear materials," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy cautioned after Ahmadinejad was thrust into a shock run-off against Rafsanjani.

"In the past, Mr Rafsanjani has had a slightly more liberal attitude and we have felt in the last several weeks that there has been an easing of tensions between Iran, the European Union and the international community on this subject."

Rafsanjani, an ex-president and savvy deal-maker, has also spoken of the need to "solve" a quarter of a century of estrangement with the United States.

But a loss by the regime veteran could see both him and Iran's nuclear negotiators, including Rafsanjani loyalists such as Hassan Rowhani, squeezed out amid a wider political shift to the right.

According to Ahmadinejad, currently Tehran's mayor, "those who are handling the talks are terrified, and before they even sit down at the negotiating table they retreat 500 kilometres."

"A popular and fundamentalist government," he added, "will quickly change that."

An Ahmadinejad win would also place every Iranian elected and non-elected institution under the control of Iran's anti-Western religious right, ending what has up to now been a delicate equilibrium in decision making between moderates and hardliners.

While the president is only Iran's number-two on paper -- and often lower than that in practice -- Ahmadinejad would bolster the ranks of right-wingers who argue Iran has a "legitimate right" to press on with nuclear work and, more importantly, should do so regardless of the consequences.

At the core of the issue is Iran's ambition to make its own nuclear fuel by enriching uranium, a process that can also be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.

"It's impossible to stop a nation's scientific progress with a bunch of irrelevant words," Ahmadinejad said in a campaign statement, describing Iran's atomic ambitions as "a flood which cannot be stopped by a match stick."

"We will hold talks from a rational point of view and if they accept our legitimate right we'll cooperate," the statement, warning that Iran will not accept lengthy talks and "the kind of games they have played with Palestinians."

"The analysts say no country, no matter how powerful they are, can attack Iran. It would be suicidal for a country to attack Iran... so we must not bend to threats," he argued.

Indeed, for Ahmadinejad, it should be Iran that calls the shots in the talks.

"We spend 30 billion dollars on imports, and this is an immense means of pressure in negotiations. It is us who should impose our conditions on them and not them on us, and if they do not accept our conditions, it's simple -- we won't buy anything from them," he said in a campaign broadcast.

Any easing of tensions with Washington would also be off the cards.

(MORE)

2//The Daily Star, Lebanon,  Friday, June 24, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition...

BLIX CLAIMS IRAN YEARS AWAY FROM NUCLEAR BOMB
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

STOCKHOLM: Iran is years away from achieving a nuclear capacity sufficient to create a bomb, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq Hans Blix said. Speaking in an interview with a Swedish public radio, Blix said: "They are many years away from being able to convert enriched uranium into a bomb."

The United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged Iran to freeze uranium enrichment and reprocessing and to work with the UN atomic energy watchdog amid worries that Tehran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Tehran meanwhile has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian use only.

News on Wednesday that Iran could within months take delivery of Russian nuclear fuel to fire up its first nuclear power station has exacerbated international concerns that the new Bushehr plant in southern Iran could be a cover for weapons development.

Blix told Ekot news program the concerns over that plant were exaggerated, pointing out that while the shell of the plant was built with German group Siemens before the Iran-Iraq war, Russia had stepped in after the war with only low-grade nuclear technology.

"It's like putting the motor of a Lada in a Mercedes car," he joked, adding that the light-water reactors being used are also not ideal for creating plutonium.

"It is possible, but it is very difficult. The way you would usually go is to have a research reactor," he said.

Although the Iranians have said they plan to build a 40 megawatt research reactor, Blix insisted that their plans are too far off to really cause much concern.

"What is uncomfortable and dangerous is that they have acquired the capacity to enrich uranium out of their own uranium that they dig out of the ground," he said, adding that it is hard to trust Tehran's claims that it will only enrich uranium to levels required for civil purpose.

"If you can enrich to 5 percent you can enrich it to 85 percent," he said.

Still, he said, the Iranians "have begun digging in the dirt a bit but they may need 10 years" for this to be a threat.

(MORE)

3//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK, (ICR No. 129, 22-Jun-05)     
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_129_5_eng.txt

THOUSANDS OF PESHMERGA DRAFTED INTO ARMY

Incorporation of large numbers of peshmerga into national security forces fails to allay concerns of some Iraqis over the militia force.

By Talar Nadir in Sulaimaniyah

Talar Nadir is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.

Iraqi Kurdistan is to bolster Iraqi army and interior ministry units by providing the beleaguered security forces 32,000 of its peshmerga fighters - a little more than half the elite militia, according to Kurd officials.

The remaining thirty thousand Kurdish troops will come under the control of a planned peshmerga ministry in the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan, said Mustafa Sayyed Qadir, deputy chief of units belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK.

The move comes as the rival Kurdish administrations in Sulaimaniyah and Erbil prepare to unify. The election of Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, as president of Iraqi Kurdistan on June 12 paved the way for the two authorities to merge.

Sulaimaniyah and Erbil are the capitals of the PUK-controlled eastern side and the KDP-controlled western side of the Kurdish region respectively.

The continued presence of a peshmerga force has alarmed some Iraqis, especially Sunnis, who are concerned that it might be deployed by the Kurds in a future independence struggle. Plans to halve the militia have failed to allay these worries.

Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd and head of the PUK, recently sparked controversy when he publicly expressed support for maintaining the peshmerga and the Badr Brigade, the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Abdul Salman al-Qubeisi, spokesman of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, accused Talabani of trying to prolong the fighting in Iraq and to turn it into a civil war.

The former Coalition Provision Authority had issued orders for militias to be disbanded but the decision has not been followed through.

(SNIP)

While the rest of Iraq might not like it, Kurds believe it is paramount that they retain substantial numbers of pershmerga fighters.

Muhsin Bayez, a senior official in the Kurdish regional government, said it is important Kurds do not have to rely on others for their protection. "We don't [want to depend totally] on to the Iraqi Army," he said.

Muhammed Jalal, who teaches international relations at the University of Sulaimaniyah, said maintaining the militia would reassure locals that their region will remain an autonomous entity, "It is impossible for the Kurds to fall under the direct rule of Baghdad again."

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong, Jun 24, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF24Df02.html

REVOLUTION WITHOUT BULLETS OR BALLOTS

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - From the shores of the Caspian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, there are violent reactionaries in the Muslim world who will kill and get killed, but beyond these fanatics there exists a real hardcore silently swaying the hearts and minds of many in the Muslim world.

Their religion is not obvious from their demeanor or the cut of their clothes, yet it is embedded in the very core of their hearts, and is the driving force behind all their actions.

They are an overwhelming emerging force, and even though they have been widely banned, they don't believe in retaliation. They have made a hub in Pakistan, where they outnumber many large religious parties, yet they remain difficult to pinpoint as they are political, but have been forced underground. They are the largest single movement in the Islamic world, the Liberation Party - Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT).

In the mid-1990s, a large conference was held in London, where the topic was the revival of a caliphate in the Muslim world for the "implementation of pure Islamic doctrine", as is the goal of the HT. The conference was attended by delegates from around the world, and a key question was to determine an ideal place for the Islamic revolution. Many agreed on Pakistan, a land of valiant Muslim tribes that have traditionally responded enthusiastically to Islamic issues. And strategically, the country is well situated to embrace the Asian sub-continent and Central Asia - where initially the caliphate will be created.

Subsequently, hundreds of HT members, British but of Pakistani origin, many of them students at the London School of Economics and other centers of excellence, packed their bags and departed for Pakistan. By 2000, the HT had established itself in all urban centers of the country, but within three years it was banned. All police stations were given strict instructions to round up any person who claimed an association with the HT.

Hundreds of HT members were rounded up, and may reports of torture emerged. Of those produced in court, the only charges that were made to stick were those related to being a member of the HT.

This correspondent has spoken to senior Pakistani officials on the reason for the HT being banned, but none of them appears to have a clue - especially as the HT does not espouse violence or militancy.

HT members have even been encouraged by the authorities to change the name of the organization, as most other banned outfits do so that they can carry on with their activities, but the HT has refused to do so.

Pakistan, especially as a leading ally in the US "war on terror," has been urged by international intelligence agencies to continue cracking down on the HT. President General Pervez Musharraf has visited the United Kingdom and publicly advised parents to beware of the HT and keep their children away from its influence.

Asia Times Online spoke to the HT's chief in Pakistan, Naveed Butt. Butt is a graduate from Illinois University, Chicago, in engineering. He is a tall and smart man in his late 30s, and has devoted his life to the cause of HT. As a result, he is a wanted man. He traveled from Lahore to Karachi for this interview

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5//The Independent, UK, 24 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=649237

ANALYSIS: HOW ‘PRESIDENT’ BLAIR PLANS TO CAPITALISE ON EU CRISIS

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Until recently, Foreign Office officials were saying that Britain's six-month spell in the European Union's rotating presidency would be a workmanlike but deliberately low-key event.

There is now little prospect of that. The blood on the Brussels carpet from the acrimonious summit of EU leaders a week ago is still not dry, and Tony Blair is being blamed for spilling it by refusing to sign a deal on the EU budget. Whatever happens, the British presidency is unlikely to be dull.

A list of goals for the presidency is being rewritten to take account of the very different backdrop created by the summit and the "no" votes in France and the Netherlands on the proposed EU constitution. It is due to be unveiled in a White Paper next Thursday, a day before the presidency starts officially on 1 July.

As an eternal optimist, Mr Blair believes the crisis can yet be turned to Britain's and Europe's advantage. So does Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who welcomes recent events - not because he wants the EU to collapse, but because he wants it to face reality.

Mr Blair has been encouraged by the positive reaction of commentators in France and Germany to his call for a "fundamental debate" over Europe's future direction and a rethink over the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). "There is a growing recognition the debate is shifting our way," one Blair aide said yesterday. "The problems might concentrate minds."

If only it were that easy. The failure of the budget negotiations a week ago has left a nasty taste. Mr Blair's relations with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder are at an all-time low. The 10 new members who joined the EU last year, who should be natural allies, are furious that there was no budget deal and are wary of Mr Blair, who knows he has to work very hard to woo them.

(SNIP)

In theory, holding the presidency should allow Britain to set the EU's agenda. "Europe needs strong leadership and that's what we will offer," said a Blair ally. In practice, the country chairing EU meetings must be conciliatory and seek compromises. So it must be trusted as an honest broker. Mr Blair has work to do, as shown by the sceptical reaction by some MEPs yesterday to his declaration that he was a "passionate pro-European."

Britain's other main priority will be economic reform. It will offer Europe a stark "choice of directions" rehearsed by Peter Mandelson, Britain's European commissioner, in a speech in London last night. "One way we sink into protectionism and the defensiveness that helped defeat the constitutional treaty in the French and Dutch referendums. The other way, we press ahead with economic reforms," he said.

Mr Mandelson sought to reassure Britain's EU partners that the Blair Government favours a "social dimension" - albeit a different one to the Franco-German model. Instead of protecting existing jobs, it should create new ones, he said.

Britain will push a directive to liberalise the trade in services, which is opposed by France. It will be very keen to ensure that membership talks with Turkey start on schedule on 3 October, but could face opposition. Who is expressing doubts? France, of course.

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