July 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 JULY 25, 2005

1//MercoPress, Uruguay--TELESUR GOES ON THE AIR UNDER FIRE FROM U.S. (Today will be the first day of broadcasting for a new Latin America-wide TV network aimed at competing with U.S. and European international news stations. Telesur, an initiative led by Venezuela, the majority shareholder, is also being financed by the governments of Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, and will gradually become available on local cable TV channels around the region and on the DirecTV satellite system, said Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra. But the minister warned that the U.S. government could attempt to jam the station's broadcasts, which will initially cover four hours a day: "Our technological capacity is limited, and the United States is obviously superior in that aspect ... We do not rule out the possibility of having to seek other routes, besides satellite, to air our programming." … Even before the content of Telesur's programming has become clear, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment Wednesday authorising Washington to create a station that would broadcast exclusively to Venezuela to "provide a consistently accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news." … The sponsor of the amendment in the U.S. legislature, Republican Rep. Connie Mack of the state of Florida, described Telesur as a threat to the United States that would undermine the balance of power in the western hemisphere and spread Chavez's "anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric." He also likened it to the pan-Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera. … The United States would not like to see a repeat of that phenomenon in Latin America, which is exactly what could happen, said al-Jazeera international affairs analyst Lamis Andoni. If Telesur and TV Brasil Internacional - a similar Brazilian-driven project - "succeed on focusing more world attention to the developments, the discourse and the problems of their region, they will become the main source of (Latin American) news for all world media," she told IPS. … The director of Telesur, Uruguayan journalist Aram Aharonian, commented to IPS from Caracas that the new station "is the only alternative to the hegemonic message with which they bombard us from the North.")

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--PAKISTAN: UNITED MILITANTS, DIVIDED LEADERS (Very much like in the post-September 11 days, Pakistan is once again standing at a crossroad between the military and the mosque following the bomb attacks in London on July 7. However, a major difference now is that the US and the United Kingdom are watching Pakistan's every action with unrelenting vigilance, which could force President General Pervez Musharraf to take action that will place him on a path of confrontation with various religious and political elements in the country. … Within Pakistan, though, this has had an almost immediate and potentially dangerous effect: there is a split within the corridors of power, and complete harmony among the previously splintered underground militant organizations, developed within days to fight back against government pressures. Musharraf's televised address to the nation on Thursday was in effect a public announcement of a divorce between the military and the mosque. For the first time, although without citing its name, he called the influential Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) , the country's largest religious group, a regressive force. … Now, the key question is whether the Pakistani army as an institution approves this divorce from religion. … The central issue is that several underground militant organizations have linked in preparation for retaliatory action against the government if it, under immense Western pressure, carries out "real" actions. Previously, most "crackdowns" were a setup - militant groups were taken into confidence before members were arrested, and asked to be patient until the storm blew over. Now, both the militant groups and the army know that they cannot fool around as the US and the UK are both serious.)

3//Scotsman.com/Scotland on Sunday, UK--INDIA IS THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM (… With the White House increasingly concerned that China might some day turn its rising economic and military power against US interests, its relationship with India is now widely seen on Capitol Hill as the key counterbalance in Asia. The CIA analysis describes India today as the most important "swing state" in the world, a country that could tip the balance between war and peace, between chaos and order. … Beijing in particular has reason to be wary of Delhi as the US courts India to be a counterweight to a rising China. But crucially many officials and scholars in New Delhi say the future of Indo-Chinese relations may be less competitive and aimed more at allowing each other to grow large enough to make the world multilateral once more. "There is no question that the US follows a doctrine of unilateralism" and that is an area of joint concern for India and China, according to Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, former director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. "The bottom line is that we are the neighbours here. We share a border. I would like to see America take a wiser approach to these relations, and see the co-operation of India and China, which includes elements of competition, as a positive thing.")

4//The Daily Star, Lebanon--INDIA TO CONTINUE IRAN PIPELINE TALKS (India will press ahead with talks on a pipeline deal to deliver natural gas from Iran despite an agreement with the U.S. for the sale of civilian nuclear technology, weekend reports said. Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who this year secured Cabinet approval for the pipeline first mooted in 1994, said the nuclear technology agreement with Washington was not a "quid pro quo" for abandoning the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. "I don't think there's any connection between the two," said Aiyar when asked if India had promised to scrap efforts to import natural gas from Iran in return for Washington providing nuclear technology and fuel for power generation, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.)

5//Worldpress.org, US--PROTESTS IN YEMEN: THE CONTEXT (Yemen has been called a monarchy, a dictatorship, a kleptocracy, and a totalitarian state similar to Iraq under Saddam. Faced with mounting pressures from its formidable reform movement and a populace ravaged by governmental malfeasance, the Yemeni government has responded with a campaign of brutality and repression targeting children, journalists and political parties. Yet across all the governorates, the Yemeni people took to the streets facing tanks, guns, soldiers, police, and the Republican Guard. More than fifty people were killed. Hundreds were arrested, including children, and Amnesty International reports they may be at risk of torture.)

RELATED:

//The Daily Star, Lebanon-- ANALYSIS—YEMEN: ANOTHER MISTAKE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND? (… The reason why nobody talks about curbing defense spending neither in Yemen nor in the IMF, to release more money for development, remains a mystery.)

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1//MercoPress, Uruguay Sunday, 24 July 2005
http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=6092

TELESUR GOES ON THE AIR UNDER FIRE FROM U.S.

Today will be the first day of broadcasting for a new Latin America-wide TV network aimed at competing with U.S. and European international news stations.

Telesur, an initiative led by Venezuela, the majority shareholder, is also being financed by the governments of Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, and will gradually become available on local cable TV channels around the region and on the DirecTV satellite system, said Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra.

But the minister warned that the U.S. government could attempt to jam the station's broadcasts, which will initially cover four hours a day: "Our technological capacity is limited, and the United States is obviously superior in that aspect ... We do not rule out the possibility of having to seek other routes, besides satellite, to air our programming."

Even before the content of Telesur's programming has become clear, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment Wednesday authorising Washington to create a station that would broadcast exclusively to Venezuela to "provide a consistently accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news."

Through its embassy in Washington, the Venezuelan government responded that all continent-wide cable and satellite stations already operate freely in Venezuela, where most of the local media outlets are not only privately-owned, but are controlled by the opposition.

The sponsor of the amendment in the U.S. legislature, Republican Rep. Connie Mack of the state of Florida, described Telesur as a threat to the United States that would undermine the balance of power in the western hemisphere and spread Chavez's "anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric."

He also likened it to the pan-Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera.

The comparison is not a casual one, nor is the fear totally unfounded. Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, and Dubai-based satellite TV channel al-Arabiya rapidly overtook the U.S. news channel CNN, Britain's BBC, and other Western stations as the main sources of news programming on the Middle East.

The United States would not like to see a repeat of that phenomenon in Latin America, which is exactly what could happen, said al-Jazeera international affairs analyst Lamis Andoni.

If Telesur and TV Brasil Internacional - a similar Brazilian-driven project - "succeed on focusing more world attention to the developments, the discourse and the problems of their region, they will become the main source of (Latin American) news for all world media," she told IPS.

She pointed to what the Arab language station has done: "Al-Jazeera has amplified the Arab perspective and placed it on the world map. It also broke the monopoly of the Western media on world news."

According to information on its website, the Telesur signal will reach throughout the Americas, western Europe and North Africa, through the New Skies Satellite 806.

The director of Telesur, Uruguayan journalist Aram Aharonian, commented to IPS from Caracas that the new station "is the only alternative to the hegemonic message with which they bombard us from the North."

In political terms, Telesur represents "the determination of the region's national governments to play a role in fomenting and generating mass television programming that strengthens Latin American integration, on a foundation of diversity and pluralism," he said.

(SNIP)

Andres Canizalez, a researcher at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas and the director of the Jesuit magazine "Comunicacion", remarked to IPS from Caracas that the project deserves "the benefit of the doubt" because it is aimed at countering a real problem: U.S. control of televised images in Latin America.

But he said that in Venezuela, both the opposition-owned and state-run media have overstepped the line between journalism and propaganda, and warned of the risk of expanding that polarisation to the rest of the region.

According to Landoni, "The only prerequisite (for success) is that governments involved in the projects allow a high margin of freedom."

Aharonian noted that Telesur (Televisora del Sur, or Television of the South) is being launched with an initial investment of 2.5 million dollars. Venezuela holds 51 percent of the shares in the network, while Argentina holds a 20 percent interest, Cuba 19 percent and Uruguay 10 percent.

Telesur will have correspondent's offices in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, the United States and Uruguay.

In Uruguay, the smallest partner, Telesur's operations will be based in the offices of the public TV network Tveo, and will be broadcast via the signal of local cable station TV Ciudad, run by the Montevideo city government.

"The initial budget - including building projects and equipment, as well as operational costs - has totalled roughly 10 million dollars," Aharonian added.

These funds were put up by Venezuela, which has also contributed installations and facilities made available by the state. Telesur's head office is located in Caracas.

The measure approved by the lower house of the U.S. Congress to counteract Telesur includes funding for a similar sum: nine million dollars.

(MORE)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jul 23, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GG23Df06.html

PAKISTAN: UNITED MILITANTS, DIVIDED LEADERS
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Very much like in the post-September 11 days, Pakistan is once again standing at a crossroad between the military and the mosque following the bomb attacks in London on July 7.

However, a major difference now is that the US and the United Kingdom are watching Pakistan's every action with unrelenting vigilance, which could force President General Pervez Musharraf to take action that will place him on a path of confrontation with various religious and political elements in the country.

As an important ally in the US-led "war on terror," and given that three of the four London bombers are said to have visited Pakistan within in a year prior to the attacks, Musharraf had to act, both quickly and firmly.

As a result, security forces have detained about 300 suspected Islamist extremists in raids on religious schools and other centers across the country.

Within Pakistan, though, this has had an almost immediate and potentially dangerous effect: there is a split within the corridors of power, and complete harmony among the previously splintered underground militant organizations, developed within days to fight back against government pressures.

Musharraf's televised address to the nation on Thursday was in effect a public announcement of a divorce between the military and the mosque. For the first time, although without citing its name, he called the influential Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the country's largest religious group, a regressive force.

(SNIP)

Now, the key question is whether the Pakistani army as an institution approves this divorce from religion.

On Thursday, police raided the core of Islamic madrassas (seminaries), the Binori Town Islamic Seminary in Karachi, and detained several foreign students. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a powerful alliance of six religious/political parties, has responded by calling for nationwide protests.

How the masses react to the government crackdown on madrassas is, however, secondary.

The central issue is that several underground militant organizations have linked in preparation for retaliatory action against the government if it, under immense Western pressure, carries out "real" actions.

Previously, most "crackdowns" were a setup - militant groups were taken into confidence before members were arrested, and asked to be patient until the storm blew over. Now, both the militant groups and the army know that they cannot fool around as the US and the UK are both serious.

(SNIP)

United we stand, divided we fall
Reports of differences between Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Musharraf have been circulating for some months, but they appear to be coming to a head. Shaukat recently called on all heads of law-enforcing agencies and asked them to report directly to his command.

(SNIP)

Shaukat is proving more ambitious than Musharraf would like, with the premier wanting to be powerful and the person to whom all intelligence agencies and law-enforcing agencies report. This puts him on a collision course with Musharraf.

(MORE)

3//Scotsman.com/Scotland on Sunday, UK Sun 24 Jul 2005
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international...

INDIA IS THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM
Dan McDougall in New Delhi

When John Walton, the heir to the Wal-Mart retail family's vast fortune, was killed in a plane crash three weeks ago, the story was reported in most of India's national newspapers, along with the details of his life.

New Delhi's often insular press does not usually dwell in much detail on anything other than the most important international news; but attention these days is intensely focused on the US business world, particularly conglomerates such as Wal-Mart.

The Indian media has pored over the US supermarket giant's efforts to break into the local retail sector, an untapped gold mine long closed to outsiders.

To support their case for expansion across the subcontinent, Wal-Mart and other American companies have been spreading the news that they are increasingly using India as a significant source of supplies. Wal-Mart is buying goods worth approaching $1.5bn from India this year.

The amount is small compared with what it currently spends in China, but it is a serious start and a clear message to Beijing. Behind Wal-Mart is a long queue of potential investors in India headed by Ford, American Express, General Electric and the ubiquitous Starbucks.

Last week the state visit of India's prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to Washington DC began what political commentators here in New Delhi have described as unprecedented dialogue and co-operation between the world's largest economy and the biggest democracy. According to one US State Department source, relations between the two countries were now unequivocally bonded. "In the post-Cold War, post-September 11, 2001, world society, US and Indian interests generally converge. Both cherish democracy, commercial enterprise, the rule of law, secularism, non-aggression and religious pluralism," he said.

With the White House increasingly concerned that China might some day turn its rising economic and military power against US interests, its relationship with India is now widely seen on Capitol Hill as the key counterbalance in Asia.

The CIA analysis describes India today as the most important "swing state" in the world, a country that could tip the balance between war and peace, between chaos and order.

Last week, to coincide with the visit of Singh to the US, the publication of a Washington think tank report, highlighted this belief. In a timely study titled India as a New Global Power and prepared for the leading Pentagon-backed strategy group The Carnegie Endowment, Ashley Tellis, an Indian-born adviser to the White House, argued for the urgent upgrading of the US relationship with India and quoted an internal CIA assessment that claimed India, in the future, could be a major asset or hindrance for the US.

India, Tellis stressed in his report, will soon be one of the world's five largest economies and could serve as a potential hedge against an expansionist China and a crucial ally in the war against terror.

He added: "The CIA has compared the emergence of China to the rise of Germany in the 19th century and the US in the 20th century in terms of mapping the global future.

"There is a real fear that China might some day turn its rising economic and military power against America. In this context the US needs to look at a re-ordering of their relationship with India which today is not only a key ally in the war against terror but a counterbalance in Asia against China's dominance."

American political analysts remain abuzz over last week's rare White House state dinner for the visiting Indian Prime Minister, only the fifth such occasion in George Bush's presidency.
During the summit, Bush promised Singh substantial US help for India's civilian nuclear power programme in return for a commitment to adhere to non-proliferation pacts.

(SNIP)

India's political system is more multi-layered, its society more open and economy more transparent. Little wonder, therefore, that Washington sees India as a counterweight to China, yet the US is only too wary of India's own relationship with Beijing. In April this year the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, made his first visit to New Delhi with virtually the same message of alliance communicated by the US last week.

In talks aimed at resolving 43-year-old boundary disputes in Northern India and to set the stage for growing co-operation on trade and security issues, the meeting was described in the Indian press as a success.

Neither the US nor China can afford to ignore a growing regional player such as India, or to have it working directly against them.

Beijing in particular has reason to be wary of Delhi as the US courts India to be a counterweight to a rising China. But crucially many officials and scholars in New Delhi say the future of Indo-Chinese relations may be less competitive and aimed more at allowing each other to grow large enough to make the world multilateral once more.

"There is no question that the US follows a doctrine of unilateralism" and that is an area of joint concern for India and China, according to Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, former director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. "The bottom line is that we are the neighbours here.
We share a border. I would like to see America take a wiser approach to these relations, and see the co-operation of India and China, which includes elements of competition, as a positive thing."

As Lord Palmerston, the Victorian British statesman and exponent of gunboat diplomacy, once said: "We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow."

4//The Daily Star, Lebanon Monday, July 25, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition...

INDIA TO CONTINUE IRAN PIPELINE TALKS
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

NEW DELHI: India will press ahead with talks on a pipeline deal to deliver natural gas from Iran despite an agreement with the U.S. for the sale of civilian nuclear technology, weekend reports said. Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who this year secured Cabinet approval for the pipeline first mooted in 1994, said the nuclear technology agreement with Washington was not a "quid pro quo" for abandoning the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.

"I don't think there's any connection between the two," said Aiyar when asked if India had promised to scrap efforts to import natural gas from Iran in return for Washington providing nuclear technology and fuel for power generation, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

On Monday U.S. President George W. Bush announced he would ask Congress as well as allied nations to lift sanctions preventing Indian access to civil nuclear technology after talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington.

India was denied access to large nuclear reactors and fuel under sanctions imposed on it after it conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and later in 1998.

Washington opposes the 2,600-kilometer pipeline, voicing its objections to New Delhi buying gas from Iran. The U.S. accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and trying to build a nuclear bomb.

Aiyar, however, said India would press ahead with negotiations on the $4.5 billion pipeline. "All difficulties notwithstanding, we will continue to proceed and we will, God willing, succeed." The minister echoed remarks by premier Singh last week in Washington that the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project was fraught with risks.

"In my view it is going to be extremely difficult to put together a financial consortium to finance the project and run as world-class project," Aiyar said.

But he added India's "enormous energy requirement" cannot be met without accessing gas in Iran.

India imports 70 percent of its crude oil needs and produces just half the gas it requires. The fuel import requirements of the country of more than one billion people are seen growing rapidly as its economy surges.

(MORE)

5 //Worldpress.org, US July 23, 2005
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2121.cfm

PROTESTS IN YEMEN: THE CONTEXT
Jane Novak
Worldpress.org contributing editor

Widespread popular protests in Yemen grabbed attention in the West even though some international journalists were prohibited from broadcasting video of the violence via satellite. Tanks and military vehicles line the streets, giving Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, an eerie resemblance to Iraq. The protests were triggered by a reduction in governmental subsidies on many commodity items in this desperately poor nation. The price of petroleum has risen by around 90 percent and the price of gas has increased almost 80 percent. In a country where the per capita G.D.P. is $508 a year and half the population is in poverty, the price increases mean more people will be starving. But there is a broader context to the protests than the lifting of subsidies: governmental corruption, brutality, and repression. Much of the anger on Yemen’s streets is directed toward the government itself. "Prices have risen and we’re afflicted while not one single corrupt official has been held accountable," said Mohammaed al-Baazany, a 25-year-old unemployed university graduate.

Yemen has gas and oil reserves. A member of Parliament, Ali Ashal, noted that "the price of Yemeni gas is slightly more than $3 / unit while it is more than $47 in the market. We don’t know really the reason why our government is throwing away this asset in this way." In the same interview, Ashal reported, "Oil prices are estimated at $22 / barrel while it is sold at $45 or more. This means that huge amounts of money are lost." Someone is making a lot of money from Yemen’s natural resources. Unfortunately, the Yemeni people are not sharing in the good fortune. There are many other unfortunate occurrences in Yemen.

The jailing of children is common. Amnesty International recently issued an urgent alert pertaining to Ibrahim al-Saiani, a 14-year-old boy in prison, unconscious and in need of medical treatment. Amnesty reports that he may be held solely for being part of the Zaidi community, and at risk of torture and ill treatment. The Arabic daily, al-Shoura, also reported on children in prison; the youngest listed is 9-year-old Aref Mosa al-Qusi. His condition is "wounded."

(SNIP)

Yemeni religious summer schools, financed by the government, will be taught by 3000 students from the al-Iman University, which is run by Abdel Meguid al-Zindani, who is considered a "major terrorist" by the United States, and has such alumni as John Walker Lind, the American captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In the Saada region, where reportedly 65,000 residents are homeless due to government bombing, government vehicles have been reported dragging burnt bodies through the villages. Doctors have been arrested for treating the wounded, and the literary works of Iman Ali (noted by the United Nations as a model for his teachings encouraging democracy) have been confiscated. Mass arrests of entire villages have resulted in thousands of men held in prison for months without charges. The boys get "arrested" too. Referring to Saada, the top Yemeni Shiite cleric said Iraqis in the Yemeni military advised President Ali Abdullah Saleh to "kill the Shias in the country as Saddam did in Iraq."

Amnesty International believes Yahia al-Dailami, a cleric who was sentenced to death in May, received a trial that "fell short" of international standards, and that he may have been targeted solely because of his criticisms of the government.

President Saleh announced he would not seek reelection in 2006. In the last presidential election, Saleh received 96 percent of the vote. At that time, he also announced he wouldn’t seek candidacy, only to be convinced by his party four days later. At this moment though, there is a real hope and opportunity for a peaceful transition of power in Yemen.

Yemen has been called a monarchy, a dictatorship, a kleptocracy, and a totalitarian state similar to Iraq under Saddam. Faced with mounting pressures from its formidable reform movement and a populace ravaged by governmental malfeasance, the Yemeni government has responded with a campaign of brutality and repression targeting children, journalists and political parties. Yet across all the governorates, the Yemeni people took to the streets facing tanks, guns, soldiers, police, and the Republican Guard. More than fifty people were killed. Hundreds were arrested, including children, and Amnesty International reports they may be at risk of torture.

RELATED:

The Daily Star, Lebanon Monday, July 25, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id...

ANALYSIS—YEMEN: ANOTHER MISTAKE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND?

… It clearly seems that the government of Yemen's recent decision to strongly reduce the subsidy on oil products comes as a reaction to recent IMF pressure.

In its annual economic assessment, the IMF warned the Yemeni government of long-term challenges if it continues to ignore or delay serious urgently needed reforms. These reforms, as exposed above, clearly focus on reducing public expenditure to decrease a worsening public deficit. But is doubling oil products' prices for poor consumers the right way to do it? Surely curbing public expenditure all round, including military spending, would have been more effective. A quick look at the evolution of the government's expenditure in recent years provides more insight on this point. … In light of this data, does removing the petroleum products subsidy constitute a priority in the government's goal to reduce its budget deficit? The answer is clearly no. These products have a widespread consumption, especially for the poor, and rapidly increasing their price will surely deteriorate the tough living conditions of the Yemenis. The reason why nobody talks about curbing defense spending neither in Yemen nor in the IMF, to release more money for development, remains a mystery.