January 13, 2006

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.

World Media Watch will not be posted Monday; it will return Wednesday, January 18, 2006.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JANUARY 13, 2005

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--RED LINES IN THE IRANIAN SAND (Now that Iran has broken the seals it put two-and-a-half years ago on an atomic research facility at Natanz, 250 kilometers south of Tehran, it has passed a "red line" that makes a tough response almost inevitable. … As both sides ratchet up the confrontation, the whiff of conflict hangs in the air, with distressing implications for the whole world. … With attitudes hardening, Iran could soon face tough sanctions from the Security Council in a telescoped replay of a part of the drama over Iraq between 2000 and 2003, which eventually led to its invasion and occupation. … A former Indian intelligence officer, Vikram Sood, said that such an attack might use nuclear weapons. "A conventional attack on Iran would be expensive and not quite cost-effective. It would allow [for] Iranian retaliation." To preempt retaliation, the US might use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's underground facilities. … The fear also is that unlike in the case of Iraq when considerable time was spent in building the case, this time the attack will be sudden and actual justifications will be given later." Any such attack would break the 60-year-old, very welcome, taboo against the use of nuclear weapons - with extraordinarily negative consequences for global peace and security. Such an outcome can only be prevented if the West moves away from coercive diplomacy to isolate Iran and opens serious talks with it, and if the nuclear weapons states rethink their own policies.)

2//The Moscow Times, Russia--MERKEL LIKELY TO BE COOLER TO PUTIN (German leader Angela Merkel will head to Moscow on Monday for her first visit as chancellor amid a growing debate across Europe about reducing energy dependency on Russia -- and signs that the bear-hug diplomacy that her predecessor indulged in is set to end. While her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, had made strengthening Germany's energy alliance with Russia a priority during his time in office, Merkel has said Europe must not be too dependent on Russia for its energy. And while Schröder had lavished praise on Putin, describing him as a "flawless democrat," Merkel has already expressed concern over the direction of Putin's policies. … But even before the Ukraine gas crisis, many pundits were predicting ties to become more stand-offish under Merkel, partly because she is likely to try and push her country into a closer relationship with the United States, and also because, as an East German, she knows Russian and Russia well. … Merkel indicated the shift in priorities in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel last weekend, in which she described the relationship with the United States as a "friendship," while with Russia, she said, it could only be described as "a strategic partnership." "I believe that we do not share as many moral concepts with Russia as we do with America," she said.)

3//The Times of India, India--INDIA GETS JOHN KERRY'S BACKING FOR INDO-US N-DEAL (Implementation of the Indo-US deal on civilian nuclear cooperation will mean grant of nuclear power status to India, influential American Senator and former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry said here on Thursday as he voiced support for the agreement. Kerry told a press conference here that the deal, with "enormous benefits" bilaterally, cannot be seen only in the context of Indo-US relations but had implications at the global level. … "In principle, I support the deal. It is a great game, a positive game, for India, the US and the global community," he said. The Senator said the deal cannot be seen only in the bilateral context as it has "impact broader than bilateral", involving the role of three important international bodies or agreements, particularly when "Iran and other compelling issues are on the table.")

4//The Korea Times, South Korea--'US WILL MAINTAIN HARDLINE STANCE ON NK' (As the gridlock continues over the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, experts in Seoul appear worried over U.S. policy toward North Korea. Jeong Se-hyun, who served as South Korea's unification minister from 2002 to 2004, said it might be wrong to expect an early resumption of the nuclear talks, considering the recent harsh remarks made by U.S. administration officials toward North Korea. "Such wars of words have typically caused a delay in the talks,'' Jeong said during a forum hosted by Kyungnam University's Graduate School of North Korean Studies in a Seoul hotel Monday. "We cannot but question whether the United States has a 'real intention' that is quite different from its 'proclaimed policy' of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.'' Jeong added that if the incumbent U.S. government maintains a hard-line stance on North Korea, further progress in the nuclear talks cannot be expected at least until the U.S. elections for the House of Representatives and Senate scheduled for November. "Washington seems to want to keep North Korea as its 'necessary enemy' to maintain its control and interests in the Northeast Asian region,'' Jeong said.)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT FIRST: FLAG BURNER SENTENCED TO JAIL (The flag burner admitted he was stupid. ... In the end, this spontaneous act of revenge after the Cronulla riots cost the young man his freedom. Sentencing Hadi Khawaja, 24, to three months' jail, the magistrate, Paul Falzon, said yesterday that burning an Australian flag was "of great significance" and warranted a harsher penalty than the usual fine. ... His wife was about to be evicted from their apartment because they are unable to pay the rent, the court heard. Khawaja has been in jail for a month already.)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jan 13, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA13Ak02.html

RED LINES IN THE IRANIAN SAND
By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI - Now that Iran has broken the seals it put two-and-a-half years ago on an atomic research facility at Natanz, 250 kilometers south of Tehran, it has passed a "red line" that makes a tough response almost inevitable.

(SNIP)

As both sides ratchet up the confrontation, the whiff of conflict hangs in the air, with distressing implications for the whole world.

Oil prices rose on Thursday, extending gains amid mounting concerns over the potential fallout from Iran's pursuit of its nuclear ambitions, according to market analysts. US crude oil futures rose 56 cents to US$64.50 a barrel, after rising 57 cents on Wednesday.

"The issue of Iran's international relations continues to rise to the fore as a major potential area of market concern. We continue to see the situation as representing the major upside risk for oil prices this year," analysts at Barclays Capital said in a report, according to Reuters.

The current crisis is likely to be more serious than in September, when the US dragged Iran before the board of governors of the IAEA, which held it "non-compliant" with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

With attitudes hardening, Iran could soon face tough sanctions from the Security Council in a telescoped replay of a part of the drama over Iraq between 2000 and 2003, which eventually led to its invasion and occupation.

There are three differences, though. Iraq's alleged nuclear activities were clandestine - although they did not result in a capability to make nuclear weapons of mass destruction, as Western governments falsely claimed. By contrast, Iran's current activities are transparent and taking place right in the presence of IAEA inspectors.

Second, Iraq in 2002-03 had no civilian nuclear program worth the name. Most of its clandestine military nuclear infrastructure was dismantled after the 1991 Gulf War under a tough UN Security Council mandate.

Iran has a civilian nuclear program, stretching from the mining of uranium to its enrichment to constructing a power reactor. Also, unlike Iraq, it can legitimately invoke its right to peaceful nuclear activities under the NPT, subject to IAEA inspections. This right is affirmed under Articles 1 and 4 of the treaty.

Third, Iraq in 2003 was a weak, militarily near-disabled country with an economy crippled by decade-long sanctions. Its totally undemocratic state had very little legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

Iran is a culturally vibrant, self-confident society with a strong economy, which now stands further boosted by high oil prices. It is a middle-level military power with a popularly elected government. It will not be easy to isolate Iran, unlike Iraq.

"In fact," said Hari Vasudevan, professor of international relations at Calcutta University, "Iran enjoys a unique strategic advantage because of the highly troubled situation in Iraq, which the US has failed to quell." He added: "Sixty percent of Iraq's population is Shi'ite, and Iran wields enormous influence in Iraq. It has so far desisted from fomenting further trouble in Iraq, but could do so if cornered and provoked by the US and its allies."

Iran has two more advantages in its favor. It has been working closely with Russia in its civilian nuclear program. Russia is helping it build a power reactor at Bushehr, due to be commissioned this year.

It also enjoys a degree of support and sympathy from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and China. The bulk of the NAM group at the IAEA, barring India and a handful of small countries, abstained from or voted against the US-sponsored September 24 resolution against Iran. As did China and Russia.

"All this might only frustrate US efforts to diplomatically isolate Iran," said Qamar Agha, a Middle East expert at the Center for West and Central Asian Studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. "Western Europe is far too dependent upon Iran's oil and gas to go to extreme lengths in sustaining sanctions that cripple Iran's energy generation. Therefore, the US might be tempted to use military force, jointly with Israel, to bomb select facilities in Iran."

(SNIP)

A number of US doctrinal pronouncements, and reports about a recently approved US "global strike plan", with a nuclear option, suggest that a preemptive US strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, either unilateral or jointly with Israel, cannot be ruled out.

A former Indian intelligence officer, Vikram Sood, said that such an attack might use nuclear weapons. "A conventional attack on Iran would be expensive and not quite cost-effective. It would allow [for] Iranian retaliation." To preempt retaliation, the US might use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's underground facilities.

"The tragedy unfolding," said Sood, "is that if the US believes that its adversary possesses or has the intention to possess WMD [weapons of mass destruction], then it is justified to consider this a threat to itself and to US forces in the region. It must, therefore, act preemptively. The fear also is that unlike in the case of Iraq when considerable time was spent in building the case, this time the attack will be sudden and actual justifications will be given later."

Any such attack would break the 60-year-old, very welcome, taboo against the use of nuclear weapons - with extraordinarily negative consequences for global peace and security.

Such an outcome can only be prevented if the West moves away from coercive diplomacy to isolate Iran and opens serious talks with it, and if the nuclear weapons states rethink their own policies.

As the West accuses Iran of nursing nuclear ambitions, it has itself no intention of reducing nuclear arms. The US has embarked on a plan to expand its nuclear capability both upward, through "Star Wars", and downward, through bunker-buster bombs. Similarly, Britain has announced a $40 billion replacement project for the Trident missile.

Smaller nuclear states such as Israel, India and Pakistan have set negative examples.

2//The Moscow Times, Russia Friday, January 13, 2006. Issue 3330. Page 1.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/01/13/001.html

MERKEL LIKELY TO BE COOLER TO PUTIN
By Catherine Belton, Staff Writer

German leader Angela Merkel will head to Moscow on Monday for her first visit as chancellor amid a growing debate across Europe about reducing energy dependency on Russia -- and signs that the bear-hug diplomacy that her predecessor indulged in is set to end.

While her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, had made strengthening Germany's energy alliance with Russia a priority during his time in office, Merkel has said Europe must not be too dependent on Russia for its energy.

And while Schröder had lavished praise on Putin, describing him as a "flawless democrat," Merkel has already expressed concern over the direction of Putin's policies.

The cooler approach is expected not just because of the gas dispute between Moscow and Kiev, which raised alarm bells across Europe as Gazprom turned off supplies to Ukraine.

The standoff, which some viewed as driven by Kremlin politics, led to shortages in Austria, France and Hungary, because 80 percent of Russia's shipments to Europe go through Ukraine. It sent politicians into a spin over finding alternative energy supplies.

But even before the Ukraine gas crisis, many pundits were predicting ties to become more stand-offish under Merkel, partly because she is likely to try and push her country into a closer relationship with the United States, and also because, as an East German, she knows Russian and Russia well.

"The relationship will be much more sober," said Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations. "She will not be too emotional. There will be no M?nnerfreundschaft," he said referring to the male bonding and backslapping between Putin and Schröder, and the friendly overtures made by Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to Schröder's, Helmut Köhl.

"There can't be because she is a woman. Putin will not be able to do what Yeltsin proposed to Köhl and take her to the sauna. ... And he can't impress her with balalaikas and long liturgies in church, as he did with Schröder. Merkel already knows and understands the positive and negative sides of Russian life."

True to form, Merkel will head first to Washington for a White House meeting with President George W. Bush on Friday, and then travel to Moscow for the meeting with Putin in the Kremlin on Monday.

Commentators are expecting her meeting with Bush to be a lovefest, compared with the estrangement between Bush and Schröder over his attempts to form an alliance with Russia and France to oppose the Iraq war.

Merkel indicated the shift in priorities in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel last weekend, in which she described the relationship with the United States as a "friendship," while with Russia, she said, it could only be described as "a strategic partnership."

"I believe that we do not share as many moral concepts with Russia as we do with America," she said.

The German newspaper Handelsblatt, meanwhile, reported Thursday that Bush planned to urge Merkel to push the rest of Europe to reduce its reliance on Russia for energy. About one-quarter of Europe's gas needs are supplied by Russia, and that figure looks likely to grow.

(MORE)

3//The Times of India, India [ Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:28:23 pm PTI ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1368581.cms

INDIA GETS JOHN KERRY'S BACKING FOR INDO-US N-DEAL

NEW DELHI: Implementation of the Indo-US deal on civilian nuclear cooperation will mean grant of nuclear power status to India, influential American Senator and former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry said here on Thursday as he voiced support for the agreement.

Kerry told a press conference here that the deal, with "enormous benefits" bilaterally, cannot be seen only in the context of Indo-US relations but had implications at the global level.

Kerry, a member of the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had told him during their meeting here yesterday that India would sign the Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT).

"I will be disingenuous to suggest that if the (Indo-US) agreement (on civilian nuclear cooperation) comes through, it will not grant nuclear power status to India. Obviously, it does," he said.

Kerry, whose opposition Democratic Party will have a crucial role with regard to ratification of the deal in the US Congress, said he backed the agreement signed on July 18 last year by the two countries during the Prime Minister's visit to Washington.

"In principle, I support the deal. It is a great game, a positive game, for India, the US and the global community," he said.

The Senator said the deal cannot be seen only in the bilateral context as it has "impact broader than bilateral", involving the role of three important international bodies or agreements, particularly when "Iran and other compelling issues are on the table."

Explaining the global dimension of the agreement, he said it would entail endorsement of the 35-country Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), amendment of the Atomic Energy Advisory Board and adoption of the Fissile Technology Control Regime.

(MORE)

4//The Korea Times, South Korea 01-10-2006 17:14
http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?term=tong...

'US WILL MAINTAIN HARDLINE STANCE ON NK'
NK Leader Wants Washington to Play Balancer Role in Northeast Asia: Experts

By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter

As the gridlock continues over the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, experts in Seoul appear worried over U.S. policy toward North Korea.

Jeong Se-hyun, who served as South Korea's unification minister from 2002 to 2004, said it might be wrong to expect an early resumption of the nuclear talks, considering the recent harsh remarks made by U.S. administration officials toward North Korea.

"Such wars of words have typically caused a delay in the talks," Jeong said during a forum hosted by Kyungnam University's Graduate School of North Korean Studies in a Seoul hotel Monday. "We cannot but question whether the United States has a 'real intention' that is quite different from its 'proclaimed policy' of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.''

Jeong added that if the incumbent U.S. government maintains a hard-line stance on North Korea, further progress in the nuclear talks cannot be expected at least until the U.S. elections for the House of Representatives and Senate scheduled for November.

"Washington seems to want to keep North Korea as its 'necessary enemy' to maintain its control and interests in the Northeast Asian region,'' Jeong said.

Sun Joun-yung, former South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, voiced a similar view, by saying that the United States deals with the nuclear issue within the framework of its global strategy. Under the scheme, core interests lie in how to maintain Pax Americana, he added.

During the forum, Tong Kim, former senior Korean interpreter at the U.S. State Department, said that considering the U.S. presidential system U.S. administration officials under President George W. Bush cannot but adopt harsh rhetoric against North Korea.

"Working-level U.S. officials who deal with North Korean issues, including Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and chief delegate to the six-party talks, are called the 'tier four,'"said Kim, now a research professor at Korea University.

Under the U.S. system, those working-level officials cannot but relay the message of the "tier one,'' or the president, just like official mouthpieces of North Korea adopt a hard-line stance toward the outside world to prove themselves to the inside leadership, including its leader Kim Jong-il, he said.

Expressing concern over the U.S. stance toward North Korea, some experts at the forum said that the North Korean regime, especially Kim Jong-il, is more than willing to improve bilateral relations with the United States.

Tong Kim, who on various occasions attended the U.S.-North Korea meetings accompanying the U.S. delegations, suggested that the North Korean leader wants to be on the side of the United States rather than that of China or Russia, both the North's traditional allies.

"Kim Jong-il wants the United States, which has no territorial ambition in the region, to play a balancer role in Northeast Asia,'' Tong Kim said. "He hopes that the United States would rein in the competition for hegemony between China and Japan. Once the United States politically accepts North Korea, North Korea's harsh anti-American rhetoric would disappear at once.''

(MORE)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia January 13, 2005
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/flag-burner-sentenced...

I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT FIRST: FLAG BURNER SENTENCED TO JAIL

By Natasha Wallace

The flag burner admitted he was stupid. The magistrate sentencing him thought the crime was an extreme act that caused emotional injury. In the end, this spontaneous act of revenge after the Cronulla riots cost the young man his freedom.

Sentencing Hadi Khawaja, 24, to three months' jail, the magistrate, Paul Falzon, said yesterday that burning an Australian flag was "of great significance" and warranted a harsher penalty than the usual fine.

(SNIP)

His wife was about to be evicted from their apartment because they are unable to pay the rent, the court heard. Khawaja has been in jail for a month already.

An Australian citizen, he moved to Australia from Lebanon as a six-year-old.

Had Khawaja entered the club and taken a trophy and broken that, or smashed a window, for example, the significance of the crime "would not have been as great," Mr Falzon said. "The emotional injury in this case is somewhat amplified in what he's doing.

"It's vandalism of a particular kind. It's extreme vandalism … because of the nature of what was obtained to be burnt in the context of what happened and what was happening around this time."

The defence barrister, Dennis Stewart, had said Khawaja was not violent, nor a participant in the riot, and should not be punished for that. "If a university student burnt a flag they might be in jail for one night," Mr Stewart said.

"It [the flag] has significance but in this country, unlike some other countries, there is the element of freedom of speech and what was committed was a criminal act but that should be kept in proportion. People should not be locked up for a considerable time because of the emotional attachment we have to the flag."

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