January 20, 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.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JANUARY 20, 2005

1//The Daily Star, Lebanon--IRAQ NEEDS $20 BILLION TO REHABILITATE ELECTRICTY SECTOR (Iraq needs $20 billion over the next five years to solve a chronic electricity crisis after U.S. reconstruction funds failed to flick the right switches, the Iraqi electricity minister said. "When you lose electricity the country is destroyed, nothing works, all industry is down and terrorist activity is increased," Mohsen Shlash said Tuesday. … "The American donation is almost finished and it was not that effective. They did a few power plants, yes, but that definitely is not worth $4.7 billion," said the minister, adding that some of the work carried out was worth just one-tenth of the money being spent.)

2//Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran--IRAN, IRAQ DISCUSS BUILDING ELECTRICITY TRANSFER PLANTS (Iran's Charge d'Affaires in Iraq Hassan Kazemi met here Monday with Iraqi electricity Minister Abd al-Muhsin Shalash. They discussed implementing the signed agreement including the expediting building nine electricity transfer plants. Shalash expressed his country's readiness for reconstruction of its electricity sector with Iran's assistance. He also called for implementing electricity projects from credit allocated by Iran for Iraq's reconstruction drive. After the meeting, Kazemi told IRNA that given Iraq's electricity needs and Iran's experiences in the field, the electricity sector is the highlight of the two neighbors' cooperation. … Iran has allocated one billion dollars to the reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructural projects, he said, adding the major portion of the fund will be spent on electricity industry.)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--THE AFGHAN EXIT STRATEGY: YOU DO IT (… NATO is indeed facing an existential dilemma. Old Europe is intensely cautious that if NATO leads the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, it either brilliantly succeeds or gets fatally wounded. … The regional powers will be closely watching. Among the countries bordering Afghanistan, none except Tajikistan has any type of formal relations with NATO. Iran and Uzbekistan do not harbor friendly feelings toward NATO. Public opinion in Pakistan is hostile toward any form of Western presence. The Pakistan government virtually eased out NATO from the relief and rehabilitation work in the earthquake-stricken regions of Kashmir, despite its undisguised interest to continue. The Taliban view NATO as an occupying force. … In the past, whenever a power vacuum developed [or if it were seen that some external power was striving to gain unilateral advantage], regional powers sponsored surrogate Afghan groups for safeguarding their interests. If that were to happen again, it would only be a matter of time before the NATO contingents found themselves caught in the crossfire between antagonistic Afghan groups enjoying outside support. Bosnia had no parallels. … As a result of the Afghan war, Pakistan's internal stability has seriously suffered - perhaps irretrievably. Washington is on a warpath with Tehran today. Iranians have alleged that their soldiers on the border with Pakistan were kidnapped 10 days ago in a covert US operation. Is the US stoking the flames of Balochi sub-nationalism in Pakistan with the objective of setting Iran's adjacent Balochistan region on fire?)

4//The Independent, UK--CHIRAC THREATENS NUCLEAR ATTACK ON STATES SPONSORING TERRORISM (President Jacques Chirac has dropped a political bombshell by threatening to retaliate with nuclear strikes against any state found to be responsible for a large-scale terrorist attack on France. In the biggest shift in French nuclear doctrine for 40 years, M. Chirac revealed that the force de frappe - the French nuclear deterrent - had already been reconfigured to allow it to destroy the "power centres" of any state which sponsored a terrorist assault. He also raised once again an idea that he first floated in 1995 that the British and French nuclear deterrents should be rededicated to the defence of the entire European Union. In future, he said, France should regard its allies and its sources of strategic supplies - in other words oil - as covered by its nuclear umbrella. … President Chirac's motives appear to be a mixture of the personal, the electoral and the strategic. Opinion polls suggest that France no longer regards him as a significant player in world or domestic events, and his speech yesterday appears to be an attempt to thrust himself back into the limelight as an experienced world statesman with a finger on the nuclear button.)

5//Euobserver.com, Belgium--CHIRAC TO COMPETE WITH GOOGLE (French president Jacques Chirac has whole-heartedly lent his support to a Franco-German attempt to create a European multimedia search engine on the Internet, aimed at competing with US Internet giants such as Google. In a New Year speech to the nation late last week, Mr Chirac described "Project Quaero" as a much-needed answer to the global challenge posed by American dominance on the Internet. "We must meet the global challenge of the American giants Google and Yahoo," Mr Chirac said about the future search engine, already dubbed by media as Mr Chirac's "pet project."… The word "Quaero" means "I seek" in Latin, and was chosen to name the project to avoid offending either German or French speakers. Setting up a European Google-style engine is also part of a broader French and German plan to lift up the old continent to US and Japanese research and development levels. The creators of Quaero say it will not just be a compelling alternative to Google as a search engine, but a set of tools for translating, identifying and indexing images, sound and text.)

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1//The Daily Star, Lebanon Thursday, January 19, 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1...

IRAQ NEEDS $20 BILLION TO REHABILITATE ELECTRICTY SECTOR
Minister says funds must go to iraqi firms

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

BAGHDAD: Iraq needs $20 billion over the next five years to solve a chronic electricity crisis after U.S. reconstruction funds failed to flick the right switches, the Iraqi electricity minister said. "When you lose electricity the country is destroyed, nothing works, all industry is down and terrorist activity is increased," Mohsen Shlash said Tuesday.

Power cuts are part of daily life for millions of Iraqis who paradoxically have an ever increasing need for energy because of an influx of electronic goods, such as air conditioners, over the past three years.

Total power production is lower than before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, at about 3,700 megawatts, because of insurgent attacks and other reconstruction problems, according to a Western diplomat with expertise in the sector.

Prewar production peaked at about 4,300 megawatts - well under half of Iraq's potential capacity.

The United States earmarked $4.7 billion for the neglected electricity sector in 2003, but much of the money has gone and there is little to show for it, Shlash said.

The Iraqi government has a few projects under way to rebuild or replace parts of the country's dilapidated electricity infrastructure, he added.

"But this is not enough. There is a big need to build more power plants and of course this needs time and money - and we lack both," Shlash said.

"From this day, we need $20 billion over five years to cover the expected increase in the [electricity] load and the necessary reserves."

Such funds, however, must appear quickly and go toward competitively priced projects by Iraqi firms, in contrast to much of the U.S. money, which went to U.S. primary contractors, with large overheads and huge security costs, Shlash said.

"The American donation is almost finished and it was not that effective. They did a few power plants, yes, but that definitely is not worth $4.7 billion," said the minister, adding that some of the work carried out was worth just one-tenth of the money being spent.

(SNIP)

The Western diplomat, meanwhile, said progress on the U.S. reconstruction front had been slow because Washington underestimated the dire state of Iraq's electricity infrastructure and the inadequate training of its technicians.

In addition, daily attacks on power stations and transmission lines further damaged the infrastructure, destroying or delaying repair work.

As a result, the United States pushed back a goal to lift Iraq's power production to 6,000 megawatts from the middle of 2004 to the end of this year.

Going forward, Shlash said the $20 billion needed to generate power 24 hours a day should come from Iraqi coffers or in the form of loans rather than slow-to-emerge donations from the international community.

Iraq, however, is severely strapped for cash. The Electricity Ministry asked for $1.8 billion for this year's budget, but the government only approved one-third of that amount, some $650 million, said Shlash.

2//Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran Jan 17, 2006
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-237/0601172126012335.htm

IRAN, IRAQ DISCUSS BUILDING ELECTRICITY TRANSFER PLANTS

Baghdad Jan 17, IRNA -- Iran's Charge d'Affaires in Iraq Hassan Kazemi met here Monday with Iraqi electricity Minister Abd al-Muhsin Shalash.

They discussed implementing the signed agreement including the expediting building nine electricity transfer plants.

Shalash expressed his country's readiness for reconstruction of its electricity sector with Iran's assistance.

He also called for implementing electricity projects from credit allocated by Iran for Iraq's reconstruction drive.

After the meeting, Kazemi told IRNA that given Iraq's electricity needs and Iran's experiences in the field, the electricity sector is the highlight of the two neighbors' cooperation.

"Currently, Iran exports 100 megawatts of electricity to its Western neighbor at the cost of dlrs 50 million this year," he said.

He also reckoned that with the building of necessary equipment the figure will increase to 220 megawatts in one month.

He said that equipment are installing the transformer, already build in Iran and nine electrical outposts in Iraq to be completed next month.

Iran has allocated one billion dollars to the reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructural projects, he said, adding the major portion of the fund will be spent on electricity industry.

Due to insecurity and continued acts of sabotage in Iraq, its electricity industry has not improved, Shalash said, adding the shortages will be eliminated through implementation of the related projects by the ministry.

The Iraqi minister added that a 20-billion-dollar budget is needed to join Iraq's power network to global network.

(MORE)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jan 19, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA19Df02.html

THE AFGHAN EXIT STRATEGY: YOU DO IT
By M K Bhadrakumar

Members of a delegation accompanying US Vice President Dick Cheney to Kabul for the inaugural ceremony of the newly constituted parliament last month would have been the first Americans to report back to Washington that something odd was going on in Afghanistan, that things were not quite like what they had read in their briefs and position papers.

The Afghan sentries guarding the presidential palace of Hamid Karzai simply shrugged their shoulders and roughly shepherded the protesting Americans to a corner, and proceeded to subject them, women and men alike, to a thorough body search before letting them into the premises where Karzai was waiting. These were Afghan guards who were trained and equipped by the US.

The Afghans have their own ways, devised through trials and tribulations of life in a harsh terrain, to let the world know when they are annoyed. More so, if they lose respect for someone. Surely, the people surrounding Karzai are hopping mad that the Americans are announcing "victory" in the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, and moving on.

(SNIP)

From Washington's point of view, therefore, it may seem that the law of diminishing returns is at work for the Bush administration. The most prudent thing for the US is, understandably, to claim "victory" and to disengage from active military duty in the Hindu Kush. The ground situation in Afghanistan is worsening. The Taliban are undoubtedly spreading their presence. There is no point quibbling over the Taliban's "strength."

The Taliban may not be able to capture power in Kabul, but they are increasingly in a position to create mayhem, and that makes the governance of the country simply impossible. The huge income from drug trafficking has made Afghan resistance "self-financing". The Taliban's tactics are working.

But fortunately for the US, unlike in Iraq, an exit strategy is at hand. The baton is simply being passed on to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The US is counting on the "New Europeans" who are eager to prove their "Europeanness", and NATO's Anglo-Saxon contingents to come forward for a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

New Europeans in their enthusiasm tend to view the upcoming assignment in Afghanistan in terms comparable to peacekeeping in Bosnia. Some offered to Karzai heavy armor from their Warsaw Pact inventories as "military aid" for combating the Taliban guerrillas.

NATO is indeed facing an existential dilemma. Old Europe is intensely cautious that if NATO leads the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, it either brilliantly succeeds or gets fatally wounded.

The regional powers will be closely watching. Among the countries bordering Afghanistan, none except Tajikistan has any type of formal relations with NATO. Iran and Uzbekistan do not harbor friendly feelings toward NATO. Public opinion in Pakistan is hostile toward any form of Western presence. The Pakistan government virtually eased out NATO from the relief and rehabilitation work in the earthquake-stricken regions of Kashmir, despite its undisguised interest to continue. The Taliban view NATO as an occupying force.

With the scaling down of the US role, regional powers may feel constrained to step up their own involvement in Afghanistan, unless NATO member countries agree to a substantial troop presence in Afghanistan - at a force level three or four times the present level. In December, NATO authorized a plan to expand its peacekeeping force by 6,000 more troops, bringing its total troop number up to 15,000. At the same time, the US announced it would scale back its presence by about 2,500 troops from the current 19,000 troop deployment.

In the past, whenever a power vacuum developed (or if it were seen that some external power was striving to gain unilateral advantage), regional powers sponsored surrogate Afghan groups for safeguarding their interests. If that were to happen again, it would only be a matter of time before the NATO contingents found themselves caught in the crossfire between antagonistic Afghan groups enjoying outside support. Bosnia had no parallels.

Besides, NATO depends on the goodwill of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for maintaining supply lines for its contingents in Afghanistan. This dependence is predicated not only on Washington abandoning its agenda of regime change in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia but also on the overall climate of Russian-American relations, as well as the three-way equations involving Washington, Moscow and Beijing. Simply put, everything revolves around "multilateralism" prevailing in inter-state relations in the world order.

(SNIP)

As a result of the Afghan war, Pakistan's internal stability has seriously suffered - perhaps irretrievably. Washington is on a warpath with Tehran today. Iranians have alleged that their soldiers on the border with Pakistan were kidnapped 10 days ago in a covert US operation. Is the US stoking the flames of Balochi sub-nationalism in Pakistan with the objective of setting Iran's adjacent Balochistan region on fire?

Above all, in the overall climate of violence and anarchy, it is becoming increasingly futile to draw dividing lines in terms of political affiliations or ideologies - or in terms of Taliban and non-Taliban. In the mayhem of the sort that the Taliban seem to be getting ready to trigger, prevailing equations can change overnight. Things may look calm on the surface, but the undercurrents can be vicious.

The power calculus in Kabul that Washington thought it had astutely worked out was far too contrived and out of tune with Afghan ground realities to survive unless backed by an assertive US military presence for years to come. That is how the Afghan bazaar views the spectrum. The security guards in the presidential palace in Kabul let that be known when Cheney came calling.

4//The Independent, UK Published: 20 January 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article339823.ece

CHIRAC THREATENS NUCLEAR ATTACK ON STATES SPONSORING TERRORISM
By John Lichfield in Paris

President Jacques Chirac has dropped a political bombshell by threatening to retaliate with nuclear strikes against any state found to be responsible for a large-scale terrorist attack on France.

In the biggest shift in French nuclear doctrine for 40 years, M. Chirac revealed that the force de frappe - the French nuclear deterrent - had already been reconfigured to allow it to destroy the "power centres" of any state which sponsored a terrorist assault.

He also raised once again an idea that he first floated in 1995 that the British and French nuclear deterrents should be rededicated to the defence of the entire European Union. In future, he said, France should regard its allies and its sources of strategic supplies - in other words oil - as covered by its nuclear umbrella.

The President insisted that fundamental French nuclear policy would remain unchanged. There would be no battlefield use of nuclear weapons and no "first strike." Nonetheless, his speech yesterday at France's main nuclear submarine base, at Ile Longue, near Brest, in Brittany, took French defence policy into uncharted waters.

He appeared to imply that any large-scale, state-sponsored terrorist attack on France - whether or not it used weapons of mass destruction - would invite a closely targeted nuclear response from France.

"The leaders of states who use terrorist methods against us, as well as those who consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our part," President Chirac said.

"This response could be a conventional one. It might also be of a different kind."

"Against a regional power, we should not have to choose between inaction and obliteration ... the flexibility and reactivity of our strategic forces should allow us to respond directly against his power centres, against his capacity to act.

"All our nuclear forces have been reconfigured accordingly. To this end, the number of warheads has been reduced on some missiles on our submarines."

France's nuclear submarines were previously said to have 16 missiles, with six warheads each. Reducing the number of warheads implies the use of smaller nuclear charges, more easily aimed at specific targets.

President Chirac's motives appear to be a mixture of the personal, the electoral and the strategic. Opinion polls suggest that France no longer regards him as a significant player in world or domestic events, and his speech yesterday appears to be an attempt to thrust himself back into the limelight as an experienced world statesman with a finger on the nuclear button.

He may also calculate that the nuclear issue will play badly for his hated former protégé, the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who remains favourite to replace him in the presidential elections next spring.
(MORE)

5//Euobserver.com, Belgium 17.01.2006 - 10:11 CET
http://euobserver.com/9/20692

CHIRAC TO COMPETE WITH GOOGLE
By Teresa Küchler

French president Jacques Chirac has whole-heartedly lent his support to a Franco-German attempt to create a European multimedia search engine on the Internet, aimed at competing with US Internet giants such as Google.

In a New Year speech to the nation late last week, Mr Chirac described "Project Quaero" as a much-needed answer to the global challenge posed by American dominance on the Internet.

"We must meet the global challenge of the American giants Google and Yahoo," Mr Chirac said about the future search engine, already dubbed by media as Mr Chirac's "pet project."

"Today the new geography of knowledge and cultures is being drawn. Tomorrow, that which is not available online runs the risk of being invisible to the world," he continued according to press reports.

The word "Quaero" means "I seek" in Latin, and was chosen to name the project to avoid offending either German or French speakers.

Setting up a European Google-style engine is also part of a broader French and German plan to lift up the old continent to US and Japanese research and development levels.

The creators of Quaero say it will not just be a compelling alternative to Google as a search engine, but a set of tools for translating, identifying and indexing images, sound and text.

The initiative will be funded by both government and private entities in France and Germany, with the French contribution of 150 million euro coming from the newly established Agency for Industrial Innovation.

The firm Thomson is expected to lead the French side, while the German counterpart Bertelsmann is reported to be Germany's main player.

The project, for which interest has risen dramatically after president Chirac’s official adoption, has been both praised and ridiculed over the last few days.

(MORE)