February 3, 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 FEBRUARY 3, 2006

1//The Jordan Times, Jordan--OPINION: BEWILDERED BY AMERICA’S BEWILDERMENT (I nearly fell out of my car window Monday morning while travelling around several of the fine universities in North Carolina, when I read US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement on the Hamas election victory in Palestine. She stated: “I've asked why nobody saw it coming. It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.” Good grief, this is not about having or not having a good enough pulse. It's about the consequences of the last decade of Israeli and American policies towards the Palestinians in general, and the Islamist resistance movements in particular. … If the United States government, with all its capacity to collect and interpret information, did not see Hamas doing very well in the Palestinian elections in the wake of these other Islamist victories, then it is either wilfully blind or totally incompetent — and neither possibility is a very comforting thought.)

2//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK-- ETHNIC TENSIONS RISING IN KIRKUK (Marwa As’ad, a Turkoman resident of Kirkuk, is heartbroken. She had been planning to marry a local Kurdish man but her family broke off the engagement after her brother was carjacked by a Kurd. She believes rising tensions among different ethnic and religious groups in Kirkuk contributed to her break-up. Like many others interviewed in this ethnically and religiously diverse city, As’ad said the atmosphere has deteriorated since Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown in April 2003. The province of Kirkuk - home to about a million Kurds, Turkoman, Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Armenians - is sometimes referred to as a little Iraq or as Iraq's melting pot, but some believe the area, in particular the city of Kirkuk, is a powder keg waiting to explode. … “There is no peaceful coexistence among ethnic groups as is claimed by politicians and the media," said Muhammed al-Jabar, a sociologist." As different governments have come to power (after Saddam's regime) and different policies have been laid down, mistrust has been created among the different groups and tensions are rising." "The policies of the political parties and sectarianism have infiltrated everything," said As'ad. "It even affects family relationships, like what happened to me. We hoped for so many years for democracy and freedom to come to us, and this is the price we are now paying.")

RELATED: GHETTO-BLASTER: CANTONS FOR ASSYRIANS AND YAZIDIS ALONG WITH THE TURKOMANS

3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--POLITICAL ERRORS COULD UNDERMINE AID (The ten billion dollars pledged in aid for Afghanistan sounds like good news for the country, but some experts fear it could be undermined by political misdirection. ''It sounds good on paper, but our concern is that this is going to be undermined by the direction that geopolitics is taking in the country,'' Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of The Senlis Council, a drug policy think tank told IPS. A military solution to drugs ''is going to undermine the sovereignty of Afghanistan,'' he said. ''That could lead to major unrest, and all the money pledged - if ever delivered - could be for nothing if this is going on.'')

4//The Daily Star, Lebanon--OIL FIRMS CONTINUE TO INVEST IN SYRIA (Multinational oil firms continue to invest in Syria's oil industry and explore its potential energy reserves despite the looming threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions, and the increasingly vehement American campaign to isolate President Bashar Assad's government. … In keeping with 2003's Syrian Accountability Act, U.S. imports of "dual-use" and military items have been banned except in cases of medical or humanitarian emergencies. The legislation also allows the president to choose two or more of six possible sanctions, including one that forbids U.S. companies from investing and operating any business ventures with Assad's government. Though the Bush administration has stopped short of forbidding companies to invest in Syria, joint ventures like one conducted by Gulfsands - which owns 50 percent of Block 26 - would be jeopardized if America's stance changed. At present levels the current U.S. sanctions program is not immediately impacting the Syrian economy since even before 2003 legislation, the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries was low, reaching only $0.3 billion in 2002. Some oil consultants argue the consequences have been more harmful to U.S. firms than to Syria.)

5//The Daily Times, Pakistan--PAKISTAN, S ARABIA TO WORK TOGETHER TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS IN MUSLIM WORLD (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to work together and hold regular bilateral consultations to resolve outstanding conflicts in South Asia and the Middle East. In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of a visit by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the two sides emphasised the need to resolve outstanding disputes between Pakistan and India, including Kashmir, through negotiation, because of the inter-linkage between the security and stability of the Arab region and South Asia. The two sides also urged the international community to accept the election results in Palestine, which led to the victory of Islamic militant group Hamas. … The two countries agreed to make continuous efforts for early realisation of proposals to conclude a comprehensive convention on international terrorism. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also pledged to work together to set up an international counter terrorism centre, as was discussed at an international conference on counter terrorism held in Riyadh in February 2005.)

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1//The Jordan Times, Jordan Friday-Saturday, February 3-4, 2006
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/opinion/opinion2.htm

OPINION: BEWILDERED BY AMERICA’S BEWILDERMENT
Rami G. Khouri

I nearly fell out of my car window Monday morning while travelling around several of the fine universities in North Carolina, when I read US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement on the Hamas election victory in Palestine. She stated: “I've asked why nobody saw it coming. It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.”

Good grief, this is not about having or not having a good enough pulse. It's about the consequences of the last decade of Israeli and American policies towards the Palestinians in general, and the Islamist resistance movements in particular. This is not a time to persist in simplistic, counterproductive policies that will only further strengthen the forces of military resistance against the Israeli occupation, and wider Arab-Islamic political resistance against America's blatantly pro-Israeli position.

To add a new dose of American perplexity and wonderment now to several existing layers of mistaken policies on Arab-Israeli peacemaking will be of no help to anyone. If Washington's initial reaction is bewilderment at why it did not see this coming, and a reaffirmation of its policy of placing Israeli security above Palestinian security, then we are all in far more serious trouble than we can imagine.

What is required now is a combination of honesty, independent analysis and composure that have long been missing in Washington's policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Though the Hamas victory was surprising in its magnitude, it was no surprise otherwise, because it was the sixth consecutive strong showing by Islamist groups running in political elections in the Middle East in the past year.

(SNIP)

If the United States government, with all its capacity to collect and interpret information, did not see Hamas doing very well in the Palestinian elections in the wake of these other Islamist victories, then it is either wilfully blind or totally incompetent — and neither possibility is a very comforting thought.

(SNIP)

The most interesting thing about the Hamas victory is its legitimacy, as the consequence of a free, fair and pluralistic democratic election. This raises a massive new challenge to the American leadership, which is why Rice and her colleagues in government should be overcoming their perplexity and replacing it with some strong doses of realism and rationality.

The choice facing the United States is now very stark and simple: will its tradition of tilting towards the Israeli position triumph over its professed policy of promoting freedom and democracy in the Arab world? Put in more blunt terms: does the United States favour Israel over Arab rights and interests? Or does the United States see peace in the Middle East as a consequence of a fair approach that gives Israeli and Palestinian rights the same weight and priority?

The right thing to do now is to explore how to take advantage of the fact that we have a legitimate, democratically elected Palestinian leadership. The last two times this happened in recent years — the presidential elections of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas — Israel and the United States responded by giving primary attention to Israeli demands, thus only weakening and delegitimising the Palestinian leadership. That policy has been a colossal failure, and has resulted in part in spurring the string of Islamist victories throughout the region.

2//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK (ICR No.162, 1-Feb-06)
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=259239&apc_state=henh

ETHNIC TENSIONS RISING IN KIRKUK
City’s ethnic and religious groups are warning of creeping sectarianism.

By Samah Samad in Kirkuk

Marwa As’ad, a Turkoman resident of Kirkuk, is heartbroken. She had been planning to marry a local Kurdish man but her family broke off the engagement after her brother was carjacked by a Kurd.

She believes rising tensions among different ethnic and religious groups in Kirkuk contributed to her break-up. Like many others interviewed in this ethnically and religiously diverse city, As’ad said the atmosphere has deteriorated since Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown in April 2003.

The province of Kirkuk - home to about a million Kurds, Turkoman, Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Armenians - is sometimes referred to as a little Iraq or as Iraq's melting pot, but some believe the area, in particular the city of Kirkuk, is a powder keg waiting to explode.

(SNIP)

Saddam had tried to reduce the Kurdish majority in the area by moving significant numbers out of Kirkuk city and replacing them with mainly poor Arabs from the south.

But now Kurds are fighting to bring Kirkuk city back under Kurdish political control. The move isn't popular among its other communities who effectively control certain neighbourhoods, which are adorned with often-confrontational flags and banners.

"You see many provocative slogans such as 'Long live Turkoman; 'Long live Mam Jalal' (a reference to Iraqi president and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani); or 'Kirkuk is an integral part of Kurdistan'," said Omar Muhammad, a 29-year-old Arab resident.

Muhammad said the problem grew worse during parliamentary elections, and that political parties have fuelled sectarianism.

(SNIP)

Kurdish leaders in the area insist that they are not behind the tensions. "We don't differentiate between ethnic groups," said Nasreen Khalid, a Kurdish member of Kirkuk provisional council. "We work for the interests of all of Kirkuk's people."

Khalid insisted that bonds between groups are much stronger than they were in the past. "Contrary to claims by some factions and satellite channels that civil war will break out in Kirkuk, coexistence is strong here," she said.

But local observers are not so sanguine. “There is no peaceful coexistence among ethnic groups as is claimed by politicians and the media," said Muhammed al-Jabar, a sociologist." As different governments have come to power (after Saddam's regime) and different policies have been laid down, mistrust has been created among the different groups and tensions are rising."

"The policies of the political parties and sectarianism have infiltrated everything," said As'ad. "It even affects family relationships, like what happened to me. We hoped for so many years for democracy and freedom to come to us, and this is the price we are now paying."

RELATED:

//KurdishMedia.com, UK
http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=11267

GHETTO-BLASTER: CANTONS FOR ASSYRIANS AND YAZIDIS ALONG WITH THE TURKOMANS

… The solution to be tried may be to divide cities like Kerkuk into different cantons for different sections of the society.

3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy Feb 2, 2006
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32012

POLITICAL ERRORS COULD UNDERMINE AID
Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Feb 2 (IPS) - The ten billion dollars pledged in aid for Afghanistan sounds like good news for the country, but some experts fear it could be undermined by political misdirection.

''It sounds good on paper, but our concern is that this is going to be undermined by the direction that geopolitics is taking in the country,'' Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of The Senlis Council, a drug policy think tank told IPS.

A military solution to drugs ''is going to undermine the sovereignty of Afghanistan,'' he said. ''That could lead to major unrest, and all the money pledged - if ever delivered - could be for nothing if this is going on.''

Afghanistan has seen some dramatic difference between pledges and delivery before. And such delivery that is made gets whittled down along the way.

More than five billion dollars of aid for the reconstruction of Afghanistan was pledged over a five-year period at a meeting of donors in Tokyo in January of 2002. Of this an amount of 1.7 billion dollars was pledged for that year. But Afghanistan got only about 150 million dollars in aid for reconstruction.

The 1.7 billion dollars pledged for the year was followed up by firm commitments of only 1.1 billion dollars. A total of 900 million dollars has come in by way of actual disbursements, of which about 70 percent went for humanitarian relief such as providing food and to facilitate the return of refugees.

That left about 250 million dollars for actual reconstruction aid this year. After paying for salaries, only about 150 million dollars were left for educational and vocational development, health and nutrition, and for social programmes.

More development aid flowed into Afghanistan in the years following, but the aid that reaches ground level is only a fraction of what is pledged and then delivered, and that is likely to be no different with the pledges made through the 'Afghan Compact' as the donors meeting this week in London was called.

Of the aid received in the past, Afghans themselves have got to handle only a fraction. Most of it went to Western non-governmental organisations and companies from donor countries engaged in development projects.

''When you go to the real Afghanistan, you will see that the money is not going to those who need it, the farmers, families, rural people,'' Reinert said. ''Afghan development policy is a myth, out there you hardly see anything.''

(SNIP)

The aid being offered to Afghanistan is tied to a dangerous policy of poppy eradication, he said. ''The new money should be used to support the Afghans to make good use of the opium produced, not to wipe out the cultivation.''

The aid pledges come in the wake of growing militancy by the Taliban or Taliban-like groups in the south of Afghanistan. The Senlis Council says forced eradication of poppy could exacerbate that unrest.

4//The Daily Star, Lebanon Friday, February 03, 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=21922

OIL FIRMS CONTINUE TO INVEST IN SYRIA
Multinationals ignore threats of sanctions from UN and U.s.

By Lysandra Ohrstrom
Special to The Daily Star

Beirut: Multinational oil firms continue to invest in Syria's oil industry and explore its potential energy reserves despite the looming threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions, and the increasingly vehement American campaign to isolate President Bashar Assad's government.

In 2003 Texas based oil company Gulfsands Petroleum, which owns a 50 percent interest in the "Block 26" oil field bordering Iraq, ratified an agreement with the Syrian Parliament to initiate an exploratory study into the areas' reserve potential. Ryder Scott, the independent petroleum consulting firm that carried out the feasibility project, announced the discovery of significant oil and gas reserves in Block 26 on January 30, 2006. Based on the results Gulfsands plans to drill two oil wells in 2006, beginning in May and August respectively, whose reserve potential combined could reach 1 billion barrels of crude oil.

Though American firms are evacuating Iran in order to avoid being penalized for sanctions violations, Gulfsands' exploration plans will continue full steam ahead, Ben Brenertom, a company representative told The Daily Star over the phone from their London offices. Gulfsands currently gets most of its crude oil from New Mexico, but like other companies that fear a dwindling global energy supply they are now focusing on expansion. Brenertom said Syria was an obvious choice due to its proximity to refining facilities that also process crude oil from the Gulf.

"I know American friends who have pulled out of Syria, like Devon Energy that had to evacuate due to U.S. sanctions so they sold their stake in fields back to Gulfsands," Brenertom said, "but we are a U.K. firm, listed at the London Stock Exchange. Only our corporate offices are based in Houston."

In keeping with 2003's Syrian Accountability Act, U.S. imports of "dual-use" and military items have been banned except in cases of medical or humanitarian emergencies. The legislation also allows the president to choose two or more of six possible sanctions, including one that forbids U.S. companies from investing and operating any business ventures with Assad's government. Though the Bush administration has stopped short of forbidding companies to invest in Syria, joint ventures like one conducted by Gulfsands - which owns 50 percent of Block 26 - would be jeopardized if America's stance changed.

At present levels the current U.S. sanctions program is not immediately impacting the Syrian economy since even before 2003 legislation, the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries was low, reaching only $0.3 billion in 2002. Some oil consultants argue the consequences have been more harmful to U.S. firms than to Syria.

(MORE)

5//The Daily Times, Pakistan Friday, February 03, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\02\03\story_3-2-2006_pg1_4

PAKISTAN, S ARABIA TO WORK TOGETHER TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS IN MUSLIM WORLD
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to work together and hold regular bilateral consultations to resolve outstanding conflicts in South Asia and the Middle East.

In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of a visit by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the two sides emphasised the need to resolve outstanding disputes between Pakistan and India, including Kashmir, through negotiation, because of the inter-linkage between the security and stability of the Arab region and South Asia.

The two sides also urged the international community to accept the election results in Palestine, which led to the victory of Islamic militant group Hamas.

“Both sides urged the acceptance of the results of these elections, as they reflect the free will of the Palestinian people and called for a wise and objective dealing with these results and avoid premature judgments and hasty conclusions,” reads the joint statement. The two sides expressed their hope that Hamas would form a government which preserves the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, safeguards their interests and works for peace.

With regard to the situation in Iraq, the two sides hoped that the ongoing political process would result in the establishment of a government capable of assuring Iraq’s unity, territorial integrity and prosperity without foreign intervention.

The two countries agreed to make continuous efforts for early realisation of proposals to conclude a comprehensive convention on international terrorism. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also pledged to work together to set up an international counter terrorism centre, as was discussed at an international conference on counter terrorism held in Riyadh in February 2005. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will hold regular meetings of a Bilateral Joint Commission to implement what was agreed upon during the visit.

(MORE)