March 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.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR MARCH 13, 2006

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--MR LAVROV GOES TO WASHINGTON (This past week, Russian foreign policy experienced a thinly disguised humiliation that is bound to reverberate throughout the inner sanctum of the Kremlin's policy edifice for some time to come. This came in the form of a Russian turnabout in Washington, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chewed his own words and denied that he had pitched any new Russian proposal to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis. … The mainstream media in the United States dutifully and masterfully played their compliant role as props for US foreign policy. Without exception, all the big players lambasted the Lavrov initiative as "capitulation", "route of appeasement", and "backstabbing the US". Without them, the White House's "preemptive" nipping in the bud of the Russian-IAEA proposal would not have been possible. At least the Washington Post subsequently exposed Rice's little white lie of no new Russian proposal by conceding that "after making his pitch Lavrov appeared to retreat from the new proposal". Clearly, crisis prevention is not good news for the corporate-controlled US media, basking in an approaching Iraq-type major international crisis bound to galvanize the public's attention. Any hope that something might have been learnt from the Iraq experience has now been effectively dashed by the example set in the Lavrov debacle in Washington. The US, having finally got its wish to have Iran brought before the UN, has now directly inherited a crisis that was until now outsourced to the Europeans, and we shall see how deftly the White House can handle it, given the paucity of the Bush administration's expertise on Iran.)

2//The Independent, UK--THE WAR DIVIDEND: THE BRITISH COMPANIES MAKING A FORTUNE OUT OF CONFLICT-RIVEN IRAQ (British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found. The company roll-call of post-war profiteers includes some of the best known names in Britain's boardrooms as well many who would prefer to remain anonymous. They come from private security services, banks, PR consultancies, urban planning consortiums, oil companies, architects offices and energy advisory bodies. … The evidence of massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by Corporate Watch, an independent watchdog, and The Independent. The findings show how much is stake if Britain were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for many years to come. … Many of the companies enjoy long-standing relationships with Labour and now have a financial stake in the reconstruction of Iraq in Britain's image.)

3//The Daily Star, Lebanon--SYRIA SWITCHES FROM DOLLARS TO EUROS IN ITS BUDGETS (The Syrian government is to use euros instead of U.S. dollars in its budgets upon the decision of the U.S. Treasury that stipulates barring any transactions between American banks and the Commercial Bank of Syria. The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that U.S. banks must close any accounts they have with the two Syrian banks, as part of an effort to crack down on terrorist financing. The order covers the Commercial Bank of Syria and its subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank. … Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars upon political confrontations with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria Duraid Durgham said. Durgham said, adding that this decision is important and necessary at a moment when the Americans are threatening Syria in a way that could complicate banking operations between Syria and European countries. This decision represents the strong Syrian relation with the European Union, that is considered the first commercial partner to Syria, he said.)

4//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea--STRONGER UN COMMAND ‘NO DANGER’ TO INTER-KOREAN TIES (A high-ranking government official on Friday responded to an apparent surprise announcement by the U.S. military that it wants to strengthen UN Command -- the U.S.-led international forces guaranteeing the Demilitarized Zone -- with reassurances that it will create no obstacles to inter-Korean cooperation. … The official said Bell made the remarks because the UNC needs more personnel as opening of roads and railways between the two Koreas will generate more workload for the organization. “As far as we know, Gen. Bell had no other intention,” he said. UNC has made an official request to countries that took part in the Korean War and have not sent permanent liaison officers that they dispatch one or two such officers and has consulted Seoul about this, the official said.)

5//The Manila Times, Philippines--GMA: THREATS REMAIN (Acknowledging that threats to her government remain, President Arroyo on Sunday ordered the heads of security forces to expose all “residual and anticipated threats of destabilization.” The President gave the order to the military and police a day after Armed Forces intelligence officials told The Manila Times the groups out to overthrow her have regrouped and will strike again either on March 31 or May 1. “We are fully aware that some groups have not ceased in their attempts to undermine our democratic way of life,” Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement. She said she is confident the government can thwart another coup attempt because the chain of command in the military and the police is intact. … On Sunday Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. advised the President to be “forthright and open” with the troops she will be having a dialogue with. Pimentel said Mrs. Arroyo must look into the root causes of the soldiers’ discontent and the recurrent coup threats against her government.)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Mar 11, 2006

MR LAVROV GOES TO WASHINGTON
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
(Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", the Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He is also author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction .)

This past week, Russian foreign policy experienced a thinly disguised humiliation that is bound to reverberate throughout the inner sanctum of the Kremlin's policy edifice for some time to come.

This came in the form of a Russian turnabout in Washington, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chewed his own words and denied that he had pitched any new Russian proposal to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Lavrov thus recanted what he and his deputy, Sergei Kisliak, had told the Europeans and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, on March 4 and 5, before Lavrov's ship of diplomacy was sunk in mid-Atlantic before he even set foot in the United States.

Sending fleeting shivers to US policymakers bent on United Nations Security Council action against Iran, the aborted Russian proposal was "swatted down" by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to a New York Times report on Thursday. That means applying strong-arm tactics and, most probably, even "coercive tactics" against the Russian visiting Washington unexpectedly in the midst of the IAEA meeting on Iran.

At their joint press conference on Tuesday, Rice stated that "we did discuss Iran in great detail ... but the Russians did not tell us of any new proposal that they have made to the Iranians concerning anything but the February 4 resolution" by the IAEA. Rice is an astute, quick learner, aptly filling the shoes of her predecessor, Colin Powell, given Powell's stealth tactics with regard to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"I can reiterate what Dr Rice said. There is no compromise, new Russian proposal," Lavrov said bluntly at the press conference, despite earlier reports that Russia backed Iran engaging in limited uranium-enrichment research on its own soil. He then went on to complain of the US foot-dragging on Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, hoping to suggest a face-saving quid pro quo, instead of returning home empty-handed and rather humiliated.

Sadly, Rice has set a bad example with her dissimulation. US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns recently testified in Congress that last year he traveled oversees 11 times and spent hundreds of hours talking to the Europeans, Russians, Chinese and others about Iran and added that "there was not one single person who doubted that Iran was involved in nuclear proliferation".

That is rather strange and one wonders whom he has been talking to, given the fact that repeatedly last year Russian President Vladimir Putin stated publicly that he saw no evidence that Iran was acquiring nuclear weapons. Chinese officials have also repeatedly made similar statements.

If Burns wants us to believe that somehow these politicians across a number of countries for some mysterious reason prefer to say one thing in public and the opposite in private conversation, that is something we must take with a pinch a salt.

Nevertheless, what does all this say of Russia's occasional self-bombast about its prudent world diplomacy based on, to quote a Russian daily, "balanced argument, discretion, tact, norms of international diplomacy, discussion and dialogue"? In light of the Lavrov fiasco in Washington, let us add a few more apt adjectives: weak, vacillating, contradictory, unprincipled, shameful.

Who can now count on anything uttered by Lavrov and company, for example on the inadvisability of Security Council sanctions on Iran, when he has established such a poor track record by reversing himself at a critical juncture in the Iranian nuclear crisis?

This is certainly a serious question to ponder by the Russian intelligentsia now forced to grapple with the attrition of Russia's standing on the world stage leading to the diminishing of Russian diplomatic prowess.

(SNIP)

And to no surprise to cynics, given its timing, Britain claimed on Thursday that Tehran could acquire the technological capability to build a bomb by the end of the year. A senior Foreign Office official said that although it could take Iran several years to build a nuclear weapon, it might gain the technical know-how within months. "By the end of the year is a ... realistic period," the official was quoted in the media as saying. "It would be really damaging to regional security if Iran even acquired the technology to enable it to develop a nuclear weapon." Previously, European diplomats have said that Iran would need five to 10 years to build a bomb.

Yet contrary to such hype, Iran's request to keep 168 centrifuges operational for research and development purposes does not represent a huge risk warranting all the current saber-rattling. Even respected US nuclear scientists have gone on record stating that Iran would need a minimum of 500 centrifuges put together in order to assemble enough fissile material for a single bomb. For one thing, such a small cascade as 168 centrifuges has a reduced separative work unit (SWU) capacity of 30% or more, hardly alarming in terms of military diversion. [1]

The US media's role in scuttling a compromise
The mainstream media in the United States dutifully and masterfully played their compliant role as props for US foreign policy. Without exception, all the big players lambasted the Lavrov initiative as "capitulation", "route of appeasement", and "backstabbing the US".

Without them, the White House's "preemptive" nipping in the bud of the Russian-IAEA proposal would not have been possible. At least the Washington Post subsequently exposed Rice's little white lie of no new Russian proposal by conceding that "after making his pitch Lavrov appeared to retreat from the new proposal".

Clearly, crisis prevention is not good news for the corporate-controlled US media, basking in an approaching Iraq-type major international crisis bound to galvanize the public's attention. Any hope that something might have been learnt from the Iraq experience has now been effectively dashed by the example set in the Lavrov debacle in Washington.

The road ahead: Bolton versus Zarif
The US, having finally got its wish to have Iran brought before the UN, has now directly inherited a crisis that was until now outsourced to the Europeans, and we shall see how deftly the White House can handle it, given the paucity of the Bush administration's expertise on Iran.

(MORE)

2//The Independent, UK Published: 13 March 2006

THE WAR DIVIDEND: THE BRITISH COMPANIES MAKING A FORTUNE OUT OF CONFLICT-RIVEN IRAQ

By Robert Verkaik

British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found.

The company roll-call of post-war profiteers includes some of the best known names in Britain's boardrooms as well many who would prefer to remain anonymous. They come from private security services, banks, PR consultancies, urban planning consortiums, oil companies, architects offices and energy advisory bodies.

Among the top earners is the construction firm Amec, which has made an estimated £500m from a series of contracts restoring electrical systems and maintaining power generation facilities during the past two years. Aegis, which provides private security has earned more than £246m from a three-year contract with the Pentagon to co-ordinate military and security companies in Iraq. Erinys, which specialises in the same area, has made more than £86m, a substantial portion from the protection of oilfields.

The evidence of massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by Corporate Watch, an independent watchdog, and The Independent.

The findings show how much is stake if Britain were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for many years to come.

A total of 61 British companies are identified as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg; Corporate Watch believes it could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer to keep their relationship secret.

The waters are further muddied by the Government's refusal to release the names of companies it has helped to win contracts in Iraq.

Many of the companies enjoy long-standing relationships with Labour and now have a financial stake in the reconstruction of Iraq in Britain's image. Of the total profits published in the report, the British taxpayer has had to meet a bill for £78m while the US taxpayer's contribution to UK corporate earnings in Iraq is nearly nine times that. Iraqis themselves have paid British company directors £150m.

The report acknowledges that British business still lags behind the huge profits paid to American companies. But, in two fields, Britain is playing a critical and leading role.

The threat from the Iraqi insurgency means British private security companies are in great demand. Corporate Watch estimates there are between 20,000 and 30,000 security personnel working in Iraq, half of whom are employed by companies run by retired senior British officers and at least two former defence ministers.

(SNIP)

Britain is also playing a leading role in advising on the creation of state institutions and the business of government. PA Consulting, which has also received a contract for advising on the Government's ID cards scheme, worth around £19m, is now a key adviser in Iraq.

(MORE)

3//The Daily Star, Lebanon Monday, March 13, 2006

SYRIA SWITCHES FROM DOLLARS TO EUROS IN ITS BUDGETS
Kuwait News Agency

DAMASCUS: The Syrian government is to use euros instead of U.S. dollars in its budgets upon the decision of the U.S. Treasury that stipulates barring any transactions between American banks and the Commercial Bank of Syria. The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that U.S. banks must close any accounts they have with the two Syrian banks, as part of an effort to crack down on terrorist financing. The order covers the Commercial Bank of Syria and its subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank.

The Syrian government's decision is to cover its overdue exportation, importation and services payments and to protect the national economy.

Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars upon political confrontations with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria Duraid Durgham said.

Durgham said, adding that this decision is important and necessary at a moment when the Americans are threatening Syria in a way that could complicate banking operations between Syria and European countries.

This decision represents the strong Syrian relation with the European Union, that is considered the first commercial partner to Syria, he said.

The United States has been heading international pressure on Syria for its alleged role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and aiding the crisis in Iraq which Syria denies.

Syria has been under U.S. sanctions since May 2004, meaning it can not import American products other than food and medication.

Syria surprised world financial markets when it announced that it would stop dealing in dollars in all official institutions and in import-export contracts replacing them with euros in case the U.S. intensifies sanctions on Damascus.

Euros are also to be used in paying back sums owed by state institutions to foreign parties.

Finance Minister Mohammad al-Hussein said that this action comes in the framework of continuing pressures on Syria for political considerations, adding that Syria was not surprised by the American treasury decision.

Hussein added that the Central Bank of Syria, as any government bank, is implementing international laws against money laundry and support of terrorism.

He pointed out that all Iraqi government accounts were transferred to Iraq last September according to an Iraqi-Syrian understanding memorandum.

(SNIP)

Syrian governmental sources said that this decision is an attempt "to keep the Syrian economy away from the mercy of the American dollar," as American laws stipulate that any conversion into dollars must go through the American banking system.

U.S. threats against Syria would result in complicating the banking transactions and the transfer operations into the country from corresponding international banks in Europe.

4//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea Updated Mar.10,2006 19:58 KST

STRONGER UN COMMAND ‘NO DANGER’ TO INTER-KOREAN TIES

A high-ranking government official on Friday responded to an apparent surprise announcement by the U.S. military that it wants to strengthen UN Command -- the U.S.-led international forces guaranteeing the Demilitarized Zone -- with reassurances that it will create no obstacles to inter-Korean cooperation.

The new commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Gen. Burwell Bell, said earlier he wanted to strengthen UNC into a “permanent international alliance.” Asked by a reporter about fears that a bigger role for the UNC could hurt inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, the Korean official said, “It’s possible to say so, but the South Korean government does not think the UNC will become an obstacle to inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation.”

(SNIP)

The official said Bell made the remarks because the UNC needs more personnel as opening of roads and railways between the two Koreas will generate more workload for the organization. “As far as we know, Gen. Bell had no other intention,” he said. UNC has made an official request to countries that took part in the Korean War and have not sent permanent liaison officers that they dispatch one or two such officers and has consulted Seoul about this, the official said.

5//The Manila Times, Philippines Monday, March 13, 2006

GMA: THREATS REMAIN
Police to pursue rest of plotter
AFP

Acknowledging that threats to her government remain, President Arroyo on Sunday ordered the heads of security forces to expose all “residual and anticipated threats of destabilization.”

The President gave the order to the military and police a day after Armed Forces intelligence officials told The Manila Times the groups out to overthrow her have regrouped and will strike again either on March 31 or May 1.

“We are fully aware that some groups have not ceased in their attempts to undermine our democratic way of life,” Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement.

She said she is confident the government can thwart another coup attempt because the chain of command in the military and the police is intact.

“The government is one step ahead of the enemies of the State,” she said.

She appealed to the people to continue to remain vigilant against personalities and groups who continue to sow disorder.

“Community vigilance will enable us to focus on the economy to generate investments and jobs that will break the cycle of poverty,” the President said.

On February 24 Mrs. Arroyo invoked emergency powers to thwart what she claimed was an alliance between communists and “military adventurists” aimed at toppling her.

She banned street protests, enforced tighter rules on the press and ordered the arrests of officers and legislators allegedly involved in the plot.

Talking with the troops
The Palace has said the President is welcome to meeting with restive soldiers to hear their grievances.

On Sunday Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. advised the President to be “forthright and open” with the troops she will be having a dialogue with.

Pimentel said Mrs. Arroyo must look into the root causes of the soldiers’ discontent and the recurrent coup threats against her government.

“With or without a dialogue, Mrs. Arroyo knows what is causing all these troubles in the military establishment. But if she will keep on evading the issue, then that dialogue will only be for a shot and nothing tangible will come out of it,” Pimentel said.

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