April 7, 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 APRIL 7, 2006

1//Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, U.S.--IRAN: POLITICAL ACTIVISTS TO STEER CLEAR OF POSSIBLE U.S. FUNDING (While gauging public opinion can be a tall order in Iran, many of those who have spoken out so far say they are keen to maintain their independence, and this includes American money to continue their efforts to promote democracy in Iran. The Bush administration has US$75 million in emergency funding to promote democracy in Iran, in addition to $10 million already budgeted. … A loose alliance of political activists and intellectuals calling itself the Independent Iranian Opposition has issued a statement declaring that "only the people will determine Iran's fate." It added that the independent Iranian opposition had always battled with no expectation of financial assistance from "interested foreign powers." It also pledged that members would continue their efforts until a "free, independent and democratic Iran" emerged. … Abbas Milani is a distinguished Iranian scholar and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. Milani questions whether the new US initiative would achieve its goal of fostering democracy. He pointed out in a joint contribution with Michael McFaul to The Wall Street Journal on March 6 that while "outsiders find it easy to support democracy rhetorically," it was harder to put such concepts into practice. Milani warned the US against support for "regime change" through violence or for ethnic groups seeking independence from Tehran. He insisted that any new US aid must empower "existing democrats, not create democrats from [among] those with close ties to Washington.")

2//Worldpress.org, U.S.--PROPAGANDISTAN: IRAQI KURDISTAN IS FREE—BUT ITS MEDIA SURE ISN’T (… Despite the demand for news, there is only one private newspaper in the region: Hawlati, based in Sulaymaniyah with offices in Erbil. All other media in Kurdistan is funded by the political parties, which these days are synonymous with the Kurdistan Regional Government, or K.R.G. The government's control is hard to overstate. Education and health care are free. Many Kurds, including widows and veterans, subsist entirely on government handouts. But big brother exacts a toll. Police, peshmerga and Kurdish Iraqi Army units, all of which answer to the government, maintain a constant presence on the streets and man checkpoints on every major road. There are Kurdish government minders on the staffs of every public institution, from hospitals to schools. The biggest publisher in Kurdistan is the Ministry of Culture, which by way of an antiquated press prints volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry and dozens of magazine titles. With the exception of Hawlati, all newspapers are funded by the government and charge only a nominal price. But they too answer to the parties. Which seems to contradict the government's official policy on press freedom. …"We have no censorship," says Sami Shorish, Kurdistan's minister of culture. "Freedom to us is a very precious value because we have been oppressed for hundreds of years. We provide freedom to the media provided the media does not act in a slanderous way." The problem is that "slander" is so vaguely defined that it could mean almost anything. It's an open-ended prohibition, and in a country with no Miranda rights and little sense of due process, that can be a very dangerous thing for journalists.)

3//The Moscow Times, Russia--NUCLEAR FIRMS COURT RUSSIAN FUEL TRADER (Top nuclear power companies warned Thursday that the U.S. energy sector would be paralyzed by a nuclear fuel shortage by 2013 unless the U.S. government opened the door for Russia to import uranium directly. Hailing Russia as a reliable energy partner, representatives from U.S. energy giants including Exelon, RWE Nukem and Pacific Gas and Electric stressed the importance of securing supplies of Russian uranium at a time when nuclear power is back in favor in the United States. One of only four suppliers globally, Russia's state-controlled fuel exporter, Tenex, currently accounts for around 45 percent of the world uranium market. … If Washington allows independent imports by Tenex, Russia could bank on gaining up to one-third of the United States' annual nuclear fuel market, worth $1.4 billion per year, McGraw said. Russia currently earns $2.5 billion annually from fuel exports, said Anna Belova, a key advisor to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency.)

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--STRAIT TALK: WASHINGTON INCREASINGLY OPTS OUT (It has become an article of faith among observers of US foreign policy that US preoccupations in the Middle East and with the "war on terror" have diverted diplomatic and military activities away from Northeast Asia. Leon Sigal, a program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council, has coined the term "hawk disengagement" to describe the Bush administration's approach to the region. … But this is not because Washington's attention is focused elsewhere. US disengagement is a function of changes in Taipei and Beijing that the United States is less and less able to influence. Rather than withdrawing from the Taiwan Strait, the US is being quietly ousted. The difference between a withdrawal and an ejection is not just semantic. The former implies far more energy in US policy than the latter and places responsibility for the current state of play in cross-strait relations where it should be: in Taipei and Beijing. Taiwan's part in this drama is complex, as the island is strongly dependent on the US for its security, and the two sides have a history of close relations. Nonetheless, Taiwan's democratic evolution is actually undermining US support, despite the rhetoric emanating from Washington about promoting and defending democracy.)

5//DW-World.de/Deutsche Welle, Germany--EU CAUTION PUTS BRAKES ON GM FOOD LEGISLATION (EU leaders Thursday stressed the need for more information and experience before further legislation can be passed on genetically-modified organisms, at the end of a two-day conference on GMOs in Vienna. "We should have clear, legal, common regulations [on GMOs] in Europe," Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell said at the closing press conference, but added, "It is too early to sketch the legal framework for common legislation." … Without specific legislation however, there is a risk non-GM or organic crops could be contaminated and while the EU says that would have no effect on human health or the environment -- GMOs can only be grown after they have been authorized by the union -- they could have economic consequences for farmers of GM-free crops. Spain is the only EU country to grow GM crops on a commercial scale, although other countries such as the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Portugal also cultivate them on a smaller scale. Several regions have declared themselves GM-free and specific co-existence legislation exists in Denmark, Germany, Portugal and six Austrian provinces but regulations differ throughout the European Union.)

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1//Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, U.S. Apr 4, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD06Ak02.html

IRAN: POLITICAL ACTIVISTS TO STEER CLEAR OF POSSIBLE U.S. FUNDING
By Golnaz Esfandiari

While gauging public opinion can be a tall order in Iran, many of those who have spoken out so far say they are keen to maintain their independence, and this includes American money to continue their efforts to promote democracy in Iran.

The Bush administration has US$75 million in emergency funding to promote democracy in Iran, in addition to $10 million already budgeted.

Mohammad Ali Dadkhah is a co-founder of the Center for Human Rights Defenders. Dadkhah tells RFE/RL that democratic changes should come from inside the country - without outside interference. "Democracy is not a product that we can import from another country," Dadkhah said. "We have to prepare the ground for it so that it can grow and bear fruit - especially because independent and national forces, and also self-reliant forces, in Iran will never accept a foreign country telling them what to do and which way to take."

The proposed US aid would include $25 million to support "political dissidents, labor union leaders, and human-rights activists" in additional to non-governmental groups outside Iran. The declared aim is to allow them to build support inside the country.

The US administration also wants $50 million to set up round-the-clock television broadcasting in Persian to beam into Iran. Another $5 million is aimed at allowing Iranian students and scholars to study in the US. And $15 million is earmarked for other measures, such as expanding Internet access, which is tightly controlled in Iran.

Wary of perceptions

Authorities in Iran keep a tight lid on public expression, but most activists inside the country would be wary of being labeled pro-American. Dadkhah said that if activists were to accept the US aid, they would immediately be branded US spies and accused of endangering Iran's national security.

"Independent forces would go close to these financial funds," Dadkhah said. "We have to work through legal paths and logical channels so that democracy, freedom and human rights are fully respected in this country."

Abdollah Momeni, an outspoken Iranian student leader, warned that US financial aid would threaten the independence of those seeking increased freedoms and put them at risk with officials.

Momeni said that those working for democracy in Iran instead needed moral support and international recognition. "Under the current conditions, the support of the international community and pressure on the authoritarian Iranian regime to recognize democratic principles in Iranian society could help the Iranian people achieve democracy," Momeni said.

"The only result of financial aid would be to inflame sensitivities, put civil society activists under threat and give the regime an excuse to suppress opponents and opposition members."

Independent opposition

A loose alliance of political activists and intellectuals calling itself the Independent Iranian Opposition has issued a statement declaring that "only the people will determine Iran's fate". It added that the independent Iranian opposition had always battled with no expectation of financial assistance from "interested foreign powers". It also pledged that members would continue their efforts until a "free, independent and democratic Iran" emerged.

A respected human-rights activist and lawyer, Mehrangiz Kar is an Iranian woman who lives in the United States. Kar told Radio Farda that while money was important for rights groups to function, "security" is even more crucial to their effectiveness.

"The shaky security under which human rights and democracy activists are working in Iran would become even shakier and more uncertain [if US funding was involved]," Kar said. "So, in my opinion, if they could provide security and money, that would be ideal. But since they can't, sending money through government channels is one of the most damaging ways that has been adopted in the name of helping democracy and human rights in Iran."

Abbas Milani is a distinguished Iranian scholar and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. Milani questions whether the new US initiative would achieve its goal of fostering democracy. He pointed out in a joint contribution with Michael McFaul to The Wall Street Journal on March 6 that while "outsiders find it easy to support democracy rhetorically", it was harder to put such concepts into practice.

Milani warned the US against support for "regime change" through violence or for ethnic groups seeking independence from Tehran. He insisted that any new US aid must empower "existing democrats, not create democrats from [among] those with close ties to Washington".

(MORE)

2//Worldpress.org, U.S. April 5, 2006
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2308.cfm

PROPAGANDISTAN: IRAQI KURDISTAN IS FREE—BUT ITS MEDIA SURE ISN’T
David Axe

During the struggle against Saddam Hussein's regime, Kurdish peshmerga fighters sought refuge in the mountains surrounding the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. From here the peshmerga launched raids against Iraqi forces. Often accompanying them were the guerilla propagandists of the dominant Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or K.D.P., and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K.

Plying the countryside with crude newsletters, the propagandists, or "mountain journalists," were a decisive force in rallying Kurds to the insurgent parties. "The Kurdish people at that time was confronting a giant tyrant," says former mountain journalist Dilshad Mustafa, now editor-in-chief of Khabat, a K.D.P.-funded newspaper in Erbil. The journalists' goal, Mustafa says, was "to instigate [the Kurdish people] to do their national duty" — to join them in the mountains resisting the government.

A decade after the Kurds won their fight for autonomy, mountain journalism is no more. The guerillas are now family men with nine-to-five jobs in Kurdistan's burgeoning economy. Their officers are politicians. And the mountain journalists have become the editors and reporters of the region's expanding media.

For many of these former propagandists, the transition to true journalism has been a hard one. Nor has the governing K.D.P.-P.U.K. alliance been eager to surrender its propaganda machinery in the interest of free media. Despite Kurdistan's steady march towards democracy, its media largely remains a function of its government — and anything but democratic.

Still, today's "city journalism" is vastly different from mountain journalism, Mustafa says. "The newspapers issued in the mountains were not reaching the hands of big numbers of people."
Now there are dozens of Iraqi Kurdish newspapers, the largest with a daily circulation of 7,000 — not bad for a region of just five million where many people are illiterate. Considering the diversity of regional satellite TV news programs and news radio and the large number of Kurdish magazines — not to mention the affiliated Web sites of all these media in a country where internet usage is exploding — Kurdistan is awash in news.

Despite the demand for news, there is only one private newspaper in the region: Hawlati, based in Sulaymaniyah with offices in Erbil. All other media in Kurdistan is funded by the political parties, which these days are synonymous with the Kurdistan Regional Government, or K.R.G.

The government's control is hard to overstate. Education and health care are free. Many Kurds, including widows and veterans, subsist entirely on government handouts. But big brother exacts a toll. Police, peshmerga and Kurdish Iraqi Army units, all of which answer to the government, maintain a constant presence on the streets and man checkpoints on every major road. There are Kurdish government minders on the staffs of every public institution, from hospitals to schools.

The biggest publisher in Kurdistan is the Ministry of Culture, which by way of an antiquated press prints volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry and dozens of magazine titles. With the exception of Hawlati, all newspapers are funded by the government and charge only a nominal price. But they too answer to the parties.

Which seems to contradict the government's official policy on press freedom.

"We have no censorship," says Sami Shorish, Kurdistan's minister of culture. "Freedom to us is a very precious value because we have been oppressed for hundreds of years. We provide freedom to the media provided the media does not act in a slanderous way."

The problem is that "slander" is so vaguely defined that it could mean almost anything. It's an open-ended prohibition, and in a country with no Miranda rights and little sense of due process, that can be a very dangerous thing for journalists.

Karwan Abdula, a former Communist and editor of the Kurdish government-funded Caravan literary magazine says that slander could include specific criticism of party officials. "We publish articles critical of political thought, sometimes critical of the K.R.G. itself," he says. "But we're not naming names. We do not allow slanderous articles in the magazine."

Hawlati editors say the slander law was responsible for three of its reporters being jailed recently for covering controversial stories. One was arrested for criticizing Kurdish government officials over privacy laws after a racy bootleg DVD of some local girls dancing surfaced at Sulaymaniyah markets. Another was nabbed while investigating a medical warehouse fire, also in Sulaymaniyah, that some claim was deliberately set to cover the tracks of a Kurdish government minister who'd been stealing supplies to sell on the black market. A third Hawlati journalist was arrested in Dohuk while reporting on a story even Hawlati's editors won't talk about on the record. All three jailed reporters are out on bail awaiting trial.

The day-to-day consequences of working for Kurdistan's only independent newspaper aren't always so dramatic. The most frustrating is that most officials — from the lowliest cop to ministers and members of the regional assembly — refuse to talk to any media not affiliated with the government.

(MORE)

3//The Moscow Times, Russia Friday, April 7, 2006. Issue 3388. Page 5.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/04/07/041.html

NUCLEAR FIRMS COURT RUSSIAN FUEL TRADER
By Yuriy Humber, Staff Writer

Top nuclear power companies warned Thursday that the U.S. energy sector would be paralyzed by a nuclear fuel shortage by 2013 unless the U.S. government opened the door for Russia to import uranium directly.

Hailing Russia as a reliable energy partner, representatives from U.S. energy giants including Exelon, RWE Nukem and Pacific Gas and Electric stressed the importance of securing supplies of Russian uranium at a time when nuclear power is back in favor in the United States.

One of only four suppliers globally, Russia's state-controlled fuel exporter, Tenex, currently accounts for around 45 percent of the world uranium market.

"While I don't doubt the sincerity of the U.S. Department of Commerce, I believe they are simply wrong," said James Malone, vice president of Exelon, which operates 20 nuclear reactors, almost one-fifth of the U.S. nuclear energy market.

The U.S. Department of Commerce declined to comment Thursday.

Washington banned all commercial imports of Russian uranium to the United States in 1992 after Moscow flooded the market with uranium at prices well below the market levels.

The only Russian uranium allowed to enter the United States arrives as part of the Megaton to Megawatts agreement, under which the United States is to process a total of 500 tons of high-grade uranium from disarmed Russian warheads over 18 years. Once processed, the uranium is used as fuel for nuclear power plants. The Megaton to Megawatts agreement terminates in 2013.
If supplies after that date are to be secured, contracts need to be put in place now, company officials said Tuesday at a round table on atomic energy in Moscow.

"After that, what you have is a huge gap in the market" that the other fuel producers cannot bridge, said Tim McGraw, vice president international of RWE Nukem, a nuclear engineering and waste management firm that is part of global energy giant RWE.

If Washington allows independent imports by Tenex, Russia could bank on gaining up to one-third of the United States' annual nuclear fuel market, worth $1.4 billion per year, McGraw said. Russia currently earns $2.5 billion annually from fuel exports, said Anna Belova, a key advisor to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.S. nuclear fuel market is currently divided between France's Areva, Germany's Urenco and the United States Enrichment Corp., or USEC.

(MORE)

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Apr 7, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD07Ad02.html

STRAIT TALK: WASHINGTON INCREASINGLY OPTS OUT
By Craig Meer

TAIPEI - It has become an article of faith among observers of US foreign policy that US preoccupations in the Middle East and with the "war on terror" have diverted diplomatic and military activities away from Northeast Asia. Leon Sigal, a program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council, has coined the term "hawk disengagement" to describe the Bush administration's approach to the region.

This is particularly evident in the matter of Taiwan-China relations. President George W Bush came into office as possibly the most pro-Taiwan president in years. Early in his administration, he authorized a huge weapons deal, then priced at US$18 billion, now pared down below $15 billion. Bush stated the US would do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan. But the tune coming out of Washington has changed in recent years.

Particularly over the past two years, there has been perceptively less willingness in Washington to engage with either Taiwan or mainland China over the details of their convoluted relationship. Since late 2003 and Bush's now-famous call for both sides to respect the status quo in cross-strait relations, US policy has been distinctly passive, if not actually hostile to Taiwan.

But this is not because Washington's attention is focused elsewhere. US disengagement is a function of changes in Taipei and Beijing that the United States is less and less able to influence. Rather than withdrawing from the Taiwan Strait, the US is being quietly ousted. The difference between a withdrawal and an ejection is not just semantic. The former implies far more energy in US policy than the latter and places responsibility for the current state of play in cross-strait relations where it should be: in Taipei and Beijing.

Taiwan's part in this drama is complex, as the island is strongly dependent on the US for its security, and the two sides have a history of close relations. Nonetheless, Taiwan's democratic evolution is actually undermining US support, despite the rhetoric emanating from Washington about promoting and defending democracy.

Some of this was probably to be expected. As the former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, Nat Bellocchi, has noted, the framework of US-Taiwan relations was imposed unilaterally by the United States during the island's authoritarian past, and it is increasingly difficult to keep a democratic Taiwan in this foreign-policy straitjacket.

But there are aspects to this "democratic rejection" of the US that are specific to contemporary Taiwanese politics. On the one hand, there is the ongoing delay in the purchase of defensive weaponry from the US. The current package, worth $15 billion and including Patriot missiles, submarines and surveillance aircraft, has been struck down in the island's legislature consistently for more than two years. Last Tuesday, the procurement budget was voted down for the 50th time.

In the bad old days of martial law, the chiefs of staff set the defense budget and a compliant legislature produced the necessary funds. Now Taiwan has a civilian defense minister, and the government must ask for, not demand, appropriations.

(MORE)

5//DW-World.de/Deutsche Welle, Germany 06.04.2006
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1961921,00.html

EU CAUTION PUTS BRAKES ON GM FOOD LEGISLATION

EU leaders Thursday stressed the need for more information and experience before further legislation can be passed on genetically-modified organisms, at the end of a two-day conference on GMOs in Vienna.

"We should have clear, legal, common regulations (on GMOs) in Europe," Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell said at the closing press conference, but added, "It is too early to sketch the legal framework for common legislation."

The conference, entitled "Freedom of Choice," brought together politicians, scientists, as well as farmers and food producers, to discuss the issue of co-existence, referring to the problems involved in growing both GM and non-GM crops in Europe.

"We are still at an early stage of development of co-existence rules, we have only limited experience with cultivation of GM crops in Europe," said Dirk Ahner, the deputy director-general for agriculture and rural development at the European Commission, explaining why an exchange of information was needed.

More investigations needed before EU is satisfied

(SNIP)

Politicians at the conference were keen to stress that the issue of co-existence was not about the ethics or safety of GMOs but they agreed European farmers had the right to choose whether or not to produce GM crops.

Risk of contamination without legislation of use

Without specific legislation however, there is a risk non-GM or organic crops could be contaminated and while the EU says that would have no effect on human health or the environment -- GMOs can only be grown after they have been authorized by the union -- they could have economic consequences for farmers of GM-free crops.

Spain is the only EU country to grow GM crops on a commercial scale, although other countries such as the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Portugal also cultivate them on a smaller scale.

Several regions have declared themselves GM-free and specific co-existence legislation exists in Denmark, Germany, Portugal and six Austrian provinces but regulations differ throughout the European Union.