April 10, 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 10, 2006

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--‘SEARCHING FOR ATTACKERS LURKING IN THE NIGHT’ (… Two major powers traditionally active in the region are responding to the Anglo-American drive for a New Middle East - Russia and Turkey. … It comes as no surprise that the countries of the Arab Middle East have warmed to the Russian overtures. Moscow hosted on March 27-28 the first session of the so-called Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group comprising Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. Putin greeted the foreign delegates attending the conference. Significantly, Yevgeni Primakov, former prime minister and renowned orientalist who played a key role in crafting the Soviet Union's ties with the Arab world through the Cold War years, chaired the Moscow meet. Again, the head of the Saudi National Security Council, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, paid a "working visit" to Moscow on Tuesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the hugely influential Saudi prince's agenda included the Palestine issue, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and "conditions in Iraq", apart from "building up and deepening" Russia-Saudi relations. Turkey, too, is seeking to revive its ties in the Middle East - a region that it turned its back on in 1923. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum as a "permanent guest" meshes with a series of Turkish moves in the past three years.)

2//The Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday, UK--SADDAM EXECUTION POSES DILEMMA FOR IRAQ PROSECUTORS (… The trial of Saddam has so far not been the triumph for international justice that was hoped. The intention of the American and British governments was that the focus should be on the victims, with witnesses detailing how Saddam's torturous tyranny caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Instead it has been Saddam hogging the limelight. Even worse, his outbursts have been calculated to inflame the two main insurgent groups, the minority Sunnis and the dispossessed Ba'athist party members, and unite them against the US-led occupiers. "It's a win-win situation for Saddam and his cronies," said Cherif Bassiouni, author of Crimes Against Humanity and former chairman of the UN Commission of Experts on the Former Yugoslavia. "He either goes in there and he takes over the proceedings, or he stays out and he turns out to be a martyr, which is an absolute tragedy for the victims." … Completely submerged beneath all this is the meticulous attempt by the prosecution to build a compelling case against Saddam and his co-defendants. Worse may be to come. "The trial has not gone as anybody has hoped," adds Michael Scharf, a US-based war crimes expert. "What Saddam Hussein is going to do in the second half of the trial is try to argue that what he did to the town of Dujail is the same thing that the US has been doing to towns across Iraq and Afghanistan when faced with terrorism and insurgents. He will raise the defence that he did the same thing against insurgents and terrorists that the US is doing in Iraq.")

3//PakTribune (Pakistan News Service), Pakistan--AFGHAN DRUGS BARONS FLAUNT THEIR WEALTH AND POWER (… At least 17 of the 249 newly elected parliamentarians are smugglers, said analyst Andrew Wilder. But the most serious charges hover over General Muhammad Daud, the deputy interior minister for counter narcotics. A senior drugs official said he was "99% sure" that Gen Daud had a stake in the trade he was supposed to be dismantling. "He frustrates counter-narcotics law enforcement when it suits him," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He moves competent officials from their jobs, locks cases up and generally ensures that nobody he is associated with will get arrested for drugs crime." Gen Daud has denied the allegations. Undercover Afghan policemen have tried to infiltrate the smuggling rings, the same diplomat said, but failed to name any "big fish". The drug lords funnel their profits into construction in Kabul, where mansions and glass-fronted office blocks are springing up, and to Dubai, where American and British drug specialists are cooperating with local authorities to stem the flow of laundered money.)

4//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea--KOREAN FTA NEGOTIATORS PRIMED ON U.S. BUGGING TRICKS (Beware of the dragonfly: it may be a bugging robot disguised as a harmless insect. No, the advice does not come from a mental patient convinced the government is spying on his laundry bills: it was one of the security tips issued during last week’s two-day workshop for 120 Korean delegates in the nation’s impending free-trade negotiations with the U.S. The workshop was designed to help delegates guard their negotiation strategies from prying ears when the talks start in June. Security authorities at the workshop revealed the extraordinary inventiveness of U.S.’s intelligence surveillance power, which indeed stretches to a dragonfly robot that records conversation with the microphones concealed in its trunk as it sluggishly drones about the room. … Security authorities drew special attention to a U.S. surveillance program dubbed “Echelon” and administered by the U.S. National Security Agency [NSA]. Data gathered by Echelon's 120 spy satellites worldwide and analyzed by a voice-recognizing super computer is believed to enable NSA to intercept as many as 3 billion communications.)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--SAME WORK, $40 LESS: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT (Amber Oswald is a forthright and enthusiastic 16-year-old who was thrilled when she scored her first part-time job early last month, at a juice bar in Warriewood. But on March 29, two days after the Federal Government's new workplace laws came into effect, Amber learned that she had been made redundant and then "rehired". She was now party to an Australian workplace agreement. The contract remains unsigned, despite taking effect from March 27 - day one of the new laws. Amber saw her new contract for the first time only yesterday, which confirmed that her hourly pay rate had dropped from $9.52 to $8.57 and her penalty rates had been abolished altogether, reducing her pay by $5.70 an hour on Sundays and by as much as $11.25 an hour on public holidays. "I'm pretty upset they can do that," Amber said yesterday after finishing a seven-hour shift that would have earned her $99.89 before tax two weeks ago but now pays just $59.99. "I'm doing exactly the same job as before but I'm still young, so they think they can pretty much get away with it.")

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Apr 8, 2006

‘SEARCHING FOR ATTACKERS LURKING IN THE NIGHT’
By M K Bhadrakumar
[M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).]

There is enormous political symbolism in the circuitous route that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took for visiting Baghdad on Monday. She headed first to the quiet British town of Blackburn for a weekend's bonding with her British allies, and then proceeded to Iraq, accompanied by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Any limited perspective on the Rice-Straw mission in terms of cajoling Ibrahim al-Jaafari to give up his prime ministership in Baghdad overlooks that Iraq is the cornerstone of the United States' imperial venture in remaking the Middle East, with the objective of controlling the region - its flows of oil, weapons and money.

Two major powers traditionally active in the region are responding to the Anglo-American drive for a New Middle East - Russia and Turkey.

The Russian moves are impressive - strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia, gaining observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), revival of ties with Syria and Egypt, contact with Hamas, networking with Iraqi Sunni tribal leaderships, institutional ties with the Arab League, and, arguably, the heavily nuanced line on Iran.

Germane to all this, Moscow perceives a likely replay of past Anglo-American attempts to pit the Muslim world against Russia. Given its history, geography and culture and the multinational and multi-faith character of its society, Russia has everything to lose in an "inter-civilizational" conflict.

(SNIP)

It comes as no surprise that the countries of the Arab Middle East have warmed to the Russian overtures.

Moscow hosted on March 27-28 the first session of the so-called Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group comprising Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. Putin greeted the foreign delegates attending the conference. Significantly, Yevgeni Primakov, former prime minister and renowned orientalist who played a key role in crafting the Soviet Union's ties with the Arab world through the Cold War years, chaired the Moscow meet.

Again, the head of the Saudi National Security Council, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, paid a "working visit" to Moscow on Tuesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the hugely influential Saudi prince's agenda included the Palestine issue, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and "conditions in Iraq", apart from "building up and deepening" Russia-Saudi relations.

Turkey, too, is seeking to revive its ties in the Middle East - a region that it turned its back on in 1923. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum as a "permanent guest" meshes with a series of Turkish moves in the past three years.

Turkey claims it is trying to act as a "bridge" between the Middle East region and the Western world. (Curiously, Russia also is staking claims for a similar role as a "civilizational bridge" between the Muslim world and the West.)

But the US may not accede to such a profound role for Turkey or Russia - and Ankara and Moscow cannot be unaware of that. The US simply ignored similar Turkish (and Russian) claims in the 1990s to act as a "bridge" in the Balkans during the crises in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Turkish-US relations (like Russian-US relations) have been increasingly bumpy. Yet Turkey couldn't sit on the fence. It has vital interests to safeguard - least of all in its eastern provinces.

Turkey also has a government with a ruling party of pronounced religious orientation, which is approaching an election and would have to grapple with a resurgence of nationalism that has overtones of political Islam, and is heavily laden with "anti-Americanism". And this at a juncture when the so-called Kemalist secular camp has atrophied (or fragmented) almost to the point of irrelevance in the country's party politics, and a drift in Turkey's search for European Union membership is visible.

More important, as in Moscow, few in Ankara are convinced that Washington is anywhere near being transparent in its Iraq policies. Both Russia and Turkey would suspect that Washington did not have an "exit strategy" in Iraq because no exit was (or is) intended. They fear that if push comes to shove, the US will not hesitate to turn Iraq, in fragments, into a de facto colony.

Few in Ankara today, therefore, share Washington's hostility toward Syria and Iran. Ankara, like Moscow, favors engagement of Syria and Iran and opposes the use of force or "regime changes" in these neighboring countries.

Equally so, Turkey is deeply skeptical (like Russia) about the United States' "transformational diplomacy" in the Middle East. "Democratization is a process, and it should be expected to proceed at a different pace in different countries," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in a written statement last month.

(SNIP)

Having said that, both Moscow and Ankara will focus on Iraq in immediate terms. This course is Iraq's security. Moscow and Ankara would be justified to ask: "What was it that Straw could offer Rice?"

The answer lies in one of the most influential and enduring British strategic theories attributed to T E Lawrence. This strategy was distilled by Lawrence in the deserts of Arabia in the second decade of the 20th century (and to which Britain remained largely faithful even in Northern Ireland). In terms of this, Straw would tell Rice that in Iraq, to begin with, instead of being bogged down in a senseless trench war where armed clashes were turning into mass butchery, Washington should focus on a strategy of warfare that dispensed with battles.

Conceivably, Straw would counsel Rice that instead of attacking the Iraqi enemies, she should go around them, as Lawrence would have done, "immobilizing and isolating them, wearing them down as their sentries peer into the darkness searching for attackers who might or might not be lurking in the night" - to use the inimitable words of David Fromkin, author of the classic study on 1922 Middle East settlement, A Peace to End All Peace.

A problem remains, however. As Fromkin would point out, Lawrence's strategy has its limitations. It has no use for a country fighting for survival; a country that obstinately refuses to surrender and may need to be crushed by force; and an enemy that will not surrender even if tired, but chooses to fight to hold on to something it can't afford to give up.

Thus a paradox so typical of our times arises: the strategy attributed to Lawrence, the hero of British imperialism, is most effective against a great power that favors pitched, face-to face battles.

But Straw could as well have told that to Rice while strolling in the town center in Blackburn. A symbolic visit to Baghdad should not have been necessary.

2//The Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday, UK Sun 9 Apr 2006

SADDAM EXECUTION POSES DILEMMA FOR IRAQ PROSECUTORS
Ian Mather

THE prosecution has almost delivered its case and the world's most notorious defendant will now be given his chance.

A verdict is expected in June in the case of the Republic of Iraq versus Saddam Hussein - following the outlining of the defence - but the dilemma for court officials has never loomed larger.

Later this year, the former dictator, a Sunni, could be sentenced to death by hanging for his part in the murder of 148 Shi'ites following an assassination attempt in 1982.

The situation in Iraq has deteriorated to such an extent during the trial, however, that the execution of Saddam could be the final push that tips the country into outright civil war.
There are other factors, too, conspiring against a swift end for the brutal ex-leader. Last week, the tribunal trying Saddam announced plans for a second trial, possibly beginning in 45 days, on genocide charges connected to the Iraqi army's campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed.

Although there is a possibility that Saddam could be executed while the second trial is still running, even high-ranking Kurds, such as President Jalal Talabani, doubt whether the sentence would be carried out until all trials were complete in a process expected to take years.

The trial of Saddam has so far not been the triumph for international justice that was hoped. The intention of the American and British governments was that the focus should be on the victims, with witnesses detailing how Saddam's torturous tyranny caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Instead it has been Saddam hogging the limelight. Even worse, his outbursts have been calculated to inflame the two main insurgent groups, the minority Sunnis and the dispossessed Ba'athist party members, and unite them against the US-led occupiers.

"It's a win-win situation for Saddam and his cronies," said Cherif Bassiouni, author of Crimes Against Humanity and former chairman of the UN Commission of Experts on the Former Yugoslavia. "He either goes in there and he takes over the proceedings, or he stays out and he turns out to be a martyr, which is an absolute tragedy for the victims."

Trial observers see a master manipulator at work. Dr Robert Leiken, director of the Washington-based think tank the Nixon Centre, said: "Saddam spends a lot of time praying, reading the Koran, trying to make the point that he is a pious Muslim, trying to solidify the alliance between the Saddamists and the Islamists."

(SNIP)

Completely submerged beneath all this is the meticulous attempt by the prosecution to build a compelling case against Saddam and his co-defendants. Worse may be to come. "The trial has not gone as anybody has hoped," adds Michael Scharf, a US-based war crimes expert.

"What Saddam Hussein is going to do in the second half of the trial is try to argue that what he did to the town of Dujail is the same thing that the US has been doing to towns across Iraq and Afghanistan when faced with terrorism and insurgents. He will raise the defence that he did the same thing against insurgents and terrorists that the US is doing in Iraq."

Court officials say the Iraqi government is keen to remove Saddam as quickly as possible because he is a dangerous focal point for the insurgency. But David Scheffer, an international human rights expert at Northwestern University in Illinois, says: "No one can predict accurately the consequences of the death penalty being carried out. But one has to assume the worst-case scenario in the violent circumstances of contemporary Iraq. A death penalty will likely make Saddam a martyr for the insurgency and much of the Sunni population."

(MORE)

3//PakTribune (Pakistan News Service), Pakistan Sunday April 09, 2006 (0128 PST)

AFGHAN DRUGS BARONS FLAUNT THEIR WEALTH AND POWER

Kabul: The smugglers’ trail crosses salt-encrusted plains, scrabbly farmland and hundreds of blossoming poppy fields. Suddenly a fortress-like structure looms. The high-walled mansion belongs to Haji Adam, an opium smuggler, locals say. Tales of his wealth are legion. "When he became sick he was flown straight to Germany," said a man in the next village, Garmser, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Even helicopters have landed at his house," said another.

Yet like every Afghan drugs lord, Haji Adam has little to fear from the law. Since the western-led war on drugs started four years ago only two major smugglers have been arrested - Haji Baz Muhammad, who was extradited to the US last October, and Bashir Noorzai, who was arrested in New York six months earlier. But the remainder are apparently untouchable.

"Many smugglers don’t even bother hiding their wealth," said a British diplomat in Kabul "It’s their way of saying ’screw you’ to authority." Tribal links The kingpins are wealthy as they are indiscreet, the apex of a $2.7bn (£1.5bn) trade that has dominated the Afghan economy, poisoned its politics and employs one in 10 of the workforce. The smugglers are deeply rooted in Afghanistan’s tribal society yet operate with the sophistication of a criminal jet-set. Some live in fortified rural mansions, defended by anti-aircraft guns and gangs of heavily armed clansmen.

Many strike deals during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. "The Hajj is a good place to do business, we believe," said one western drugs official.

Every year the drug lords effortlessly export 4,000 tonnes of opium across Afghanistan’s borders, plugging into the Turkish, Iranian, Pakistani and Russian gangs that refine the drug into heroin for sale in Europe.

But their strongest connections are at home. Allegations of drug links have persistently dogged some of Afghanistan’s most powerful figures, including several governors, ministers and the president’s brother, Walid Karzai.

At least 17 of the 249 newly elected parliamentarians are smugglers, said analyst Andrew Wilder. But the most serious charges hover over General Muhammad Daud, the deputy interior minister for counter narcotics. A senior drugs official said he was "99% sure" that Gen Daud had a stake in the trade he was supposed to be dismantling. "He frustrates counter-narcotics law enforcement when it suits him," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"He moves competent officials from their jobs, locks cases up and generally ensures that nobody he is associated with will get arrested for drugs crime." Gen Daud has denied the allegations.

Undercover Afghan policemen have tried to infiltrate the smuggling rings, the same diplomat said, but failed to name any "big fish".

The drug lords funnel their profits into construction in Kabul, where mansions and glass-fronted office blocks are springing up, and to Dubai, where American and British drug specialists are cooperating with local authorities to stem the flow of laundered money.

The daunting scale of the drugs war can be best appreciated in Helmand, the remote southern province that is the world’s busiest opium smuggling route. At night high-speed convoys laden with narcotics race across the hard-packed desert towards the border with Pakistan.

(MORE)

4//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea Updated Apr.9,2006 22:09 KST

KOREAN FTA NEGOTIATORS PRIMED ON U.S. BUGGING TRICKS

Beware of the dragonfly: it may be a bugging robot disguised as a harmless insect. No, the advice does not come from a mental patient convinced the government is spying on his laundry bills: it was one of the security tips issued during last week’s two-day workshop for 120 Korean delegates in the nation’s impending free-trade negotiations with the U.S. The workshop was designed to help delegates guard their negotiation strategies from prying ears when the talks start in June.

Security authorities at the workshop revealed the extraordinary inventiveness of U.S.’s intelligence surveillance power, which indeed stretches to a dragonfly robot that records conversation with the microphones concealed in its trunk as it sluggishly drones about the room.

One government official set delegates on edge when he warned, “There is no telling what lengths the U.S. with its technological might will go to if it decides to eavesdrop.” Sure enough, the CIA also has other members of the insect kingdom at its disposal, besides using a coin-sized camera that can take 11 pictures.

Security authorities drew special attention to a U.S. surveillance program dubbed “Echelon” and administered by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Data gathered by Echelon's 120 spy satellites worldwide and analyzed by a voice-recognizing super computer is believed to enable NSA to intercept as many as 3 billion communications.

The official advised negotiators to assume that eavesdropping is routine, pointing to the bizarre episode of the Boeing 767-300ER China bought from the U.S. in 2000 for use as a presidential airplane. No fewer than 20 listening devices were found in the aircraft, including in the bathroom and the headboard of the presidential bed.

The bugging of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s office in the run-up to the Iraq war is only the tip of the iceberg. Private firms, too, do it in negotiating business deals, a fact that should awaken security consciousness among local companies, the official added.

Among the security instructions given at the workshop are: use passwords instead of keywords for documents, only use an e-mail system vouchsafed by the National Intelligence Service, and do not use photocopiers at hotels and business centers since they can leak information.

(MORE)

5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia April 10, 2006

SAME WORK, $40 LESS: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
By Kelly Burke

Amber Oswald is a forthright and enthusiastic 16-year-old who was thrilled when she scored her first part-time job early last month, at a juice bar in Warriewood.

But on March 29, two days after the Federal Government's new workplace laws came into effect, Amber learned that she had been made redundant and then "rehired".

She was now party to an Australian workplace agreement. The contract remains unsigned, despite taking effect from March 27 - day one of the new laws.

Amber saw her new contract for the first time only yesterday, which confirmed that her hourly pay rate had dropped from $9.52 to $8.57 and her penalty rates had been abolished altogether, reducing her pay by $5.70 an hour on Sundays and by as much as $11.25 an hour on public holidays.

"I'm pretty upset they can do that," Amber said yesterday after finishing a seven-hour shift that would have earned her $99.89 before tax two weeks ago but now pays just $59.99.

"I'm doing exactly the same job as before but I'm still young, so they think they can pretty much get away with it."

Amber's boss, who would only identify himself as Andre, said that between 15 and 20 staff at the three NSW Pulp Juice franchise shops had been given workplace agreements.

"If they don't want to sign, they can leave," he said. "It's not about what's fair, it's [about] what's right - right for the company."

(SNIP)

The president of the ACTU, Sharan Burrow, described Pow Juice's ultimatum to staff as outrageous.

"The new laws are a Government-sanctioned licence for employers … to treat people in whatever way they choose, and young people and older workers, particularly women, are the most vulnerable," she said.

A spokeswoman for the federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Kevin Andrews, said the minister was not prepared to discuss individual cases. But anyone aged under 18 would require a parent or guardian to sign a workplace agreement, she said.

"Any examples of employees feeling they have been treated unfairly can take their claim to the Office of Workplace Services," she said.

A part-time medical receptionist, Rhonda Walke, received a similar assurance from the Liberals' Danna Vale last November. The recently widowed Ms Walke got a comprehensive reply from her local MP, which included assurances that it would be "unlawful for an employer to apply duress in the negotiation of agreements, or to terminate an employee for refusing to negotiate an AWA".

On March 29, Ms Walke was handed a workplace agreement by the office manager, who insisted she sign it immediately. Ms Walke declined, saying she wished to take it home to study it in depth. The following day she told the manager there were several points she needed to clarify before signing. At lunchtime she was served termination papers on the grounds that her reluctance to sign proved she did not wish to become part of a team.

Ms Walke's case, with two other allegedly illegal dismissals involving older women, are now being investigated by the ACTU.