April 26, 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 26, 2006

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING IN TEHRAN (… The key question is which Iranian leadership will have the final say. There are at least four main factions in the complex Iranian game of power politics. … The point is not that Ahmadinejad is a suicidal nut bent on confronting the US by all means available. The point is that the president leads just one of four key factions in a do-or-die power play, and he is following his own agenda, which is not necessarily the Iranian theocratic leadership's agenda. Washington neo-conservatives for their part may want regime change - but that won't happen with another shock and awe.)

2//The Independent, UK--LABOUR DOWNPLAYS ELECTIONS TO PROTECT PM (Senior Labour figures are trying to head off demands for Tony Blair to resign if the party suffers a bloody nose at next week's local authority elections. Labour MPs have been warned that the party could easily lose 300 seats in next week's council polls and that in a "worse case scenario" the losses could rise to 400. Blair allies are nervous that a poor performance would provoke demands for the Prime Minister to stand down sooner rather than later by mainstream Labour MPs, as well as the "usual suspects" who have already criticised him. In a pre-emptive strike yesterday, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said the local elections should not be seen as a referendum on Mr Blair. He claimed it would be "batty" to think the results would have any bearing on when the Prime Minister would leave Downing Street.)

3//Worldpress.org, US--MEXICO: OIL DEPLETION AND ILLEGAL U.S. IMMIGRATION (Mexico's oil industry is, in large part, a direct reflection of the country's economic well-being. As those who have been following global oil output are aware, production in Mexico has started to wane, and just might decline very rapidly. Since the Mexican federal budget depends very heavily on oil revenues, the country may be faced with some tough times ahead, leading to increased pressures among its citizens to migrate north into the U.S. The giant Cantarell oil field lies deep under the water of the Gulf of Mexico. But in financial terms it stands astride the entire nation of Mexico. Since its discovery in 1976, it has been the mainstay of the country's oil production, accounting for nearly 60 percent of total production of over 3.3 million barrels of oil per day. … Increasingly, news reports are filtering out that the largest, most indispensable oil field might have already seen its best days. According to Venezuela's Daily Journal [March 30]: "Pemex is now seeking to replace output at Cantarell, which contained 35 billion barrels of oil when discovered in 1976. The field peaked in production at more than 2 million barrels a day in 2005 and will decline by 30 percent to 1.43 million barrels per day by the end of 2008, Pemex has forecast. Only Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field is larger. … 'It's hard to compensate for a super giant field with something much less than a super giant field,' said David Shields, an independent energy industry analyst in Mexico City.")

4//The Moscow Times, Russia--‘GAZPROM IS GOOD FOR THE WORLD’ (Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev turned to the Bible on Tuesday to defend the gas giant's policy toward Europe and deride what he called unfounded "hysteria" there. Medvedev's remarks, on the last day of the Russian Economic Forum, echoed the government's insistence that Russia is a reliable global energy partner. The gathering of Russian and foreign investors, however, listened eagerly for any new insights into Russia's energy policy. Jitters about Russian gas have been sweeping Europe since January, when Gazprom briefly cut off gas to Ukraine amid a price dispute. Gas destined for Europe runs in the same pipeline, and several European countries lost their supplies at the same time. Medvedev opened his speech with Easter greetings for all Russian Orthodox believers in the packed hall and an unrelated Bible verse, Matthew 13:9. "He who has ears, let him hear," Medvedev told the startled audience, first in Russian and then, for emphasis, in English.)

5//IRINNews.org (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), UN--LIBERIA: STONE THROWING EX-SOLDIERS PARALYSE CAPITAL (Shops pulled down shutters and residents emptied the streets of the seafront Liberian capital Monrovia on Tuesday after more than 100 former soldiers burned tyres and set up road blocks to angrily protest the non-payment of their demobilisation pay. … In 2004, the US government pledged US $35 million for the recruitment and training of a new post-war Liberian army on the provision that existing soldiers were paid salary arrears and outstanding entitlements first. Late last year, the outgoing transitional government completed the payment of soldiers’ benefits with each receiving US $540 to over US $1000, a substantial sum in post-war Liberia where over 80 percent of the population is unemployed. Some of Tuesday’s protesters told IRIN that they had not received their benefits as they had been out of the country. Many said they had been in refugee camps. … A nation-wide recruitment drive by the private US military company DynCorp is currently underway. Former government soldiers have not been excluded from applying, though all successful candidates must have a clean human rights record and have completed a secondary school education.)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Apr 26, 2006

WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING IN TEHRAN
By Pepe Escobar

Because of the opacity of Iran's theocratic nationalism, outsiders may be tempted to assume that the official Iranian position is the one expressed last week in Baku, Azerbaijan, by Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar: "The United States has been threatening Iran for 27 years, and this is not new for us. Therefore, we are never afraid of US threats."

(SNIP)

The power spheres in Iran seem to bet that even in the event of a shock and awe of B-2s, missiles and bunker busters, that simply is not enough to snuff out accumulated Iranian nuclear know-how and the quest to master the nuclear fuel cycle. So the only real question would be for how many years the US would be able to slow down Iran's nuclear program.

Is that all there is? Not really.

As some Iranian analysts and ministry officials have told Asia Times Online in Tehran off the record, there are reasons to believe the leadership is misreading an avalanche of US signs related to the military and psychological preparation for a possible war.

For instance, fundamentalist Christians in the US - who support Zionism for theological reasons - unleashed a ferocious media campaign depicting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as the Antichrist who wants to destroy Jerusalem and prevent Jesus' comeback.

There are even indications that the Iranian leadership has not taken the Bush administration's explicit desire for regime change seriously. It's as if the leadership is persuading itself Washington would never dare to escalate the situation - especially after such US bodies as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the National Academy of Sciences have stated that a tactical nuclear strike could kill more than a million Iranians.

(SNIP)

But what if the Bush administration and the Ahmadinejad presidency were bluffing each other into a nuclear war?

Pick your faction

The key question is which Iranian leadership will have the final say. There are at least four main factions in the complex Iranian game of power politics.

The first faction is a sort of extreme right, closely aligned from the beginning to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and involved with a rapprochement with Sunni Arabs in general, while opposing even a tactical rapprochement with the US.

The faction includes the dreaded hojjatieh (a semi-clandestine, radically anti-Sunni organization) and the Iranian Hezbollah, which supports both the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Arab nationalism of Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. Former defense minister Ali Chamkhani - whom Asia Times Online was told in Tehran could not talk to the foreign press - is very close to this faction. They are very conservative religiously and socialist economically.

(SNIP)

The role of Ahmadinejad - a former Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) middle-rank official - in molding this first faction has been crucial. In 2005, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had the support of former president and Machiavellian master of ambiguity, Hashemi Rafsanjani, at the highest levels of power - the Expediency Council.

(SNIP)

The second key faction is composed of provincial clerics, whose master is the supreme leader himself. These are pure conservatives, attached to the purity of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and more patriotic than the first faction. They are not interested in more integration with Sunni Arabs. Faithful to the supreme leader, they want to keep both progressives and extremists "in the same house" (Ahl al Bait) , with the velayat-e-faqih - the role of jurisprudence - as the supreme law of the land. Ever since the 2004 parliamentary elections - largely boycotted by the Iranian population - an association of clerics totally dominates the majlis (parliament).

But there are huge problems behind this appearance of unity. Iranian money from the bonyads - foundations - badly wants a reconciliation with the West. They know that the relentless flight of both capital and brains - which is being actively encouraged by the Rafsanjani faction - is against the national interest. But they also know this can hurt Ahmadinejad's power. Some Western-connected Iranians are even comparing Ahmadinejad's current days to the Gang of Four in China a little while before the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

(SNIP)

The third faction is the left - initially former partisans of the son of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Ahmad Khomeini, who died in mysterious circumstances in the 1990s. After that they operated a spectacular mutation from Soviet-style socialism into some sort of religious democracy, which found its icon in former president Khatami of "dialogue of civilizations" fame. They became the so-called progressives - and even if they lost the 2004 and 2005 elections, they are still a force, although already debilitated by the slow awakening of a younger, more secular and more radical opposition.

The fourth and most unpredictable faction is Rafsanjani's. The consummate Machiavellian masterfully retained his own power from the late 1990s, juggling between Khamenei and Khatami. He may be the ultimate centrist, but Rafsanjani is and will always remain a supporter of the supreme leader. What he dearly wants is to restore Iran's national might and regional power, and reconcile the country with the West, for one essential reason: he knows an anti-Islamic tempest is already brewing among the youth in Iran's big cities.

As head of the Expediency Council, fully supported by the supreme leader, and in his quest to "save" the Islamic Revolution, Rafsanjani retains the best possible positioning.

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad holds as much power as his predecessor - the urbane, enlightened and sartorially impeccable Khatami: that is, not much. What Ahmadinejad's obvious excesses are doing is to solidify the support the Rafsanjani faction is getting from the intelligentsia as well as the urban youth, not to mention the "enlightened police" faction of Qalibaf. This does not mean that another revolution is around the corner - as the Bush administration's wishful thinking goes.

Apart from these four factions, there are two others that are outside the ironclad circle of supreme-leader power: the revolutionary left and the secular right. Clerics call them biganeh (eccentric), and the denomination may be correct to a point, as both these groups are mostly disconnected from the majority of the population, although they also support the nuclear program out of patriotism.

(SNIP)

The point is not that Ahmadinejad is a suicidal nut bent on confronting the US by all means available. The point is that the president leads just one of four key factions in a do-or-die power play, and he is following his own agenda, which is not necessarily the Iranian theocratic leadership's agenda. Washington neo-conservatives for their part may want regime change - but that won't happen with another shock and awe.

Ahmadinejad is playing the typical Bonapartist - using a political deadlock to go all the way toward dictatorship. Rafsanjani may also be a Bonapartist, but the difference is he's not interested in dictatorship.

The ideal outcome of this whole "nuclear crisis" would be an Iran moving to a moderately liberal alliance between eternal pragmatist Rafsanjani - the only one capable of subduing the Pasdaran - and the semi-secular left, which still regards Khatami as the least bad of all possible models. It may not be paradise, but it certainly beats war.

2//The Independent, UK Published: 26 April 2006

LABOUR DOWNPLAYS ELECTIONS TO PROTECT PM
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Senior Labour figures are trying to head off demands for Tony Blair to resign if the party suffers a bloody nose at next week's local authority elections.

Labour MPs have been warned that the party could easily lose 300 seats in next week's council polls and that in a "worse case scenario" the losses could rise to 400.

Blair allies are nervous that a poor performance would provoke demands for the Prime Minister to stand down sooner rather than later by mainstream Labour MPs, as well as the "usual suspects" who have already criticised him.

In a pre-emptive strike yesterday, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said the local elections should not be seen as a referendum on Mr Blair. He claimed it would be "batty" to think the results would have any bearing on when the Prime Minister would leave Downing Street.

He warned Mr Blair's internal critics not to use the election outcome as an excuse to try to oust him. "The idea that the election result will have any impact on those decisions is nonsense," he said. "People will look at the result and make their own conclusions about how well we do and what we have to do to improve our performance. But I don't think party leadership is one of those factors."

A Blair aide added that it would be difficult to get a national picture from many very different contests in which the performance of the local authority would also be a factor.

Fears among Labour MPs that the "cash-for-honours" affair and job cuts in the National Health Service will damage its prospects next week were heightened by an ICM poll giving Labour its worse rating since 1987. The party is on 32 per cent, two points behind the Tories, with the Liberal Democrats on 24 per cent.

A gloomy forecast for the elections was given to the Parliamentary Labour Party's meeting on Monday by Ian McCartney, the party chairman, and Peter Watt, the general secretary. They warned that Labour could easily lose 150 seats in London, the main battleground with all 1,861 seats on the 32 borough councils being contested, and suffer a further 150 losses in other parts of the country.

Labour officials fear Mr Blair will be under pressure because the media spotlight will fall heavily on London, and fear a repeat of the party's disappointing performance in the capital at last year's general election. One party source said Labour could be hit by a "pincer movement" in different parts of London by the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and George Galloway's Respect Party.

(MORE)

3//Worldpress.org, US April 25, 2006

MEXICO: OIL DEPLETION AND ILLEGAL U.S. IMMIGRATION
Worldpress.org

Mexico's oil industry is, in large part, a direct reflection of the country's economic well-being. As those who have been following global oil output are aware, production in Mexico has started to wane, and just might decline very rapidly. Since the Mexican federal budget depends very heavily on oil revenues, the country may be faced with some tough times ahead, leading to increased pressures among its citizens to migrate north into the U.S.

The giant Cantarell oil field lies deep under the water of the Gulf of Mexico. But in financial terms it stands astride the entire nation of Mexico. Since its discovery in 1976, it has been the mainstay of the country's oil production, accounting for nearly 60 percent of total production of over 3.3 million barrels of oil per day.

Sixty percent is also the cut that the Mexican government takes from the revenues of the state oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), in taxes every year. Suffice it to say that the government relies heavily on oil production to support the economy.

Making for a potentially precarious situation, Mexico's energy sector lacks diversification and is thus very vulnerable to sudden fluctuations in production. Some industry experts have predicted that the country could run out of oil in the next 11 years, if discoveries do not materialize.

Steep Oil Production Declines Projected

Increasingly, news reports are filtering out that the largest, most indispensable oil field might have already seen its best days. According to Venezuela's Daily Journal (March 30): "Pemex is now seeking to replace output at Cantarell, which contained 35 billion barrels of oil when discovered in 1976. The field peaked in production at more than 2 million barrels a day in 2005 and will decline by 30 percent to 1.43 million barrels per day by the end of 2008, Pemex has forecast. Only Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field is larger. … 'It's hard to compensate for a super giant field with something much less than a super giant field,' said David Shields, an independent energy industry analyst in Mexico City."

From a source inside Pemex, Vive Le Canada (March 26) reported: "According to Carlos Morales, production manager for Mexico's state owned oil company, Cantarell's projected output will be 6 percent lower this year at 1.9 million barrels per day and down to 1.43 million barrels by 2008, the level of production in 2000. A leaked internal memo from inside Pemex said water and gas were seeping into the massive offshore oil field."

This has extremely dire implications for the country's economy, as the Mexican Peso is backed by oil. When oil revenues go up, so does the peso. When they go down, so does the peso. Now, as Mexico joins the growing list of countries in oil production decline, revenues are projected to drop, not because of a low oil price, but because of lower and lower production figures.

New Oil Field Discovered

Recent developments, though, could portend a reversal of the projected decline. As reported by London's BBC (March 15): "Mexican President Vicente Fox has announced the discovery of a new deep-water oil field, which is believed to contain 10 billion barrels of crude. The field is in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico says it could be bigger than its largest oil field, Cantarell. Production there is said to have declined sharply in recent years. Mr. Fox made the announcement as figures showed the country's total oil reserves had fallen 2 percent between 2003 and 2005. … With at least 3.4 million barrels per day, Mexico is Latin America's largest crude producer ahead of Venezuela and Brazil, according to the International Energy Agency. The oil industry provides one third of the Mexican state income. More than half the crude extracted is exported, mainly to the United States."

Some oil industry experts warned that oil production at the new site could take up to a decade to be realized due to technical obstacles alone, not to mention the current legal and financial restrictions that Pemex faces in developing this and other fields. So, while the discovery of the new oil reserves is good news for Mexico, it will not affect global markets in the short or medium term.

(SNIP)

The decline in oil production hasn't seriously hurt the Mexican economy yet. In fact, the country is experiencing economic growth, as reported in London's Reuters (March 24): "Mexico's economy expanded 5.7 percent in January compared with a year ago, government data showed on Friday in the latest sign that growth in the country is picking up after a slump last year."

Mexico's El Universal Online (April 7) concurred, noting that: "The Finance Secretariat said it expects the government to end 2006 with a small budget surplus, thanks largely to higher-than-estimated oil income. The secretariat said it expects federal revenue to be 82.7 billion pesos (US$7.56 billion) higher than initially estimated, with 74.3 billion pesos (US$6.8 billion) coming from oil. Oil and related taxes account for more than one-third of federal revenue. The document submitted this week estimates 2007 economic growth of 3.6 percent."

Underscoring the importance of the proceeds garnered from the sale of oil, China's Xinhua (March 13) reported: "Mexico's oil sector produces 8 percent of the country's gross domestic product, and pays nearly 37 percent of the nation's taxes."

Given the country's obvious dependence on oil revenues, a projected sizeable drop in production is worrisome. Whether or not the new oil discoveries will ultimately offset the current decline remains to be seen.

Any significant shortfall in oil revenues, which leaves the government with less money to deal with domestic issues, will likely prompt more Mexicans to contemplate migrating north to the U.S.

(MORE)

4//The Moscow Times, Russia Wednesday, April 26, 2006. Issue 3401. Page 1.

‘GAZPROM IS GOOD FOR THE WORLD’
By Aiste Skarzinskaite and Andrew McChesney, Staff Writers

LONDON -- Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev turned to the Bible on Tuesday to defend the gas giant's policy toward Europe and deride what he called unfounded "hysteria" there.

Medvedev's remarks, on the last day of the Russian Economic Forum, echoed the government's insistence that Russia is a reliable global energy partner.

The gathering of Russian and foreign investors, however, listened eagerly for any new insights into Russia's energy policy.

Jitters about Russian gas have been sweeping Europe since January, when Gazprom briefly cut off gas to Ukraine amid a price dispute. Gas destined for Europe runs in the same pipeline, and several European countries lost their supplies at the same time.

Medvedev opened his speech with Easter greetings for all Russian Orthodox believers in the packed hall and an unrelated Bible verse, Matthew 13:9.

"He who has ears, let him hear," Medvedev told the startled audience, first in Russian and then, for emphasis, in English.

Rehashing earlier Gazprom statements, he then launched into a defense of Gazprom's credentials as a stable supplier and slammed a European Union push to liberalize and deregulate energy markets.

He warned that the change would undermine energy security on the continent, not boost it. EU deregulation plans "cannot but arouse serious fears for ... the stability of gas supplies," he said.

President Vladimir Putin has made energy security a priority of Russia's presidency of the Group of Eight this year, but the Ukraine dispute and subsequent developments have raised questions about Russia's commitment to that agenda.

In touting Gazprom's record as a reliable supplier, Medvedev reeled off a list of figures to demonstrate Gazprom's clout. He noted that its capitalization stood at $240 billion and is likely soon to reach $300 billion and that it controlled more than a third of the world's gas reserves.

Medvedev then flashed a map, titled "Gazprom -- Most Important Gas Supplier," that showed how dependent Europe was on Russian gas. He stressed that 26 percent of all gas used in Europe came from Russia and that most of it was supplied on long-term contracts.

Later Monday, he said that if European countries stuck to those contracts, Gazprom's share of Europe's market would climb to 33 percent by 2010 to 2015.

"Energy security depends not only upon suppliers but also upon consumers," Medvedev said.

In his speech, he also directed criticism at the media. He said Russia delivered its first LNG shipment to Britain last April, but instead of welcoming it, "the British media went into hysteria -- I cannot find a better word."

British media reported earlier this year that senior British government officials had held eight meetings on how to block a potential takeover of Centrica, the country's biggest gas supplier, by Gazprom.

(MORE)

5//IRIN News.org/alertnet.org/25 Apr 2006

LIBERIA: STONE THROWING EX-SOLDIERS PARALYSE CAPITAL

MONROVIA, 25 Apr 2006 (IRIN) - Shops pulled down shutters and residents emptied the streets of the seafront Liberian capital Monrovia on Tuesday after more than 100 former soldiers burned tyres and set up road blocks to angrily protest the non-payment of their demobilisation pay.

UN peacekeepers fired in the air to disperse the stone-throwing men who hurled stones and metal objects at the Ministry of Defence, smashing office windows.

“We want to assure the public to remain calm,” said Minister of Defence Brownie Samukai. “The government will take appropriate measures to ensure that such acts are not repeated,” he told reporters after some of the protestors had been hauled off by UN troops.

In 2004, the US government pledged US $35 million for the recruitment and training of a new post-war Liberian army on the provision that existing soldiers were paid salary arrears and outstanding entitlements first. Late last year, the outgoing transitional government completed the payment of soldiers’ benefits with each receiving US $540 to over US $1000, a substantial sum in post-war Liberia where over 80 percent of the population is unemployed.

Some of Tuesday’s protesters told IRIN that they had not received their benefits as they had been out of the country. Many said they had been in refugee camps.

(SNIP)

The government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is pressing ahead with a programme to bring tens of thousands of Liberian refugees home. Liberia's 14 years of on-off civil war ended in 2003 when president Charles Taylor, besieged by rebel forces, accepted exile in Nigeria making way for the signing of a peace accord.

This is second street protest by the returnee soldiers this month. Two weeks ago, the soldiers staged similar protests before the Defence Ministry and attempted to take the Minister of Defence and his deputies hostage until a contingent from the 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force stepped in.

Under Taylor militia fighters were brought in as uniformed government soldiers and the army swelled to a fighting force of more than 6,000 men and women.

A nation-wide recruitment drive by the private US military company DynCorp is currently underway. Former government soldiers have not been excluded from applying, though all successful candidates must have a clean human rights record and have completed a secondary school education.