May 31, 2006

World Media Watch

edited 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 MAY 31, 2006

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--KHAMENEI IN CONTROL AND READY TO ‘HAGGLE’ (For months, the US news media, the attention of pundits and elected officials have been riveted on the provocative rhetoric of ultra-conservative Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. President George W Bush in particular has invoked Ahmadinejad's alleged drive for nuclear weapons and desire to destroy Israel to justify US isolation and pressure on the regime. But the almost exclusive focus on Ahmadinejad has been misplaced, because all the evidence indicates that it is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who is directing Iranian foreign policy. Despite Ahmadinejad's clever exploitation of the nuclear issue to strengthen his domestic political position, he is playing second fiddle on this issue. … At a briefing in Washington last week, Hadi Semati, a professor at Tehran University who is now a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, said Ahmadinejad "is third in command" after Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei and the council, he said, "are not going to let the president decide anything on the nuclear issue". … The evidence suggests that the realists who rule in Tehran are offering Washington a transition to a new, more stable Middle East in which Iran's role is more prominent but also more consciously devoted to bringing about change without violence. Up to now, however, the Bush administration has not been willing to accept any such limitation on its power.)

2//Channel NewsAsia International, Singapore--RUSSIA, CHINA CLOSE RANKS IN CENTRAL ASIA (Russia and China moved to fortify their growing security cooperation in Central Asia but reassured the United States that their new-found unity of purpose in the prized region was not designed to subvert US interests there. Russian President Vladimir Putin however acknowledged growing "competition" to a new Central Asian security organisation led by Moscow and Beijing while Chinese President Hu Jintao said the new group had become an "important force" for peace and stability in the world. In the first meeting of its kind, parliamentary leaders from the six countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO] met on Tuesday in Moscow to discuss ways to harmonise their laws and begin building a legislative dimension for the grouping. … Russian and Chinese media in recent months have evoked a "big Central Asia" initiative, described as a US plan to set up a new grouping of Central Asian states - excluding Russia and China - to coordinate work in various fields. A report in the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta on May 13 speculated that even Iran could be asked to participate in the new US-inspired grouping. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev however said Tuesday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the leaders who had confirmed his attendance at an SCO summit scheduled to be held in Shanghai next month, ITAR-TASS news agency said.)

3//The Moscow Times, Russia--WEST CHIDED FOR BEING STUCK IN 1990s MINDSET (Western leaders who have yet to come to terms with a newly enriched, and newly empowered, Russia are largely to blame for the strain in relations with Moscow. That was the consensus of most Russian officials, public figures and political analysts -- including many regarded as pro-Western -- at a one-day conference Tuesday at Moscow's Ararat Park Hyatt hotel. "I am an avid supporter of developing relations with the West," Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, said at the beginning of the conference. "But the West should not be telling Russia that it is headed in the wrong direction." … Russians now expect the West not to meddle in their internal politics and in their relations with former Soviet republics, and they demand that the West acknowledge that Russia's oil and gas reserves are a legitimate foreign-policy tool, she explained. Shevtsova added that West's approach in these areas was diametrically opposed to Russia's. … Russia's intellectual elite have also grown weary of the Western media's portrayal of the country as backward, said Ella Pamfilova, head of the Council for Fostering the Development of Civil Society. They are also dismayed by the hypocrisy of U.S. leaders who castigate Russia for backsliding on democracy while praising some post-Soviet authoritarian regimes for being democratic, Pamfilova said. She was apparently referring to recent remarks made by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Pamfilova also warned that the United States, in criticizing Russia, might help the country elect an anti-Western president in 2008.)

4//MENA Report, Jordan--BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON: PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS KEEP MIDDLE EAST WATER FLOWING (The water needs of Middle Eastern countries are growing at a significant rate, while the cost of providing this valuable resource is increasing while nonrenewable groundwater reserves are shrinking. As a result, Middle Eastern governments are increasingly turning to public-private partnerships [PPPs] to manage their water resources and everything related to water distribution. … Because of all this governments in the Middle East and around the world are increasingly turning to the private sector for support in developing and delivering water and wastewater services. Private corporations are brought in to provide new technologies, increase efficiency, and help governments ensure continuous, universal access to quality water. Private companies are also used because they can often provide the capital needed to bring aging infrastructures in line with modern standards. “The private sector should be excited about the trend toward privatization,” says El-Husseini. “MENA governments are expected to spend more than US$100 billion in the water sector in the next five years, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE together spending US$57 billion.” … In addition, redesigning tariffs to better manage demand and improve cost recovery is still a taboo subject carrying significant political and social risks. Generally though, the more sophisticated the tariff structure, the better a government is able to manage demand and fully recoup costs. “Successful implementation of tariff restructuring often combines several key ingredients,” says El-Husseini. “Namely, a thorough assessment of consumers’ ability and willingness to pay for services, the timing of tariff changes in tandem with significant and visible improvements in service, and a communications campaign that explains the rationale for and benefits of tariff changes and disassociates tariff increases from private sector participation.”)

5//Financial Times, UK--ITALIAN MAYORAL POLLS BOOST PRODI’S COALTION (Italy’s ruling centre-left coalition on Tuesday looked to have survived its first electoral test since Romano Prodi, prime minister, defeated Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier, in national elections last month. In four big cities where mayoral elections were held on Sunday and Monday, Mr Prodi’s alliance kept control of Naples, Rome and Turin, and was only narrowly behind in the centre-right stronghold of Milan. The centre-left coalition needed a good performance in the elections to challenge Mr Berlusconi’s assertion that Mr Prodi’s hair’s-breadth victory in the April 9-10 general election was a fluke or the result of fraud. … ministers have begun to prepare the Italian public for unwelcome news by stating that the Berlusconi government left the public finances in much worse shape than had been anticipated. Antonio Di Pietro, infrastructure minister, said on Monday: “There is no money, and the risk is that many infrastructure projects are destined to be put on hold.”)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong May 31, 2006

KHAMENEI IN CONTROL AND READY TO ‘HAGGLE’
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - For months, the US news media, the attention of pundits and elected officials have been riveted on the provocative rhetoric of ultra-conservative Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. President George W Bush in particular has invoked Ahmadinejad's alleged drive for nuclear weapons and desire to destroy Israel to justify US isolation and pressure on the regime.

But the almost exclusive focus on Ahmadinejad has been misplaced, because all the evidence indicates that it is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who is directing Iranian foreign policy. Despite Ahmadinejad's clever exploitation of the nuclear issue to strengthen his domestic political position, he is playing second fiddle on this issue.

Ahmadinejad "doesn't have much to do with the nuclear issue", David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, the most experienced US non-governmental expert on Iran's nuclear program, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty immediately after the Iranian president's election. Albright observed that the policy on Iran's nuclear program is run by the Supreme National Security Council "directly under the Supreme Leader" (Khamenei).

At a briefing in Washington last week, Hadi Semati, a professor at Tehran University who is now a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, said Ahmadinejad "is third in command" after Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei and the council, he said, "are not going to let the president decide anything on the nuclear issue".

The Supreme National Security Council includes representatives appointed by the Supreme Leader as well as top officials from the military, foreign affairs, intelligence and other national-security-related agencies, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It determines national-defense and security policies on the basis of general guidelines laid down by the Supreme Leader.

(SNIP)

Merchants "haggle" over the price of the goods, and Khamenei and his advisers are hoping to extract a high price from the United States in regard to a new regional order in return for guarantees against an Iranian nuclear-weapons program and other concessions of concern to the Bush administration.

The secret Iranian proposal of 2003, which called for US "recognition of Iran's legitimate security interests in the region with according [that is, concomitant] defense capacity", suggests what Iran hopes to get from the haggling with Washington. The regional order sought by Tehran would still recognize the predominance of US power, but with new limits.

The evidence suggests that the realists who rule in Tehran are offering Washington a transition to a new, more stable Middle East in which Iran's role is more prominent but also more consciously devoted to bringing about change without violence. Up to now, however, the Bush administration has not been willing to accept any such limitation on its power.

2//Channel NewsAsia International, Singapore Posted: 31 May 2006 0523 hrs

RUSSIA, CHINA CLOSE RANKS IN CENTRAL ASIA
Agence France Presse

MOSCOW : Russia and China moved to fortify their growing security cooperation in Central Asia but reassured the United States that their new-found unity of purpose in the prized region was not designed to subvert US interests there.

Russian President Vladimir Putin however acknowledged growing "competition" to a new Central Asian security organisation led by Moscow and Beijing while Chinese President Hu Jintao said the new group had become an "important force" for peace and stability in the world.

In the first meeting of its kind, parliamentary leaders from the six countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) met on Tuesday in Moscow to discuss ways to harmonise their laws and begin building a legislative dimension for the grouping.

The SCO parliamentary leaders, including Wu Bangguo, chairman of the standing committee of the Chinese legislature, held a meeting at the Kremlin with Putin, who said involvement of national legislatures in the organisation would "enrich the partnership" of its member states.

Led by China and Russia, the SCO, founded five years ago, also includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Other key countries in the region - India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan - currently have observer status and have also expressed interest in becoming full members.

The United States however is not a member and, according to sources, is growing increasingly uneasy at the direction and purpose of the organisation, which has been described by experts as the foundation of a new Eurasian counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

(SNIP)

In his meeting with the lawmakers, Putin said there was growing international interest in the SCO which he said "has become an important, influential regional organisation" in the five years since its founding.

He also cited efforts to counter this growing influence.

"We see in the international arena there are attempts to create competition to our organisation," Putin said.

"I think it would be right if we did not engage in this and instead continued with the positive, constructive work that we have been doing for the past several years."

Putin did not refer to the United States explicitly but Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the Russian parliament, made clear afterwards that Moscow had Washington foremost in its mind.

"Is it possible to fight terrorism and drug trafficking in the region without the participation of the states of the region? Of course not," Gryzlov said in remarks broadcast on state television.

"But a proposal to create in Central Asia an organisation parallel to the SCO, which the United States has called for, suggest that this can be done. This does not help the fight against threats. It only makes the threats bigger."

Gryzlov did not elaborate, but reports in Russian and Chinese media in recent months have evoked a "big Central Asia" initiative, described as a US plan to set up a new grouping of Central Asian states - excluding Russia and China - to coordinate work in various fields.

A report in the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta on May 13 speculated that even Iran could be asked to participate in the new US-inspired grouping.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev however said Tuesday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the leaders who had confirmed his attendance at an SCO summit scheduled to be held in Shanghai next month, ITAR-TASS news agency said.

(MORE)

3//The Moscow Times, Russia Wednesday, May 31, 2006. Issue 3422. Page 1.

WEST CHIDED FOR BEING STUCK IN 1990s MINDSET
By Nabi Abdullaev, Staff Writer

Western leaders who have yet to come to terms with a newly enriched, and newly empowered, Russia are largely to blame for the strain in relations with Moscow.

That was the consensus of most Russian officials, public figures and political analysts -- including many regarded as pro-Western -- at a one-day conference Tuesday at Moscow's Ararat Park Hyatt hotel.

"I am an avid supporter of developing relations with the West," Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, said at the beginning of the conference. "But the West should not be telling Russia that it is headed in the wrong direction."

Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, and Viktor Kuvaldin, a political analyst with the Gorbachev Foundation, said the foreign relations model adopted by the West in the 1990s needed to be revised.

"The model in which Russia imitates democracy and the West responds by imitating partnership has died out," Shevtsova said.

Moscow's expectations have dramatically changed, Shevtsova said.

Russians now expect the West not to meddle in their internal politics and in their relations with former Soviet republics, and they demand that the West acknowledge that Russia's oil and gas reserves are a legitimate foreign-policy tool, she explained. Shevtsova added that West's approach in these areas was diametrically opposed to Russia's.

Political leaders from Washington to Brussels have voiced concern about the Kremlin's abolition of the election of governors, increased oversight of the media and use of the energy sector to influence events in Ukraine and Georgia, among other issues.

The United States, in particular, is upset with Russia for opposing sanctions against Iran as it pursues its uranium-enrichment program.

William Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, told conference participants that U.S.-Russia relations were not in great shape, but he stressed that it was in the interest of the whole world for the two countries to work together on nuclear energy and other sensitive issues.

And Marc Franco, head of the European Commission's Russia delegation, warned the Kremlin not to spark a new Cold War with the West.

Participants were split on whether Russian leaders' anti-Western rhetoric reflected public thinking or whether that rhetoric was a tool used by politicians to consolidate their power.

A poll released this month by the independent Levada Center showed Russians steadily losing confidence in the West: As of April, 8 percent of Russians favored closer ties with the United States, compared to 13 percent three years earlier.

Analogously, 24 percent favored stronger relations with Western Europe as of last month, while 32 percent felt that way in April 2003. The recent survey included 1,600 respondents and had a margin of error of less than 3 percent.

Shevtsova ruled out a confrontation between the West and Russia, given their interdependence. But she said that "misunderstanding and grumbling" were inevitable.

The latest "misunderstanding" came at last week's summit in Sochi between European Union leaders and President Vladimir Putin.

The parties failed to hammer out an agreement on opening access to their natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure. The summit was viewed as a dress rehearsal for the Group of Eight's July summit in St. Petersburg.

Russia's intellectual elite have also grown weary of the Western media's portrayal of the country as backward, said Ella Pamfilova, head of the Council for Fostering the Development of Civil Society.

They are also dismayed by the hypocrisy of U.S. leaders who castigate Russia for backsliding on democracy while praising some post-Soviet authoritarian regimes for being democratic, Pamfilova said.

She was apparently referring to recent remarks made by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Pamfilova also warned that the United States, in criticizing Russia, might help the country elect an anti-Western president in 2008.

(MORE)

4//MENA Report, Jordan Wednesday 31st, May 2006 -- 01:59 GMT

BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON: PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS KEEP MIDDLE EAST WATER FLOWING

The water needs of Middle Eastern countries are growing at a significant rate, while the cost of providing this valuable resource is increasing while nonrenewable groundwater reserves are shrinking.

As a result, Middle Eastern governments are increasingly turning to public-private partnerships (PPPs) to manage their water resources and everything related to water distribution.

The amount of available renewable water per person in Middle East and North African (MENA) countries is one-fifth of what it is in the rest of the world, and 80% of the countries fall below the international water scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic meters (m3) per person per year. In addition, water coverage is limited. Potable water network coverage reaches an average of 75% of the population in MENA countries.

However, many MENA countries have some of the highest consumption rates per capita in the world. Consumption per person in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, is among the highest in the world, standing at around 570 liters per person a day, more than three times the world average.

“High consumption rates are mainly driven by aggressive agricultural policies, which sometimes account for more than 90% of a country’s water usage,” says Ibrahim El-Husseini, Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm. “This is further accentuated by high technical and commercial losses in the water systems, also referred to as UFW for unaccounted for water, reaching in some places as high as 40–50%.”

These high consumption rates have led to the rapid depletion of groundwater resources. “Nonrenewable reserves that took hundreds or thousands of years to accumulate would be depleted in a couple of decades at current exploitation rates,” explains Dr. Walid Fayad, Principal in Booz Allen’s Global Energy and Utilities Practice.

“Because natural aquifers are being significantly stretched,” adds Fayad, “there is an increasing reliance on desalinated water, which costs up to three times as much as groundwater. In most of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, it accounts for more than 50% of domestic water use.” Between 2005 and 2015, MENA countries are expected to spend US$24 billion in desalination costs, with Saudi Arabia and UAE together spending nearly US$13 billion.
(SNIP)

Because of all this governments in the Middle East and around the world are increasingly turning to the private sector for support in developing and delivering water and wastewater services. Private corporations are brought in to provide new technologies, increase efficiency, and help governments ensure continuous, universal access to quality water. Private companies are also used because they can often provide the capital needed to bring aging infrastructures in line with modern standards.

“The private sector should be excited about the trend toward privatization,” says El-Husseini. “MENA governments are expected to spend more than US$100 billion in the water sector in the next five years, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE together spending US$57 billion.”

Experiences have shown that private sector partnerships can bring significant improvements to the water sector, says El-Husseini. Morocco, Jordan, the UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia are all undertaking privatization projects and are showing early indications of success. However, he cautions, “projects succeed only if they are properly conceived and implemented. Privatization must be supported by a holistic reform approach, one that involves carefully reviewing current water sector policies and institutions and selecting an appropriate partnership strategy.”

Governments have to decide, when pursuing privatization, how to un-bundle their water assets and present them to the marketplace. “Governments generally divide their water sector either by geography or by value chain,” says Dr. Fayad. Saudi Arabia, for example, has divided its water sector into geographic regions, where water directorates are responsible for water and wastewater services in an integrated way. Private sector participation will be sought at the level of these regions. In contrast, in Abu Dhabi and Tunisia, the water and wastewater sectors are separated and managed by different financially independent entities at the national level.

Possible Forms of Private Sector Participation
Governments must also decide the form of private sector participation in water/wastewater. A private entity may do as little as operate a single facility or may do as much as own facilities and take full operational and commercial responsibility for water/wastewater service delivery.

(SNIP)

In addition, redesigning tariffs to better manage demand and improve cost recovery is still a taboo subject carrying significant political and social risks. Generally though, the more sophisticated the tariff structure, the better a government is able to manage demand and fully recoup costs.

“Successful implementation of tariff restructuring often combines several key ingredients,” says El-Husseini. “Namely, a thorough assessment of consumers’ ability and willingness to pay for services, the timing of tariff changes in tandem with significant and visible improvements in service, and a communications campaign that explains the rationale for and benefits of tariff changes and disassociates tariff increases from private sector participation.”

Ultimately, governments pursuing private-public partnerships must reform their entire institutional setting and reorganize their existing institutions. In many new frameworks, the government focuses on planning and policy setting and hands over operation of physical assets to the private sector and responsibility for tariff setting and regulation development to an independent regulator.

The transition to a new framework can’t happen overnight. “Introducing private sector participation into the water sector is a journey, not a single event,” says El-Husseini. “And its success is contingent on how well governments prepare for it.”

5//Financial Times, UK Published: May 29 2006 16:09 | Last updated: May 30 2006 09:56

ITALIAN MAYORAL POLLS BOOST PRODI’S COALTION
By Tony Barber in Rome

Italy’s ruling centre-left coalition on Tuesday looked to have survived its first electoral test since Romano Prodi, prime minister, defeated Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier, in national elections last month.

In four big cities where mayoral elections were held on Sunday and Monday, Mr Prodi’s alliance kept control of Naples, Rome and Turin, and was only narrowly behind in the centre-right stronghold of Milan.

The centre-left coalition needed a good performance in the elections to challenge Mr Berlusconi’s assertion that Mr Prodi’s hair’s-breadth victory in the April 9-10 general election was a fluke or the result of fraud.

The new government has a tiny majority in the Senate, parliament’s upper house, and consists of a multitude of parties that may find it hard to strike compromises when hard choices have to be made about controlling public expenditure.

However, ministers have begun to prepare the Italian public for unwelcome news by stating that the Berlusconi government left the public finances in much worse shape than had been anticipated.

Antonio Di Pietro, infrastructure minister, said on Monday: “There is no money, and the risk is that many infrastructure projects are destined to be put on hold.”

Mr Prodi’s government has made clear it has little enthusiasm for one of Mr Berlusconi’s grandest schemes, a controversial plan to build the world’s longest suspension bridge to link Sicily with the Italian mainland.

On the other hand, businesses and private travellers have long complained of under-investment in Italy’s congested and antiquated road and rail networks, sectors where they would be disappointed to see cutbacks.

(SNIP)

Several politicians of national stature were fighting the contests that concluded on Monday, including Walter Veltroni, who is often tipped as a possible future centre-left premier and who easily won re-election as mayor of Rome.

In Milan, Letizia Moratti, a businesswoman and Mr Berlusconi’s former education minister, was projected to win 49-51 per cent against 48-50 per cent for Bruno Ferrante, the centre-left candidate.

Milan, a centre-right fortress, is the political homeland of Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party and the populist Northern League, and the city’s mayoral election was a big test for Mr Berlusconi’s ability to hold his alliance together.