June 26, 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 JUNE 26, 2006

1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--RADICAL CLERIC US SAYS IS TERRORIST TO LEAD PARLIAMENT (Somali Islamists have named a firebrand cleric wanted by the United States for alleged links to al-Qaeda to head their new parliament. Officials said Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys had been chosen to lead the Council of Islamic Courts, which will serve as a parliament for regions under the council's control. The appointment comes as the Islamic courts have shored up their control of Mogadishu and outlying towns following the dramatic victory of their militia fighters over a US-backed warlord alliance in the capital city this month. Sheik Aweys founded Mogadishu's first Islamic court and is believed to have orchestrated the Islamic takeover. He has been operating in the central Galgudud region, where he has established sharia, or Islamic, law. He has been designated a terrorist by the US and is subject to US sanctions for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. His suspected terrorist links were a key reason why Washington backed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, formed in February by warlords who said the Islamists were harbouring extremists.)

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--HOLLOW US DEFENSE FOR AN EMPTY THREAT (The news that North Korean is preparing to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time since 1998 is the latest "threat" to roil the international scene. … But, by far, the most laughable news is the US government announcement that it is activating its missile defense system. This, no doubt, is causing the North Korean leaders to shake - in fits of laughter. One can only imagine some flunky saying, "Good news, Dear Leader: the American imperialists have activated their missile defense system. Now we can launch." The activation of the system is what one can only call a Pyrrhic readiness gesture, considering the system has a particularly distinguished record of failures in its operational tests to date and is still considered to be in the laughing-stock stage by most impartial experts. … And the command and control system necessary to link everything together was cited in a recent report by the Pentagon's Inspector General's Office as having such poor network security that it very well could be hacked. That report proved so embarrassing that the Pentagon subsequently removed it from the inspector general's website. However, there is one bit of good news. Samson said the program did have significant success in that last December the MDA held a flight test where the major goal was to get the rocket off the ground. That they were able to do.)

3//The Japan Times, Japan--JAPAN GIRDS FOR N. KOREAN BRINKMANSHIP (With no immediate resolution in sight to the North Korean missile crisis, Japanese government officials are saying they are getting ready for a long war of nerves. But one thing is clear. While Tokyo has yet to determine the actual danger level, many officials say the threat will not be an effective bargaining tool like it was eight years ago when North Korea first test-fired a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. As a result of the 1998 launch, the United States eventually agreed in 1999 to ease economic sanctions against North Korea in return for Pyongyang's promise to freeze launches of long-range ballistic missiles. "You should look at what North Korea did last time," said a senior Defense Agency official. "But this time, the international situation is different. The same tactics won't work any more." … Since the last missile crisis with Pyongyang, Japan has enacted several laws to enable the government to impose sanctions against North Korea, such as by freezing cash transfers between the two countries and banning ferry services.)

4//The Daily Times, Pakistan--PAKISTAN TO ASK FOR NUCLEAR COOPERATION AT TALKS WITH US (Pakistan will seek closer nuclear energy cooperation with the United States as the two countries hold a crucial dialogue on energy collaboration in Washington on June 26. Asked if Pakistan would raise the issue of nuclear cooperation at the meeting, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said: “We have a well-known position and will make our point once again.” An inter-ministerial delegation led by Mukhtar Ahmad, advisor to the prime minister on energy, will represent Pakistan at the talks and has already left for the US, said a senior government official. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Karen Herbert will lead the US side at the dialogue. The Pakistan delegation will also hold discussions with other officials of the Department of Energy, and visit US laboratories and facilities outside Washington. It will also meet with representatives of the private sector to discuss ways to promote bilateral cooperation in the field of energy, said a statement issued by the FO. … The delegation will give a detailed briefing to the US authorities about the proposed transnational gas pipeline projects is involved in, including the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) pipeline, and power transmission lines from Central Asia. … The US-Pakistan dialogue is expected to give special attention to the IPI project as the US is still pressing Pakistan and India to abandon the $7 billion project with Tehran. However, both Pakistan and India need natural gas to power their growing industrial sectors.)

5//MercoPress, Uruguay--LULA CONFIRMS RE-ELECTION BID AND LEADS 3 TO 1 IN POLLS (Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Saturday in Brasilia his re-election bid for the coming general election next October 1. Lula da Silva made the long expected announcement official during a convention of his Workers Party in Brasilia before 4.000 delegates, members of Congress and grass root leaders. … The announcement puts an end to months of speculation when the former metal workers union leader said last February that the “electoral campaign should not be advanced” so the opposition did not have a chance to criticise him. … President Lula has managed to remain immune to the corruption scandals which have rocked his administration and enjoys high popularity ratings, mainly because of the economic stability, low inflation and higher incomes his orthodox administration has managed. Besides, the Lula administration has invested huge resources in social programs to help millions of poor Brazilians. In Brazil well over half the population lives below the poverty line.)

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1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia June 26, 2006

RADICAL CLERIC US SAYS IS TERRORIST TO LEAD PARLIAMENT

MOGADISHU: Somali Islamists have named a firebrand cleric wanted by the United States for alleged links to al-Qaeda to head their new parliament.

Officials said Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys had been chosen to lead the Council of Islamic Courts, which will serve as a parliament for regions under the council's control.

The appointment comes as the Islamic courts have shored up their control of Mogadishu and outlying towns following the dramatic victory of their militia fighters over a US-backed warlord alliance in the capital city this month.

Sheik Aweys founded Mogadishu's first Islamic court and is believed to have orchestrated the Islamic takeover. He has been operating in the central Galgudud region, where he has established sharia, or Islamic, law.

He has been designated a terrorist by the US and is subject to US sanctions for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. His suspected terrorist links were a key reason why Washington backed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, formed in February by warlords who said the Islamists were harbouring extremists.

(SNIP)

In the courts' shake-up, two other hardline clerics, Omar Iman Abubakar and Abdullahi Ali Afrah, were named as deputy chairmen. Muhamoud Sheik Ibrahim Suleh, who declared jihad or holy war against the US-backed warlords, became secretary-general.

A key leader in the fighting, the governor of Lower Shabelle, Yusuf Mohamed Siad, was named deputy head of the executive committee, in effect putting his region under the control of the courts.

Somali observers said the move fell short of declaring Somalia an Islamic republic, but indicated the Islamists were determined to exert their control across the entire country.

"This is one step short of calling for the official establishment of the Islamic Republic of Somalia," said Ahmed Hassan, a Somali democracy advocate.

The Islamists have vehemently denied any links to al-Qaeda or any other brand of terrorism and have insisted they are interested only in restoring law and order in Somalia.

Somalia has lacked an effective government since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, paving the way for the rise of the now-defeated warlords who subdivided the country into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jun 24, 2006

HOLLOW US DEFENSE FOR AN EMPTY THREAT
By David Isenberg
(David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms-control and national-security issues.)

WASHINGTON - The news that North Korean is preparing to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time since 1998 is the latest "threat" to roil the international scene.

Predictably, duly certified experts have gone public to wring their hands, intone what a grave menace such a launch represents, and prescribe solutions. Thus far, the most ludicrous is the June 22 Washington Post op-ed by Ashton B Carter and William J Perry, who were respectively assistant secretary of defense and secretary of defense under US president Bill Clinton and are now professors at Harvard and Stanford universities, who wrote that the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong 2 missile before it can be launched.

This is premature, to say the least, considering North Korea may not even have an ICBM. According to DefenseTech, a leading website on military technology, the North Koreans have previously launched exactly one intermediate-range ballistic missile. That missile, a combination of smaller Nodong and Scud missiles - went about 2,000 kilometers or so.

Now, US intelligence assumes the North Koreans have been working on strapping together more Nodong and Scud engines for an ICBM - something that can reach three to five times as far, and hit the United States. But no one has actually seen the missile. Even how many stages the mystery missile has is unknown; some folks say two, others say three.

But, by far, the most laughable news is the US government announcement that it is activating its missile defense system. This, no doubt, is causing the North Korean leaders to shake - in fits of laughter. One can only imagine some flunky saying, "Good news, Dear Leader: the American imperialists have activated their missile defense system. Now we can launch."

The activation of the system is what one can only call a Pyrrhic readiness gesture, considering the system has a particularly distinguished record of failures in its operational tests to date and is still considered to be in the laughing-stock stage by most impartial experts.

(SNIP)

The Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation put out a news release noting that the past tests of the system prove an intercept is feasible only:

• When operators know in advance the location of a single target missile, the date and time of its launch and its flight trajectory.
• When a surrogate booster rocket launches the missile, which flies at slower than normal speed in daylight and good weather.
• When the target re-entry vehicle is equipped with global-positioning technology and a radar beacon to send its position to a surrogate ground-control radar.

Actually, things are even worse. According to Victoria Samson, also of the Center for Defense Information, the GMD program has nine interceptors on the ground in Fort Greely, Alaska, and two more in Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. And the last test intercept was made in October 2002. The past two times - December 2004 and February 2005 - the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) tried to attempt an intercept, the US rocket didn't even leave the launch pad. (For the latter, it turned out that the arms holding the missiles up in their silos weren't properly built for the salty environment in which they were fielded, so the MDA is replacing those components in all the silos.)

Furthermore, Samson notes, the radar system that is needed to help detect missile launches, the sea-based X-Band Radar (SBX), is still undergoing tests outside Hawaii - nowhere near its home port of Adak, Alaska. The satellite network being built to track missiles once they're launched - the Space-Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) - isn't planning its initial launch of two test satellites until next year, with the goal of getting the system up and running somewhere around 2012.

And the command and control system necessary to link everything together was cited in a recent report by the Pentagon's Inspector General's Office as having such poor network security that it very well could be hacked. That report proved so embarrassing that the Pentagon subsequently removed it from the inspector general's website.

However, there is one bit of good news. Samson said the program did have significant success in that last December the MDA held a flight test where the major goal was to get the rocket off the ground. That they were able to do.

3//The Japan Times, Japan Sunday, June 25, 2006

Pyongyang Looking for Attention
JAPAN GIRDS FOR N. KOREAN BRINKMANSHIP

By Reiji Yoshida, Staff writer

With no immediate resolution in sight to the North Korean missile crisis, Japanese government officials are saying they are getting ready for a long war of nerves.

But one thing is clear. While Tokyo has yet to determine the actual danger level, many officials say the threat will not be an effective bargaining tool like it was eight years ago when North Korea first test-fired a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean.

As a result of the 1998 launch, the United States eventually agreed in 1999 to ease economic sanctions against North Korea in return for Pyongyang's promise to freeze launches of long-range ballistic missiles.

"You should look at what North Korea did last time," said a senior Defense Agency official. "But this time, the international situation is different. The same tactics won't work any more."

The media first broke the news of the North's apparent preparation of a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile launch at a base on the northeastern coast earlier this month, and Japanese intelligence officials and Aegis-equipped vessels have been on high alert at least since then, according to government sources.

But because there are conflicting reports on whether the missile has been fueled, the government officials have yet to determine the threat level.

"There has not been a major change in the situation yet," a key government source said Friday evening, indicating Tokyo believed that as of that point liquid fuel had not been pumped into the missile yet.

"You can't predict what (North Korea) will do. That's the big trouble," the official said, hinting Japan will have to remain on alert for awhile.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang has recently started making diplomatic gestures to seek direct negotiations with the United States, fueling speculation it may be trying to use the activity around the launch pad as a bargaining tool.

(SNIP)

But the situation surrounding North Korea is different than in 1998. Indeed, the U.S. and Japan this time have already indicated they would immediately consider economic sanctions against Pyongyang should it launch a Taepodong-2, thought to be the first North Korean missile capable of reaching parts of the U.S. mainland.

Since the last missile crisis with Pyongyang, Japan has enacted several laws to enable the government to impose sanctions against North Korea, such as by freezing cash transfers between the two countries and banning ferry services.

And even China, Pyongyang's closest ally, has expressed strong opposition to the launch.
Japanese officials downplay the threat of the possible missile launch, saying the Taepodong-2 appears to be a system targeted at the U.S. and not Japan.

(SNIP)

Nevertheless, firing the new missile would pose serious problems for Japan because it would likely terminate frameworks of dialogue with North Korea and put the reclusive state in an even tighter corner, a top Defense Agency official said.

"International frameworks such as the six-party talks would be shattered (if the missile is fired). That would be big trouble" for Japan, the official said.

(MORE)

4//The Daily Times, Pakistan Sunday, June 25, 2006

PAKISTAN TO ASK FOR NUCLEAR COOPERATION AT TALKS WITH US
Pakistan-US dialogue starts in Washington tomorrow

By Fida Hussain

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will seek closer nuclear energy cooperation with the United States as the two countries hold a crucial dialogue on energy collaboration in Washington on June 26.

Asked if Pakistan would raise the issue of nuclear cooperation at the meeting, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said: “We have a well-known position and will make our point once again.”

An inter-ministerial delegation led by Mukhtar Ahmad, advisor to the prime minister on energy, will represent Pakistan at the talks and has already left for the US, said a senior government official. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Karen Herbert will lead the US side at the dialogue.

The Pakistan delegation will also hold discussions with other officials of the Department of Energy, and visit US laboratories and facilities outside Washington. It will also meet with representatives of the private sector to discuss ways to promote bilateral cooperation in the field of energy, said a statement issued by the FO.

The Pakistan delegation includes officials from the ministries of water and power, petroleum and natural resources, finance and foreign affairs.

An official said Islamabad wanted the US to treat Pakistan and India equally. Pakistan wants a deal with the US for nuclear energy cooperation similar to the US-India nuclear deal signed in March this year. Being a frontline state in the US war on terror, Pakistan should be treated better than the way Washington treated New Delhi in the recent past, the official said.

(SNIP)

The delegation will give a detailed briefing to the US authorities about the proposed transnational gas pipeline projects is involved in, including the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) pipeline, and power transmission lines from Central Asia.

Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, at a recently held Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Trade Conference in Islamabad, agreed on a transmission line to bring power from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

The US-Pakistan dialogue is expected to give special attention to the IPI project as the US is still pressing Pakistan and India to abandon the $7 billion project with Tehran. However, both Pakistan and India need natural gas to power their growing industrial sectors.

5//MercoPress, Uruguay Saturday, 24 June 2006

LULA CONFIRMS RE-ELECTION BID AND LEADS 3 TO 1 IN POLLS

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Saturday in Brasilia his re-election bid for the coming general election next October 1.

Lula da Silva made the long expected announcement official during a convention of his Workers Party in Brasilia before 4.000 delegates, members of Congress and grass root leaders.

“I’m here to tell you I’ve accepted once again, the call to continue the struggle for the construction of a more fair and independent Brazil, where every Brazilian can have three meals a day, a job, education and health, and live in a more modern and humane country”, said Lula before the crowd that shouted for his re-election.

(SNIP)

The announcement puts an end to months of speculation when the former metal workers union leader said last February that the “electoral campaign should not be advanced” so the opposition did not have a chance to criticise him.

Leaders from the Workers Party said the “electoral machine” was ready and “singing” and the party’s chairman Ricardo Berzoni added that President Lula “has lost 14 kilos” and looking “much younger”.

The party’s grassroots organization and militancy are committed to support candidate Lula in spite of the opposition’s offensive to discredit his administration’s “corruption record” and favoritism in the public opinion polls.

(SNIP)

The campaign slogan is already in the streets of Brazil and reads that “Lula again with the will of the people”, which besides in Portuguese rhymes impeccably.

President Lula has managed to remain immune to the corruption scandals which have rocked his administration and enjoys high popularity ratings, mainly because of the economic stability, low inflation and higher incomes his orthodox administration has managed.

Besides, the Lula administration has invested huge resources in social programs to help millions of poor Brazilians. In Brazil well over half the population lives below the poverty line.

Since the end of 2005, Lula has been leading in opinion polls as the favourite candidate of Brazilians and the latest surveys show him trebling his main opponent Social democrat Geraldo Alckmin, if the elections were held today.