World Media Watch for June 14, 2002

BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.

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1//The Telegraph, UK-OPINION: WILL BLAIR'S OWN GOALS HAND THE PRIZE TO THE CHANCELLOR? (In fact, Mr Blair is rapidly becoming associated in voters' minds with the worst of Britain - spin, smears and a "no can do" culture. A tipping point has been reached after which a Prime Minister who could do no wrong now seems unable to do anything right.... Senior civil servants describe the mood among the Blair circle as jittery bordering on desperate.)

2//The Globe and Mail, Canada--CHANGES IN U.S. LAW COULD INCREASE SMOG IN CANADA (Proposals announced Thursday would make it easier for U.S. utilities to expand their coal-burning power plants, which are a major source of transboundary pollution..."We are concerned that the flow of essentially polluted air across the border with the United States might continue at a level that is not what we want - i.e. too high."

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--INDIA CONSIDERS RADICAL REVIEW OF US TIES (Determined and coercive US diplomacy has helped reduce somewhat the possibility of India and Pakistan blowing each other up. But in the process the United States has provoked a great deal of disappointment and anger in India, the one ally in South Asia it could count on for unquestioning support, perhaps even more than from its longtime European allies.

4//The Japan Times, Japan--JAPAN DELAYS RETALIATION ON STEEL TARIFFS (Japan will indefinitely postpone retaliatory measures against recently imposed U.S. steel import tariffs to give Washington time to exempt more Japanese items, the trade ministry said Thursday. ...Washington later decided to allow additional requests for exemptions from domestic users and foreign producers, which effectively nullified its earlier-stated deadline. With Washington's decision-making timetable apparently up in the air, Japan's postponement of retaliatory steps is, likewise, indefinite, ministry officials said.)

5//The Post, Zambia--DEVELOPING COUNTRIES URGE EU, US TO REMOVE SUBSIDIES (The Americans are justifying their farm subsidies and urging more extensive use of biotechnology in agriculture as a way of producing more food of higher quality. But leaders of developing countries dismissed the American arguments as untrue. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said protectionism is the enemy of the hungry, not lack of improved seeds. President Museveni said African farmers needed to raise their sights beyond mere subsistence agriculture.)

6//Stratfor Strategic Forecasting, USA--U.S.-MOROCCO TRADE DEAL SENDS MESSAGE TO WORLD (The deal with Morocco is really more about politics than economics...Morocco is also an important partner in the war against terrorism, and Washington is likely using it as an example for other nations to show the benefits of cooperating with the U.S. security agenda...Using economic levers, including influencing International Monetary Fund policy, to achieve political goals is a time-honored tactic...The IMF has recently continued to dole out cash to Turkey, a critical strategic ally, while cutting off much-needed funding to Argentina, which is not a major player in the anti-terrorism war.)

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1//The Telegraph Friday 14 June 2002
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/06/14/
do1401.xml&sSheet=/portal/2002/06/14/por_right.html

OPINION: WILL BLAIR'S OWN GOALS HAND THE PRIZE TO THE CHANCELLOR?
(Filed: 14/06/2002)

Four years ago, when World Cup fever was last raging, Tony Blair announced the award of a knighthood to Geoff Hurst, the hat-trick hero of 1966. The public loved it. With a flick of his political foot worthy of David Beckham, Mr Blair associated himself in the voters' minds with patriotic success and all that is best about Britain.

The patriotic spirit has returned this month, but how things have changed. The flags of St George fluttering over white vans are there to celebrate England's football success, but the Government is getting none of the credit. In fact, Mr Blair is rapidly becoming associated in voters' minds with the worst of Britain - spin, smears and a "no can do" culture. A tipping point has been reached after which a Prime Minister who could do no wrong now seems unable to do anything right.

The once unbeatable New Labour brand - with which Mr Blair has always been, as he might put it, so closely associated - is almost as tainted these days as the Tory one. Mr Blair himself, in the past the party's biggest asset, has become potentially its greatest liability. Where once he captured the national mood perfectly after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, now he has been caught trying to muscle in on the Queen Mother's lying-in-state. His once-admired ability to bring people into a big tent is now seen as hypocrisy, his presentational professionalism dismissed as cynical spin, his trademark contempt for ideology perceived as a belief vacuum. The voters have begun to point at Emperor Blair and ask whether he has no clothes.

The Conservatives may gain from this in the end but not yet - Iain Duncan Smith is not yet recognised, let alone admired, by the voters. The real beneficiary is Gordon Brown. As Mr Blair's star falls, so the Chancellor's rises and in the past three months the balance of power in Whitehall has shifted subtly from Number 10 to Number 11.

(SNIP)

The political tectonic plates are, however, shifting, creating a different mood at Number 10. Mr Blair seems strangely disengaged from domestic issues, preferring to concentrate on foreign affairs. Mr Campbell has developed a "devil may care" attitude to the media which gives the impression he does not intend to be around long. Senior civil servants describe the mood among the Blair circle as jittery bordering on desperate.

(SNIP)

The trouble for the Government - and for Mr Brown - is that Mr Blair is the lightning conductor, not the problem. As New Labour's figurehead, he is bearing the brunt of the public's frustration with the Government's failure to live up to its expectations about improving schools, hospitals and the transport network. The real issue is not sleaze or smears or special advisers but competence to govern. Everything Mr Blair does is seen through the filter of disappointment - a disappointment which is at times excessive because the excitement in May 1997 was too frenzied.

But Mr Brown is at least as responsible for the failings as Mr Blair. If he did get his heart's desire and reach Number 10 he would find himself getting the blame for them, too. Even Macavity could not find an alibi then.

2//The Globe and Mail POSTED AT 7:07 PM EDT Thursday, June 13
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/C/20020613/wpollu?hub
=homeBN&tf=tgam%252Frealtime%252Ffullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral
&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&slug=wpollu&date=20020613&archive=RTGAM&site=Front&
ad_page_name=breakingnews

CHANGES IN U.S. LAW COULD INCREASE SMOG IN CANADA
Canadian Press

Ottawa - Proposed amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act could result in increased smog in Canada, Environment Minister David Anderson says.

Proposals announced Thursday would make it easier for U.S. utilities to expand their coal-burning power plants, which are a major source of transboundary pollution.

U.S. environmentalists have said the changes would produce millions of tonnes of additional pollution.

"With the release of this report, the administration dropped a dirty bomb and it's going to cost thousands of American lives," said Buck Parker, executive director of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the White House argue the changes will actually encourage moves to cleaner technology. The intent is to give industries greater flexibility as they do maintenance on plants and expand electricity production without having to install a whole range of other emissions controls.

(SNIP)

But Mr. Anderson was skeptical.

"I have definite concerns about that," the environment minister said outside the House of Commons.

Mr. Anderson said the EPA has assured him the proposed amendments will not affect the Ozone Annex, a Canada-U.S. agreement intended to curb transboundary air pollution.

(SNIP)

Ted Boadway, executive director of health policy for the Ontario Medical Association, said citizens in both Canada and the U.S. should be concerned.

"Any time we miss an opportunity to take one chunk of the pollution and fix it, we simply miss the opportunity for a long time. What we're seeing now is something that won't be done that was supposed to be done."

(MORE)

3//Asia Times Online June 14, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DF14Df02.html

INDIA CONSIDERS RADICAL REVIEW OF US TIES
By Sultan Shahin

NEW DELHI - Determined and coercive US diplomacy has helped reduce somewhat the possibility of India and Pakistan blowing each other up. But in the process the United States has provoked a great deal of disappointment and anger in India, the one ally in South Asia it could count on for unquestioning support, perhaps even more than from its longtime European allies.

The result is a growing call in Indian pro-establishment circles for a radical reassessment of the country's ties with the US and, as Washington moves inevitably toward mediating the Kashmir dispute, these calls are going to grow even more strident.

The one measure that has actually helped defuse tensions somewhat is also what has infuriated India. This is the travel advisory issued on May 31 to US diplomats and tourists to leave India. Such a warning had already been issued with respect to Pakistan after the terrorist attacks in Karachi on May 8 in which more than 10 French workers were killed.

(SNIP)

This resulted in an exodus of many Western diplomats and tourists as most European governments followed suit with similar advisories. It was forced "home leave" for hundreds of foreigners stationed in India and Pakistan whose governments feared that an armed conflict, even a nuclear one, might break out any time.

(SNIP)

Not willing to blame the United States at first, Indian officials, analysts and business executives blamed Pakistan and the US media. They said Pakistan may have damaged India to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars with its loose talk about initiating nuclear war in the region and that the US administration played into the hysteria created by the media, raising fears of a nuclear war in the subcontinent to fever pitch. One observer noted that Indian industry may have received a crushing blow even before the first bullets had begun to fly.

(SNIP)

Gradually, disappointment began to grow into anger and Indian officials started suggesting that the travel advisory implicitly rewards Pakistan's policy of nuclear blackmail and brinkmanship.

There is no acknowledgement of the fact in India that it was almost immediately after this advisory that New Delhi started noticing and agreeing with the US that the level of Kashmiri infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) had indeed come down. Also, New Delhi started quoting with approval Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's pronouncements about closing the training camps permanently and stopping the flow of terrorists into Kashmir, although he has been saying this since his famous January 12 speech to the nation. India said that Musharraf finally seemed to be acting on his assurances that he would put an end to infiltration of militants across the LoC. The Indian government said it had intercepted messages to this effect.

And it was only after the advisory and the news of thousands of foreign nationals leaving, tourist and hotel bookings being canceled, business contracts being put on hold, and the economy being badly hit that New Delhi became amenable to pressure from US officials, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage first and now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to start taking measures to ease the tensions somewhat. These measures still do not include bringing back the army from the international borders and the LoC, as India would like to see more progress in the ground situation in Kashmir, but even the diplomatic and other measures taken have somewhat reduced the tensions.

(SNIP)

The travel advisory has not been withdrawn so far. Indeed US President George W Bush said on the eve of the Rumsfeld visit that the situation is worrying and precarious, meaning that the advisory cannot be withdrawn. The greatest worry for India, however, is that now US officials, Armitage in particular, are saying that with the specter of nuclear war hovering over the world, the Kashmir dispute has reached the top of the international agenda.

This means that Pakistan has succeeded in internationalizing the dispute, and if that is the case, even without any further US pressure Pakistan would not need to continue with its ruinous policies of the past two decades - after all, training and sending terrorists across the LoC was taking a heavy toll on Pakistan's economy and disturbing Pakistani social life as well.

(SNIP)

An editorial in Wednesday's Times of India brings out the somber and reflective Indian mood at the present juncture and the popular view of the US intervention. Titled "Coercive mediation", it says, "The Americans are here. And by this we don't mean Team Rumsfeld, now on another of its familiar visits to the region. As George W would no doubt drawl: 'Make no mistake, the US is here to mediate.' Of course, the Americans will say, as will the Indians, that this is only to ensure the subcontinent doesn't turn into a nuclear hellhole. And yet, there are enough signals that the US is slowly, but surely, enlarging its role. If in 1999 president Clinton intervened to roll back Kargil, today Bush and Co are frenetically toing and froing between India and Pakistan, setting out a step-by-step mechanism for restoring peace.

"Add to this hectic two-way counseling the presence of American troops in Pakistan and a significant joint US-UK proposal to patrol the Line of Control, and the future begins to look distinctly triangular in that most sacred of all lands: Kashmir. After all, from the LoC to Kashmir is but a short step. And yet, 'mediation' has barely to be mentioned, for official India to go into denial mode."

(SNIP)

...Today Pakistan has the gall to demand from the US-led world parity with India in conventional warfare capability so that it doesn't need to flex its nuclear muscles ever again; it is calling for denuclearization of South Asia, and to top it all it is calling for a substantive peace process to solve the long-festering Kashmir dispute. And the US seems to be capitulating. The US needs to do better than that if it wants to keep the world's biggest democracy on its side.

4//The Japan Times Friday, June 14, 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20020614a1.htm

JAPAN DELAYS RETALIATION ON STEEL TARIFFS
Washington given time to grant exemptions, but how long will Tokyo wait?

Japan will indefinitely postpone retaliatory measures against recently imposed U.S. steel import tariffs to give Washington time to exempt more Japanese items, the trade ministry said Thursday.

A 100 percent tariff on certain U.S. steel products was to be imposed Tuesday.

Takeo Hiranuma, minister of the economy, trade and industry, made the decision following an hourlong phone conversation with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.

"In the conference with (Zoellick), we learned that the United States is constructively examining product exclusions," Hiranuma said. "We will make efforts to solve the issue through dialogue."

Japan could go ahead and apply the tariffs if the domestic industry is not satisfied with the product exclusions the U.S. is pondering, Hiranuma said.

He did not specify how long Japan might wait before it makes a final decision on the proposed retaliatory tariffs, expressing willingness to act flexibility depending on U.S. efforts.

The administration of President George W. Bush on March 20 announced the imposition of three-year tariffs aimed at helping the beleaguered U.S. steel industry. At the time, it said its deadline for finalizing a list of exclusionary items would be early July.

But Washington later decided to allow additional requests for exemptions from domestic users and foreign producers, which effectively nullified its earlier-stated deadline.

With Washington's decision-making timetable apparently up in the air, Japan's postponement of retaliatory steps is, likewise, indefinite, ministry officials said.

(SNIP)

The European Union, which is fighting a similar battle against the U.S. tariffs, recently postponed a decision on its proposed retaliatory taxes while reserving the option to impose them in the future.

5//The Post (Lusaka) June 13, 2002
http://www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/post/homenews.html#HOMEC

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES URGE EU, US TO REMOVE SUBSIDIES

Via www.allAfrica.com Posted to the web June 13, 2002

LEADERS of developing countries at the United Nations Food Summit in Rome, Italy, have urged the European Union and the United States to remove agricultural subsidies and open their markets.

According to the BBC news monitored in Lusaka yesterday, developing countries told the US and the EU that free trade was essential to enable their poor farmers compete with the subsidised farmers of the rich industrialised world.

"We don't want charity, we want the chance to grow," said Colombian President Andres Pastrana. But the US sees the solution to the problem in greater use of genetically modified (GM) foods and biotechnology. And to bolster its argument, the US brought to Rome Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, who laid the groundwork of the so-called Green Revolution in the 1960s.

(SNIP)

Briefing the press at the summit, Borlaug supported the US government's argument that the new biotechnology, or GM crops, can help solve world hunger. Borlaug's views were supported by a government minister from Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, speaking on behalf of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The Nigerian President avoided, however, declaring his unconditional support for the American proposals.

The Americans are justifying their farm subsidies and urging more extensive use of biotechnology in agriculture as a way of producing more food of higher quality. But leaders of developing countries dismissed the American arguments as untrue. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said protectionism is the enemy of the hungry, not lack of improved seeds. President Museveni said African farmers needed to raise their sights beyond mere subsistence agriculture.

In order to meet its aim of reducing the number of hungry people to 400 million by 2015, United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is seeking an additional US $24bn a year in agricultural and rural investment. Since 1996, when the target was set, the number of hungry people has only dropped from 840 million to 815 million.

(SNIP)

Only a fraction of this target has been reached so far and hopes that efforts to combat hunger would be revived have been undermined by the fact that only two leaders from Western nations - Spain and Italy - are attending the meeting. Zambia is represented at the summit by Vice-President Enoch Kavindele.

6//Stratfor Strategic Forecasting 13 June 2002
http://www.stratfor.com/fib/topStory_view.php?ID=204851

U.S.-MOROCCO TRADE DEAL SENDS MESSAGE TO WORLD

In a move that largely flew under the media's radar, U.S. President George W. Bush pledged two months ago that he would seek to bind the United States and Morocco, which have been allies for more than two decades, in a free trade deal. The news is somewhat startling, given that the United States currently has free trade agreements with only a short list of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Israel and Jordan.

The deal with Morocco is really more about politics than economics. The country's only major exports are phosphates and low-tech electronics, and two-way trade with the United States totals $1 billion a year -- compared to $161 billion between the United States and Canada. But Morocco is also an important partner in the war against terrorism, and Washington is likely using it as an example for other nations to show the benefits of cooperating with the U.S. security agenda.

Using economic levers, including influencing International Monetary Fund policy, to achieve political goals is a time-honored tactic, one that Washington has been using more and more since Sept. 11. The IMF has recently continued to dole out cash to Turkey, a critical strategic ally, while cutting off much-needed funding to Argentina, which is not a major player in the anti-terrorism war.

(SNIP)

Now the question is what other countries are candidates for similar treatment? Such nations would have to fulfill both political and economic criteria. They must be frontline states in the anti-terrorism campaign, which excludes much of South America and Africa. But they must also be economically palatable, meaning that they must not threaten U.S. economic interests.

Washington thus has less political incentive to negotiate free trade agreements with New Zealand or Australia, which have been working on receiving free trade status but are less significant in anti-terrorism efforts. But nor is Washington likely to put out free trade feelers toward Turkey, Egypt or Pakistan; although they are thoroughly involved in security issues, their large GDPs -- all above $50 billion a year -- and reliance on textile exports would be tough for the U.S. economy to digest quickly.

The most likely candidates for special treatment are smaller states like Morocco, such as Tunisia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In Asia there is Malaysia and the Philippines while in Africa Tanzania and Kenya are possibilities. Slightly less likely, but intriguing, are Persian Gulf states that are trying to diversify their economies, such as Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

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© 2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com

Web Radio for Progressives listings at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

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