World Media Watch for August 12, 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.

* * *

1//The Telegraph, UK--ATTACK ON IRAQ REJECTED BY 2 IN 3 VOTERS (Tony Blair and Labour will suffer a potentially catastrophic loss of support if Britain joins American military action against Iraq, a poll commissioned by The Telegraph says today. More than two-thirds of British voters believe that a potential attack on Saddam Hussein is not justified in present circumstances, according to the internet pollster YouGov... Two-thirds of those interviewed said they had "not much confidence" (40 per cent) or "no confidence at all" (28 per cent) in Mr Bush's capacity to handle the crisis wisely. Only five per cent had "a great deal of confidence".)

2//The Independent, UK--NATIONAL MOVEMENT TO OPPOSE IRAQ WAR (Labour Party campaigners opposed to planned attacks on Iraq are combining their efforts with youth organisations, church leaders, trade unions and anti-globalisation protesters to form a national peace movement. Labour Against the War, the pressure group formed to oppose British involvement in US military strikes against Saddam Hussein, has noted an upsurge in support as public opinion against action grows.)

3//Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--HAWKE JOINS CHORUS AGAINST WAR TALK (Wheatgrowers yesterday joined the former prime minister Bob Hawke in accusing the Government of going too far in its overtures of war against Iraq. Mr Hawke, who led Australia to join the 1991 Gulf War, said the Government was "leaping ahead almost of the United States" in its rhetoric against Iraq. And after fresh threats that Iraq might axe all of its $800 million wheat imports from Australia, the Australian Grains Council broke its silence on the Government's war of words.)

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--LAKE ARABIA (Since May 20, King Fahd Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Saud has been living in Switzerland...But suddenly the insistent rumors stressing that the king is dying picked up again: on August 3 he transferred the rights of his property to his second wife, Princess Johara Al-Ibrahim. There is wild speculation in Geneva that the king could be formally sidelined from the throne to the benefit of one of his staunch pro-American brothers...This is a very serious matter as far as the king's official heir - Prince Abdullah - is concerned...The prince's efforts to get closer to Iran and Iraq and his landmark peace proposal for the Middle East - Israel retreats to its 1967 borders with Palestine in exchange of recognition by the Arab world - also do not fit the designs of Washington's hawks.)

5//TheNewsmexico.com, Mexico--VENEZUELA REINFORCES BORDER WITH COLOMBIA (The chairman of the National Assembly's (AN) Foreign Policy Committee, opposition legislator Julio Montoya, told EFE that he "hails the armed forces' decision to send reinforcements to the border" to prevent the Colombian conflict from spilling over into Venezuela. "Venezuela must avoid, at all costs, becoming part of the Colombian conflict," said Montoya, a Socialist who has repeatedly accused President Hugo Chavez of assuming an "ambiguous" stance toward Colombia's rebels. The opposition accuses Chavez of being a friend of the guerrillas and of letting them use the border as a "refuge," something the president has consistently denied.)

* * *

1//The Telegraph Monday 12 August 2002
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/12/npoll12.xml&s
Sheet=/portal/2002/08/12/ixport.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=175756

ATTACK ON IRAQ REJECTED BY 2 IN 3 VOTERS
By Benedict Brogan, Political Correspondent and Anthony King
(Filed: 12/08/2002)

Tony Blair and Labour will suffer a potentially catastrophic loss of support if Britain joins American military action against Iraq, a poll commissioned by The Telegraph says today.

More than two-thirds of British voters believe that a potential attack on Saddam Hussein is not justified in present circumstances, according to the internet pollster YouGov.

The survey shows that Labour voters would reconsider their support for the Government if Mr Blair sent troops into action against Iraq.

It found widespread unease about President George Bush's ability to handle the crisis. More than half feared that Mr Blair was becoming Mr Bush's "poodle".

(SNIP)

The YouGov findings seem to confirm private surveys carried out for Mr Blair - and denied by No 10 - suggesting that he would have to pay a heavy price at the ballot box if he took Britain into war. Downing Street insisted last week: "The Prime Minister is not wobbling."

(SNIP)

The findings coincide with a warning from Maurice Fitzpatrick, the head of economics at Tenon, the professional services group, that the consequences of military action could dent the prospects for economic growth.

He said: "If growth over the next four years were to be less than the Chancellor's forecast by just half of one per cent because of a war, the impact would leave a £12 billion black hole in the annual accounts by 2006. This worry must be pressing in on Gordon Brown."

(SNIP)

A majority of Britons do not trust President Bush's judgment, the survey shows.

Two-thirds of those interviewed said they had "not much confidence" (40 per cent) or "no confidence at all" (28 per cent) in Mr Bush's capacity to handle the crisis wisely. Only five per cent had "a great deal of confidence".

(SNIP)

Mr Blair faced a renewed Labour call for conciliatory gestures towards Iraq.

George Galloway, the Left-wing MP with close ties to Baghdad, said that if Britain were prepared to restore relations with Col Gaddafi in Libya despite his links with the IRA, the murder of Wpc Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie bombing, it should be willing to hold talks with Saddam about allowing weapons inspectors into Iraq.

Referring to last week's visit to Libya by Mike O'Brien, the Foreign Office minister, he said: "If it is good enough for a British minister to kiss Gaddafi, surely we can pick up the olive branch and test the sincerity of Iraq's offer?"

(MORE)

2//The Independent 11 August 2002 23:13 BDST
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=323407

NATIONAL MOVEMENT TO OPPOSE IRAQ WAR
By Jo Dillon, Political Correspondent

Labour Party campaigners opposed to planned attacks on Iraq are combining their efforts with youth organisations, church leaders, trade unions and anti-globalisation protesters to form a national peace movement.

Labour Against the War, the pressure group formed to oppose British involvement in US military strikes against Saddam Hussein, has noted an upsurge in support as public opinion against action grows.

Twelve Labour constituencies have signed up to the campaign. And trade unions and Labour delegates have vowed to provoke hostile debates at the annual conferences of both the TUC and the Labour Party itself.

(SNIP)

Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and leading member of Labour Against the War, said yesterday: "Rather than a long summer of softening up the public in acceptance of a war, it has begun to galvanise sections of the public in opposition to a war."

Warnings against military action have been voiced by a number of Labour MPs, former ministers, faith leaders and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. They now hope that the breadth of feeling against a war can be pulled together into a national peace movement.

Mr Simpson said: "We have been experiencing a rise in support from party activists, branches and trade unions. All this is an indication of activists not walking away but getting organised. We have been preparing the basis upon which we link up with the wider peace movement."

3//Sydney Morning Herald Monday, August 12 2002 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/11/1028158048358.html

HAWKE JOINS CHORUS AGAINST WAR TALK
By Mark Metherell

Wheatgrowers yesterday joined the former prime minister Bob Hawke in accusing the Government of going too far in its overtures of war against Iraq.

Mr Hawke, who led Australia to join the 1991 Gulf War, said the Government was "leaping ahead almost of the United States" in its rhetoric against Iraq.

And after fresh threats that Iraq might axe all of its $800 million wheat imports from Australia, the Australian Grains Council broke its silence on the Government's war of words.

"At this stage we have to question what the foreign minister is trying to achieve, because it does seem to be more vocal than most overseas countries," the council's president, Keith Perrett, said last night.

The Iraqi Government last month put on hold a 500,000-tonne order from Australia and warned of a total ban on Australian wheat. It is holding up four shiploads in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr over contamination claims.

(SNIP)

Mr Perrett said he believed Australia's continued statements about war against Iraq "have caused some grief ... there is a problem with the Government's rhetoric".

The Treasurer, Peter Costello, accused the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, of siding with the Iraqi envoy in criticising the Government's approach: "You can't hand over the control of your foreign policy to other countries.

"The Iraqi envoy in Australia criticised the Australian Government and Mr Crean sided with the Iraqi envoy," Mr Costello told ABC television. He agreed that the threat to wheat exports was a concern, but said foreign policy should not be made on the basis of trade threats. "You can't say if other countries are threatening trade sanctions, you will change your foreign policy."

But the Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, Kevin Rudd, countered that it had been the "rambo rhetoric" of the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, which had brought forward "a potentially huge and premature penalty for Australian wheat farmers".

(SNIP)

Mr Hawke warned the Government to be extremely careful. "I would totally oppose, at this stage, this open-ended support which the Government has given," he told the Nine Network. "You should pursue every diplomatic effort you can to get the inspectors back in there and establish the facts, and secondly see if there is any evidence establishing a link with al-Qaeda.

"Until you've done both those things, there is no justification for spilling one drop of Australian blood or committing, at this stage, one Australian soldier to that cause."

(MORE)

4//Asia Times Online August 10, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH10Ak01.html

The Roving Eye
LAKE ARABIA
By Pepe Escobar

PARIS - They had been waiting 20 years for this moment. Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux and the whole Lac Leman are immersed in what even by the local staid, dull standards can only be described as a wave of excitement, which obviously had to be money-related. Switzerland is for sale - and all the buyers are from the House of Saud.

Since May 20, King Fahd Bin Abdel Aziz Al-Saud has been living in Switzerland. For the first time in 20 years, since he ascended to the throne in 1982, he is visiting his sprawling 40,000-square-meter property in Collonge-Bellerive, accompanied by a court of hundreds of people. Officially he is in Switzerland for an eye operation - besides the matter of inaugurating his magnificent property.

(SNIP)

All through July the king was in the center of a real diplomatic Swan Lake - receiving everybody from Jordan's King Abdullah to Egypt's strongman Hosni Mubarak. But suddenly the insistent rumors stressing that the king is dying picked up again: on August 3 he transferred the rights of his property to his second wife, Princess Johara Al-Ibrahim. There is wild speculation in Geneva that the king could be formally sidelined from the throne to the benefit of one of his staunch pro-American brothers.

This is a very serious matter as far as the king's official heir - Prince Abdullah - is concerned. It is being constantly repeated in Washington that the US needs Prince Abdullah and vice versa. But the fact is that Washington hawks do not evaluate the importance of Prince Abdullah as the crucial counter-power to Osama bin Laden's apocalyptic designs, and are suspicious of the prince's intentions of eventually convincing the Americans to abandon their Saudi military bases. The prince's efforts to get closer to Iran and Iraq and his landmark peace proposal for the Middle East - Israel retreats to its 1967 borders with Palestine in exchange of recognition by the Arab world - also do not fit the designs of Washington's hawks.

(SNIP)

The chairman of this board is none other than ultra-hawk, former Pentagon official Richard Perle. The fact that the report is authored by Laurent Murawiec, a Rand Corporation analyst specializing in "international security" and former adviser to the French Ministry of Defense is beside the point. The point is that it perfectly reflects the powerful Dick Cheney view of the Middle East - widely shared by Pentagon civilians.

To follow the report to the letter, Saudi Arabia should be immediately included in the axis of evil: it is described as "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" of the US. Says the Rand Corporation analyst: "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader." And if Riyadh does not stop its support for terrorism, "Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be targeted". Swiss banks will not be very enthusiastic.

The White House, the State Department and diplomatic Saudi sources may spin it as they like it ("it's not the official view", etc), but this does not alter the fact that the "evil Saudis" characterization is extremely influential in the pinnacles of Washington. Hawks do not seem to realize that they are just playing bin Laden's game. Or maybe they do - and that's just how they want it. One would give a million Cartier gold watches to know what goes on in that royal mind gazing placidly at the Lac Leman.

5//TheNewsmexico.com Sunday, August 11, 2002
http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=32627

VENEZUELA REINFORCES BORDER WITH COLOMBIA
EFE - 8/11/2002

CARACAS - Venezuela has dispatched 7,000 additional troops to its western border to prevent the escalating conflict between Colombia's guerrillas and paramilitaries from spilling into its territory, authorities confirmed Saturday.

The troops will swell the ranks of the 30,000 Venezuelan soldiers already stationed along the 2,219-kilometer (1,380-mile) border between the South American countries.

(SNIP)

The chairman of the National Assembly's (AN) Foreign Policy Committee, opposition legislator Julio Montoya, told EFE that he "hails the armed forces' decision to send reinforcements to the border" to prevent the Colombian conflict from spilling over into Venezuela.

"Venezuela must avoid, at all costs, becoming part of the Colombian conflict," said Montoya, a Socialist who has repeatedly accused President Hugo Chavez of assuming an "ambiguous" stance toward Colombia's rebels.

The opposition accuses Chavez of being a friend of the guerrillas and of letting them use the border as a "refuge," something the president has consistently denied.

(SNIP)

Opposition lawmaker Montoya warned that the "foreseeable escalation" of Colombia's internal conflict "makes it practically impossible to keep Venezuela from receiving an influx of paramilitaries as well as guerrillas."

Colombia's ambassador to Venezuela, German Bula, acknowledged Friday that irregular combatants may "occasionally" cross into Venezuela when under fire from Colombian troops.

If guerrillas enter Venezuela, Bula insisted, it is not from "lack of will" on the part of his government, which has "10,000 armed men guarding the border."

Montoya, however, derided as "insufficient" Colombia's military presence at the border zone, which he described as "a sort of third country where the Colombian government exercises no control at all."

"This situation creates grave problems for Venezuela," such as the growth of "businesses devoted to kidnapping, extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking," Montoya added.

(MORE)

* * *

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

Updated listings of Radio for Progressives on the internet at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

* * *