World Media Watch for August 30, 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//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--OSAMA IS IN KUNAR, BUT THE US CAN'T GET HIM (Al-Qaeda, "the base", is now extinct. Al-Qaeda has a brand new name: Fath-e-Islam (Victory of Islam). And Fath-e-Islam's leader, none other than Osama bin Laden, is very much alive. But not anymore in Pakistan. Osama has returned to Afghanistan. More precisely, the Kunar province... "Americans in Kabul are scared. They get bad information all the time. They don't understand that Afghans take the money today and forget about it tomorrow. The Americans came too early, they didn't do their homework.")

2//Turkish Daily News, Turkey--TURKEY DOES NOT FIND TALABANI'S DECLARATION WORTH CONSIDERING (The United States has promised Kurds in Northern Iraq that Turkey will not take part in any U.S. attack to remove President Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi Kurdish leader said on Wednesday. Turkish officials made no statement about Talabani's declaration. It is speculated that Turkey does not want to increase the tension and waits for Jalal Talabani the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to arrive in Turkey today..."U.S. officials have told us that they were determined to bring down the regime. But Iraq is a big country. The United states cannot control the streets and prevent internal fighting if the regime falls. It needs the opposition (after any attack)," Talabani added.)

3//The Star, Jordan--REGIONAL TRADE FLOWS-THE JORDANIAN CONDUIT (Jordanian and Arab economists are currently debating the somewhat lenient procedures Arab countries are taking to impede the flow of Israeli products into their markets...The question of Arab trade with Israel is an old issue. It has come into the forefront recently because many believe the time has come to renew the Arab boycott of Israel which more or less came to an end following the Oslo accords of 1993 with the Palestinians and when Jordan signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994.)

4//The Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates--CHINA WINNING INTERNET WAR AGAINST DISSIDENTS FOR NOW: GROUP ("The Chinese government has successfully stifled the spread of Internet-based dissent primarily by employing old "Leninist techniques'," it [Rand] said. These include strict government regulations, surveillance, arrests, confiscation of equipment, and the use of informants. At least 25 people have been arrested in China over the past two years because of their on-line activities, the report said. According to the Rand Institute, there also is evidence Chinese authorities are using the Internet for their own political purposes, spreading criticism of dissidents electronically and bombarding dissidents' e-mail addresses with thousands of bogus messages.)

5//Mainichi Daily News, Japan--CRACKS REVEALED IN NUCLEAR REACTOR INSPECTIONS ("I now doubt that nuclear power plants operate properly in accordance with governmental instructions," Sakamoto said. "The agency, which promotes nuclear power generation, spent more than two years until the revelation since it received a tip off, apparently because it didn't want to announce the false descriptions." TEPCO reportedly assigned in-house inspectors from General Electric International in the United States to inspect the nuclear power plants during the period.)

* * *

1//Asia Times Online August 28, 02
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DH29Df04.html

The Roving Eye
OSAMA IS IN KUNAR, BUT THE US CAN'T GET HIM
By Pepe Escobar

PESHAWAR - Al-Qaeda, "the base", is now extinct. Al-Qaeda has a brand new name: Fath-e-Islam (Victory of Islam). And Fath-e-Islam's leader, none other than Osama bin Laden, is very much alive. But not anymore in Pakistan. Osama has returned to Afghanistan. More precisely, the Kunar province.

Key players in the ultra-complex Pakistan-Afghanistan game had been saying that since the fall of Kabul in November 2001 that "the last battle" in this ongoing war would be in Kunar. The scenario now seems more than likely. The Taliban and the rebranded al-Qaeda have full tribal support in Kunar - where everybody seems to know someone who died from the American bombing of Afghanistan. A Pashtun notable puts the issue succinctly, "If the Americans are serious about grabbing Osama, they will have to put up a fight. On the ground. Man to man. There will be a lot of body bags."

On August 10, the Daily Ummat, the number one Urdu-language paper in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, published a front-page story filed from Asadabad, Afghanistan (the capital of Kunar). The story did not appear in other Pakistani English-language papers, nor in the international media, for that matter.

(SNIP)

This means, according to Haji S, only one thing: bin Laden and the Fath-e-Islam leadership are themselves based in Kunar. "The Americans know it, of course. But they simply cannot get into Kunar. It is full of mountains and the area is religiously ultra-conservative, and 100 percent pro-Taliban.

Another Pashtun source confirms the analysis of Haji S: "Americans in Kabul are scared. They get bad information all the time. They don't understand that Afghans take the money today and forget about it tomorrow. The Americans came too early, they didn't do their homework."

American forces in Afghanistan to date seem to have followed a pattern of highly-publicized operations in the wrong places. The latest example happened this past weekend, when hundreds of Special Forces backed by helicopter gunships and planes, and with the help of Afghan government units, encircled the village of Tani, south of Khost, and also advanced to Zormat, the biggest district of Paktia province - an area where anti-American sentiment is as extreme as anywhere else in the Pashtun belt. Locals hate the Northern Alliance's grip on Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul. Zormat is near the area of the huge Operation Anaconda last March - the biggest US offensive in the war so far. Anaconda was basically a failure: most Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters managed to escape to the NWFP.

This time in Zormat, the Americans carried house-to-house searches and apprehended a few guns - nothing extraordinary as any tribal Pashtun male has been carrying a gun for centuries. Basically, the Americans found no Taliban and no al-Qaeda. The escape pattern is always the same: Taliban and al-Qaeda - in this last case Chechens - are tipped off by local tribals, hide in the mountains or melt into the local population, cross to the NWFP, and then return.

The commander of the 3rd Brigade Task Force of the 82nd Airborne Division, James Huggins, was forced to admit the failure of this operation in Zormat: "It was clear to me there was advance warning at each of the sites we went to." The "advance warning" always comes from the local population and even from warlords whose alliances lie with suitcases full of dollars, not with the American agenda.

It may be totally un-Hollywoodish for American - and Western - public opinion to digest the fact that these soldiers are being sent on futile missions, and some in the process are being killed for it. But a lot of information about the war simply does not travel - or is edited out by the Western media. Veterans of the jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s remember that loads of Russian equipment used to be available in the bazaars of Quetta and Peshawar in Pakistan. Now anybody can buy night-vision devices, brand new M-16s, fireproof jackets and trekking boots. Where? In the bazaar in Miram Shah, in the NWFP, close to the Afghani Paktia province, where the Americans have a base. The goods are all-American, captured from American casualties.

Pashtuns swear that American casualties are mounting, although for the Pentagon they don't exist. Different sources in Peshawar and Islamabad confirm there are American casualties every week. Even now in the tribal areas there is a lot of talk on what happened in Helmand province last December - when 200 Americans were surrounded in a valley by only 37 Taliban, and many were slaughtered, with some beheaded. A humble porter of Shaheen Cargo confirmed the story at the time: he complained that his shoulders were sore because he had spent the night carrying coffins to a transport plane.

If American forces venture into Kunar they will be against tremendous odds. Kashmir Khan - the most powerful Hezb-e-Islami commander - keeps his base in the mountains of Kunar. Haji S says that "even the Taliban at the time did not disturb him. He is not interested in ideology or politics. He is interested in power." This also means that Kashmir Khan is unbribable by the Americans.

(SNIP)

The key player to watch in the next few moves in the game is "Engineer" Hekmatyar - as he is known in Afghanistan. The man is back with a vengeance. It is important to remember that during the jihad in the 1980s he always placed the long-term goal of an Islamic revolution above resistance to the Soviets. And during the Taliban rule starting in 1996 he was patiently waiting for an opening in self-imposed exile in Iran. Haji S insists that Hekmatyar has access to "an unlimited amount of weapons". "And despite the opposition of Hamid Karzai and the Americans, he had 319 members in the loya jirga [grand council] in June [that finalized the current government in Kabul] and he controls four loyal governors. He has installed his own governor even in Kunduz." Hekmatyar is a Kharruti Pashtun who comes from a family of traders settled in a district of Kunduz, in the predominantly Tajik northern Afghan plains.

According to Haji S, Hekmatyar's first move in a showdown against the Karzai government could be to block Sarobi, a religiously hardcore strategic bottleneck on the Jalalabad-Kabul road. And that would be only the beginning. Haji S adds that a few weeks ago Hekmatyar said strictly off the record that "Americans won't be here [in Afghanistan] in one-and-a-half years. Two years will be the maximum." Tommy Franks may not be aware of these plans.

(MORE)

2//Turkish Daily News 30 August 2002
http://www.turkishdailynews.com/FrTDN/latest/for.htm#f3

TURKEY DOES NOT FIND TALABANI'S DECLARATION WORTH CONSIDERING

--"The US promised us in Washington that there would be no external interference from Turkey or Iran," says Talabani

The United States has promised Kurds in Northern Iraq that Turkey will not take part in any U.S. attack to remove President Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi Kurdish leader said on Wednesday.

Turkish officials made no statement about Talabani's declaration. It is speculated that Turkey does not want to increase the tension and waits for Jalal Talabani the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to arrive in Turkey today.

Talabani said U.S. officials had responded to concern among Iraqi opposition groups that Turkish participation in a U.S. attack would destabilize Iraq and anger its Kurdish population, which occasionally comes under attack fromTurkish forces.

(SNIP)

"The United States promised us in Washington that there would be no external interference from Turkey or Iran," said Talabani, referring to a meeting between six opposition leaders and U.S. officials earlier this month to discuss the future of Iraq.

Talabani said the Kurdish opposition had urged the United States to back what he described as 100,000 anti-Saddam fighters to march on Baghdad and dispose of Saddam, but that the United states had not responded.

"When the time comes, tens of thousands more would take up arms against the regime," Talabani said. "We told the United States things it did not like, such as that the Iraqi people should be the ones performing the regime change."

"U.S. officials have told us that they were determined to bring down the regime. But Iraq is a big country. The United states cannot control the streets and prevent internal fighting if the regime falls. It needs the opposition (after any attack)," Talabani added.

(SNIP)

Turkey allows U.S. and British warplanes to fly over Northern Iraq from its southern Incirlik air base to enforce one of two "no-fly-zones" set up over Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

But Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said on Wednesday that Turkey, a member of NATO, was still opposed to a U.S.-led military campaign to topple the Iraqi leader.

3//The Star Aug (22 - 28) 2002 12, Issue No. 108
http://www.star.arabia.com/article/0,5596,189_5503,00.html

REGIONAL TRADE FLOWS-THE JORDANIAN CONDUIT

August 24, 2002, 08:01 AM
By Ghassan Joha, Star Staff Writer

JORDAN (Star) - Jordanian and Arab economists are currently debating the somewhat lenient procedures Arab countries are taking to impede the flow of Israeli products into their markets. According to Israeli news reports, one-third of Arab markets import products from the Jewish state. These reports suggest the trade volume between the Arab countries and Israel in the first half of this year was around $90 million.

(SNIP)

As for Jordan, trade figures fluctuate every year. Jordan's statistics showed a JD 18 million increase in this year's trade volume with Israel over 2001. It is argued, Israel's peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt are some of the avenues in which Israeli goods find themselves in Arab markets. This is despite the fact that thousands of Jordanian and Egyptian merchants and businessmen refuse to be involved in such a trade.

Syrian and Saudi authorities issued this month tougher procedures to inspect the origins of inter-Arab exports. The procedures were made following reports suggesting Israeli products are finding themselves in Syrian and Saudi markets despite the fact that these two Arab countries have no diplomatic relations with Israel.

According to Syrian officials, these procedures were made as a precautionary step to prevent the entry of Israeli-made products into their territories from a third party. Saudi newspapers, meanwhile, suggested earlier the authorities there seized recently a number of Jordanian trucks filled with products assumed to be originally from Israel.

Although the Saudi officials denied they have refused the entry of Jordanian trucks, they note the issue is receiving much attention among officials there. "I believe the Jordanian government should take these procedures sought by other Arab countries seriously," said economist Mohammed Saqer. "Jordan can't afford to be a passage for Israeli products."

The question of Arab trade with Israel is an old issue. It has come into the forefront recently because many believe the time has come to renew the Arab boycott of Israel which more or less came to an end following the Oslo accords of 1993 with the Palestinians and when Jordan signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994.

Nine years later, these peace accords are still not implemented and the Israelis continue their aggression on the Palestinians. Saqer contented there are many companies in the Arab Gulf states and North Africa that make sizable profits from their trade with Israel.

(MORE)

4//The Khaleej Times 29 August 2002. 20 Jamadi Al Thani, 1423.
http://www.khaleejtimes.co.ae/theworld.htm#storyg

CHINA WINNING INTERNET WAR AGAINST DISSIDENTS FOR NOW: GROUP

Agence France Presse

BEIJING - Contrary to some predictions, the Internet is unlikely to spark major political change in China in the near future, an influential US research institution said on Thursday. The report by the Washington-based Rand think-tank, which claims to be one of the most thorough analyses ever of Internet use by Chinese dissidents and Beijing's response, found a crackdown on dissidents is succeeding in cyberspace.

As a result, while the Internet may ultimately support change, this will more probably occur in an evolutionary manner, said the report, titled "You've Got Dissent". "The Chinese government has successfully stifled the spread of Internet-based dissent primarily by employing old "Leninist techniques'," it said.

These include strict government regulations, surveillance, arrests, confiscation of equipment, and the use of informants. At least 25 people have been arrested in China over the past two years because of their on-line activities, the report said. According to the Rand Institute, there also is evidence Chinese authorities are using the Internet for their own political purposes, spreading criticism of dissidents electronically and bombarding dissidents' e-mail addresses with thousands of bogus messages. "Predictions that the Internet would bring revolutionary political change to China were exaggerated," said Michael Chase, who co-authored the report with noted China specialist James Mulvenon.

(SNIP)

...China blocks a large number of Internet sites, which feature dissident views and some foreign new sites as well as content such as pornography. Authorities also launch periodic crackdowns such as a recent one against popular Internet cafes after a fire at one in Beijing killed 24 young people in June.

The use of the Internet has spread quickly in mainland China, growing from about one million users in October 1997 to more than 33 million by January this year. Dissident political groups have adopted Internet communications, using e-mail and bulletin board sites as a way to quickly and discreetly spread information and ideas.

Such groups adopt tactics including "Internet guerilla warfare" -- spamming e-mail messages to large groups of people, sometimes including government leaders, the report said. This can prove a boon to dissent, the authors said, for example in April 1999 when between 10,000 and 15,000 supporters of the Falungong movement appeared unannounced at a protest in Beijing.

The event reportedly was organized largely through the use of the Internet as well as mobile phones. Additionally, dissidents who have fled China can also use the Internet to remain active, creating websites and e-mailing "electronic magazines".

Such activities could prove harder and harder for authorities to suppress as Internet use expands beyond the mainly young and urban group who currently have access, the authors argue, perhaps eventually helping to push the country towards reform. - AFP

5//Mainichi Daily News (Mainichi Shimbun, Aug. 29, 2002)
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20020829p2a00m0fp024001c.html

CRACKS REVEALED IN NUCLEAR REACTOR INSPECTIONS

Inspectors made false reports on 29 problems such as cracks at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plants during the late 1980s and the 1990s, the government revealed Thursday.

Officials of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that they found false reports on 29 cases of trouble in 13 nuclear reactors, and that some of these problems were not rectified.

"These troubles could lead to serious cases," one of the officials said, adding that they will step up governmental investigations into the plants in question.

But the officials added that these troubles unattended would not pose serious safety problems to the operations of the plants.

The agency began its own inspections after an informer tipped off the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the forerunner of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, of which the agency is part, in July 2000.

(SNIP)

They also learned that cracks both in a container that controls water flow in a reactor and in a pump that sends coolant to a reactor core have apparently not been fixed yet.

Kuniaki Sakamoto, the head of a private organization that investigates nuclear plant problems, criticized both TEPCO and the agency.

"I now doubt that nuclear power plants operate properly in accordance with governmental instructions," Sakamoto said. "The agency, which promotes nuclear power generation, spent more than two years until the revelation since it received a tip off, apparently because it didn't want to announce the false descriptions." TEPCO reportedly assigned in-house inspectors from General Electric International in the United States to inspect the nuclear power plants during the period. These inspections were made separate from legally binding regular checks.

(MORE)

* * *

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

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

* * *