by Gloria R. Lalumia
World
Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
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 Independent, UK--CHECHEN WARLORD WARNS OF "DEVASTATION" TO COME (The Duma blocked a call for an independent commission to investigate the causes of so many unintentional deaths among the hostages. It also voted for new restrictions on reporting anti-terrorist operations, including the three-year old war in Chechnya. "The terrorists were able to manipulate Russian media, and that shouldn't happen again," said a press minister, Mikhail Lesin.)
2//The News International, Pakistan--SADDAM SAYS IRAQ READY FOR WAR (Iraq is prepared to face any US-led military campaign, psychologically ready as war takes place in one hour and the country will not be a cakewalk for the US and British soldiers. President Saddam Hussein told this to Egyptian weekly 'Elosoba' in a rare interview...Saddam said: "We are thus prepared for war." He warned the US: "Iraq will never be like Afghanistan. That is not to say that we are stronger than the United States, which has fleets and long-range missiles. But we have our faith in Allah, the homeland and the Iraqi people as well as the Arab people.")
3//Gulf News Online, United Arab Emirates--TV NETWORK TO PROJECT "TRUE" IMAGE OF ARABS (A group of Arab investors are in the process of raising $100 million to set up an English satellite television network that would broadcast programmes all over Europe and North America, a leading Saudi investor revealed yesterday.)
4//The Daily Star, Lebanon--MEDIA FORUM PUTS AL-JAZEERA UNDER SPOTLIGHT (...many at the conference took issue with Mutafy's praise for Al-Jazeera, suggesting that the station was not at the vanguard of free speech or a force for democratic change... Hail pointed toward the $140 million the station received in start-up funds from the Qatari government.)
5//The Japan Times, Japan--DEFENDING 'UNIQUE' JAPAN ("Japan has been Americanized over the past decade," Dore said. However, while the process is often referred to as globalization, Dore said the pressure has been coming from the United States, not global markets... Tetsuji Okazaki, a professor of economics at the University of Tokyo, said a recent study shows that the adoption of U.S.-style management methods, including the reorganization of corporate executives, does not always result in good performance.)
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1//The
Independent 03 November 2002 23:02 BDT
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=348454
CHECHEN
WARLORD WARNS OF "DEVASTATION" TO COME
By Fred Weir in Moscow
Chechnya's leading warlord has threatened to carry out far more devastating attacks against Russia than last month's mass hostage seizure in Moscow which ended with almost 200 people dead.
"The next time those who come won't make any demands, won't take any hostages," Shamil Basayev said on Chechen Kavkaz-Tsentr, a website his rebel faction is known to control. "The main goal will be to destroy the enemy and exact maximum damage."
(SNIP)
The Duma blocked a call for an independent commission to investigate the causes of so many unintentional deaths among the hostages. It also voted for new restrictions on reporting anti-terrorist operations, including the three-year old war in Chechnya. "The terrorists were able to manipulate Russian media, and that shouldn't happen again," said a press minister, Mikhail Lesin.
The Duma also voted unanimously against returning to the families the remains of 41 Chechens killed in the siege, and recommended they be buried in unmarked graves.
2//The News International Monday November 04, 2002-- Sha'aban 28,
1423 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
SADDAM SAYS IRAQ READY FOR WAR
CAIRO: Iraq is prepared to face any US-led military campaign, psychologically ready as if war takes place in one hour and the country will not be a cakewalk for the US and British soldiers.
President Saddam Hussein told this to Egyptian weekly 'Elosoba' in a rare interview published on its www.elosoba.com website. Saddam said: "We are thus prepared for war." He warned the US: "Iraq will never be like Afghanistan. That is not to say that we are stronger than the United States, which has fleets and long-range missiles. But we have our faith in Allah, the homeland and the Iraqi people as well as the Arab people."
(SNIP)
He said: "Tehran and Damascus will be struck and divided (next) if Baghdad was to be controlled militarily, and great problems will be created for Saudi Arabia to divide it into small entities governed by watchmen in the US pocket."
(SNIP)
The Iraqi strongman played down the influence of the exiled Iraqi opposition and its cooperation with Washington to work out a post-Saddam strategy. "There is not a real Iraqi opposition we are concerned about. If such an opposition existed, it would do better to struggle from inside (Iraq) to take power rather than from 16,000 kilometres away.
3//Gulf News Online 03-11-2002
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=67422
TV
NETWORK TO PROJECT "TRUE" IMAGE OF ARABS
Bahrain | By A Correspondent | 03-11-2002
A group of Arab investors are in the process of raising $100 million to set up an English satellite television network that would broadcast programmes all over Europe and North America, a leading Saudi investor revealed yesterday.
Potential investors will be soon invited to take part in the 'strategic' plan, aimed at projecting a 'true' image of the Arabs outside the region, said Sheikh Saleh Kamil, chairman of the Saudi-based Al Baraka Group.
"For decades, we have been talking to each other and now it is time we turn our attention to the other world," he said on the sidelines of a major Islamic banking conference hosted by the Bahraini government.
4//The Daily Star Beirut, Saturday November 02, 2002. Updated 08:30
AM +2GMT
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/02_11_02/art5.asp
MEDIA
FORUM PUTS AL-JAZEERA UNDER SPOTLIGHT
Satellite station's role in shaping Arab opinion divides conference
Badih
Chayban
Special to The Daily Star
The
emergence of Al-Jazeera, the station's potential and its drawbacks dominated
a Friday gathering of scholars and experts to discuss the Arab media.
Marwaa Ragaa al-Mutafy, a professor at the Modern Arts and Science University
in Egypt, told those gathered Friday at the Lebanese American University
that the Qatar-based station had played a positive role in orienting and
informing the public on regional affairs. Mutafy was speaking on the second
day of a conference entitled, The Role of Media in Defining Arab Culture.
Al-Jazeera has captured the regional and international spotlight for its
coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the war in Afghanistan.
(SNIP)
However, many at the conference took issue with Mutafy's praise for Al-Jazeera, suggesting that the station was not at the vanguard of free speech or a force for democratic change. Ali al-Hail, a consultant for the Qatar Radio and Television Corporation, said that Al-Jazeera was merely absorbing Arab sentiments, and by doing so, depriving Arabs of the will to react.
(SNIP)
He also took issue with the Al-Jazeera's editorial independence, saying the station had a "hidden agenda." Hail pointed toward the $140 million the station received in start-up funds from the Qatari government. "Although Al-Jazeera kept maintaining that there were no gatekeepers to what they transmit, reality has shown that the paymaster always has a say in the coverage," he said.
5//The Japan Times Monday, November 4, 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20021104a1.htm
DEFENDING
'UNIQUE' JAPAN
America's way not always the best way, economists say
By
Akemi Nakamura
Staff writer
Although U.S. and British-style capitalism has prevailed throughout the world, Japan should fight to preserve the positive aspects of its traditional economic systems, scholars and economists said at a recent seminar in Tokyo.
Ronald Dore, a senior research fellow at London School of Economics and Political Science, said the convergence of varying economic systems into a single pattern is not inevitability.
"As a result of industrial globalization, individual countries cannot implement selfish rules in many areas," Dore said in fluent Japanese. "But they can still decide on their own economic systems."
(SNIP)
Dore, a professor emeritus at University of London, cited what he described as four unique points of Japanese-style capitalism.
(SNIP)
"Japan has been Americanized over the past decade," Dore said. However, while the process is often referred to as globalization, Dore said the pressure has been coming from the United States, not global markets.
Three of the Japanese economists expressed concern over the changes cited by Dore.
(SNIP)
Tetsuji Okazaki, a professor of economics at the University of Tokyo, said a recent study shows that the adoption of U.S.-style management methods, including the reorganization of corporate executives, does not always result in good performance.
"I think Japanese-style management systems that have enabled efficient management will continue to remain (at Japanese companies)," Okazaki said.
Despite its popularity, the business model prevailing in the United States is not fixed and will continue to evolve, said Dore. In fact, the U.S. corporate systems of the 1960s and 1970s once resembled Japanese-style management, in which employers practice more self-restraint in pursuing their own interests, Dore said.
In the 1980s, however, the social standard for economic activity in the U.S. changed in a way that permitted corporate executives to pursue self-interests in the extreme. This new standard was supported by an academic theory that promoted the assumption that human beings are highly motivated by profit, he pointed out.
(SNIP)
In Japan, the lifetime-employment and seniority-based wage systems are crumbling, and many firms are beginning to adopt performance-based pay. Some say these new systems will give workers more incentive to do a better job.
But Kagono of Kobe University said that Japan's principle of maintaining equality at the workplace has cultivated a sense of solidarity that has guided employees to work toward their company's prosperity.
Even though the Japanese society is losing that solidarity now, Kagono said he doesn't think companies can be revitalized "by just giving more money to employers and some of the workers at managerial posts."
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©
2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com
Updated listings of Radio for Progressives on the internet at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
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