September 16, 2005

World Media Watch

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 SEPTEMBER 16, 2005

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--IN SYRIA, REGIME CHANGE BY OTHER MEANS (The United States has not abandoned the option of regime change. This time, the objective is to oust the Bashar Assad regime of Syria, but by using "other" means. This use of other means includes a combination of old tactics used to topple Saddam Hussein, and also uses a number of new tactics aimed at ensuring that the European Union - or its major members, the ones that were derided in the past by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as part of "old Europe" - does not oppose it, and that even the United Nations Security Council goes along with it. At least in principle, that is a deft approach.)

2//RIA Novosti (Russian News & Information Agency), Russia--RUSSIA IS COUNTING ON CONTINUED STRENGTHENING OF RELATIONS WITH IRAN (Russia wants to see its relations with Iran continuing to improve, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Iranian president in New York Thursday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran considered Russia its closest ally. … The Iranian president told Putin: "We are very glad that in recent times you have been able to successfully overcome many problems in Russia, and have successfully strengthened the international authority of your country." He echoed Putin's thoughts about Russian-Iranian partnership. "A powerful Russia is Iran's best friend and a powerful Iran is one of Russia's best partners," he said.)

3//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea--SIX-PARTY TALKS GRIND ON (Six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear dispute ground into their third day in Beijing on Thursday with few signs of any progress as North Korea reportedly continued to insist it should be given civilian-use light-water reactors. An official connected to the talks said things were unclear and there was little hope of a breakthrough. … If the talks have to be adjourned again, as they were for 37 days until Tuesday, it could cast the efficacy of the six-party framework in resolving the dispute in serious doubt. Since the last round of talks, the U.S. delegation has been saying, “After Christopher Hill, it's John Bolton,” shorthand for referring the matter to the UN Security Council. Bolton is regarded as the most hawkish of the Bush administration’s neocons. As UN ambassador, he handles his country’s duties in the Security Council. He has described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a "tyrannical dictator" who made North Korea a "hellish nightmare" -- a compliment Pyongyang returned by calling him "human scum" and a "bloodsucker.")

4//The Independent, UK--CHILDLESS SLUR COULD COST MERKEL WINNING MARGIN (Six weeks ago, it seemed not to matter. So great was the lead her centre-right alliance enjoyed over all other parties that Angela Merkel seemed set to become German chancellor with that rare luxury in German politics, an overall majority. But with the final polls before Sunday's election showing a mere hair's breadth between her likely coalition and one that the centre-left Social Democrats might cobble together, it suddenly could matter. Sex, that is. … The lowest "below-the-belt" blow was struck by her chief opponent's wife, Doris Schröder-Köpf, who told Die Zeit weekly that Ms Merkel "does not embody with her biography the experiences of most women." She went on to mention childbirth, bringing up children, and schools. Ms Merkel has no children. … She is probably in a more difficult position than Margaret Thatcher or Hillary Clinton. Like them, she is regularly described as masculine, overbearing or disloyal - this last for the way she engineered the exit of her one-time patron, Helmut Kohl, the re-unifier of Germany, over a scandal about party funds. Unlike them, Ms Merkel is also taken to task for "feminine" weaknesses: "wavering" over her choice for finance minister, for instance. … The truth is that if Ms Merkel fails to lead her party into government, her presentational inadequacy will be a real contributory factor. But the Chancellor's wife will also have had something to do with it.)

5//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--WORKING WITHOUT BOSSES (Women are playing a major role in the revolutionary Argentine workers' initiative of taking over factories that have been abandoned by their owners, and in so doing, rescuing jobs and salaries that seemed to have been lost forever. … Pino has worked at the Grissinópoli baked goods company in Buenos Aires for 33 years. She was the "right-hand woman" of a succession of company presidents who ran the business from the height of prosperity into total ruin. Today, although she earns the same wages as the company's 16 factory floor workers, she holds the reins of this newly successful business, albeit one faced with the burden of old debts. Grissinópoli is a member of the National Movement of Factories Recovered by Workers, a collective of roughly 80 companies formed in the late 1990s to group together bankrupted businesses that had been abandoned by their owners, but not by their employees. The movement encompasses manufacturing and services industries hit by the four-year recession that began in 1998 and culminated in 2001 with the economic, social and political collapse that brought down the government of President Fernando de la Rúa [1999-2001].)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Sep 16, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI16Ak01.html

IN SYRIA, REGIME CHANGE BY OTHER MEANS

By Ehsan Ahrari

The United States has not abandoned the option of regime change. This time, the objective is to oust the Bashar Assad regime of Syria, but by using "other" means.

This use of other means includes a combination of old tactics used to topple Saddam Hussein, and also uses a number of new tactics aimed at ensuring that the European Union - or its major members, the ones that were derided in the past by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as part of "old Europe" - does not oppose it, and that even the United Nations Security Council goes along with it. At least in principle, that is a deft approach.

Why has Syria become the target of America's fury? There are at least two reasons. First, as an immediate neighbor of Iraq, Syria has been increasingly accused by the US of aiding and abetting the Iraqi insurgents. This is not a new reason. However, as the security situation worsens in Iraq, the Bush administration intensifies its rhetoric of the condemnation of Syria.

(SNIP)

The second reason Syria has become a US target is Syria's role as a former occupying power in Lebanon still remains a source of contention between Washington and Damascus. Syria was an occupying state of Lebanon when one of its major politicians and a former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated. There was a widespread suspicion that Syria was behind it. One story that has been circulating in Lebanon and other Arab states is that Assad himself threatened Hariri with physical harm, if he were to oppose the extension of the term of office of the pro-Syrian president of Lebanon, Emile Lahoud. Not much later after that meeting, Hariri was assassinated.

Assad gave Der Spiegel, a German magazine, an entirely different account of that meeting. He said: "I said to him [Hariri], we want to exert no pressure on you. Go back to Lebanon and inform us then of your decision."

Now the UN inquiry of that event has the backing of the US and France, two countries that strongly disagreed over the entire episode of the American invasion of Iraq. A German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, heads that inquiry.

Now, the US appears to be following a well-thought-out campaign of ousting Assad. The first phase of that campaign successfully ended when the UN became involved in the inquiry of the assassination of Hariri. The second phase had also been successfully carried out immediately before the beginning of the UN summit in New York this week.

Assad was planning to make his appearance at the summit as a representative of the new generation of Arab leaders who would transform the region as a promising place of stability and economic progress. He was also to make some promises of initiating Syria's march toward democracy during his speech in New York. That visit was also to mark the end of a long period of isolation of his country.

The Bush administration, on the other hand, wanted to do everything to deny Assad any recognition or accolades from the West. Syria was told that Assad would have no chance of meeting President George W Bush. In addition, Washington systematically persuaded the EU heads to shun Assad. The Syrian president got the message and abandoned his plan to attend the summit.

The third phase of the US regime-change plan involves putting pressure on Mehlis to be proactive in seeking to "interview" a number of Syrian officials, including Assad. Naturally, Syria would not agree to have its president interviewed by a UN prosecutor, a process that even Saddam did not encounter when he was in power.

From the perspectives of psychological warfare, that is also an adroit move. The purpose is to constantly place Assad on the defensive, forcing him between accepting the humiliating option of being himself interviewed by a UN prosecutor, or providing important enough Syrian officials for Mehlis' interviews so that he would not insist on interviewing him. If that measure does not satisfy Mehlis, Assad might meet with him, but only if the meeting were to be labeled as a "courtesy call."

The fourth phase of the impending regime-change plan is to find an alternative ruler for Syria, an "Ahmad Chalabi version," but with a cleaner reputation than the Iraqi exile courted by the US before the fall of Saddam. On this point, the Bush administration is not having much success. One option is to meet with the late Hafez Assad's brother, Riffat, who does not reside in Syria, and extract some sort of commitment from him to democratize Syria if, or when, regime change does take place.

The general thinking in Washington is that the US will not repeat the mistake of heavily relying on Syrian expatriates, who, like their Iraqi counterparts, may have the number one objective of self-promotion and telling the US government what it wants to hear. The top US national security officials remember only too well the fairy tales of rose water and sweets that the American troops were to be offered once they walked into Iraq. However, there is no guarantee that a number of fallacious actions immediately prior to and in the immediate aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq will not be repeated.

In this high-stakes politics, Syria is not without options. It has calculated that it will do nothing to make the US occupation of Iraq a smooth operation, and Assad would have to be persuaded to cooperate - and he has things he wants. First and foremost, he wants the US to pressure Israel in negotiating a withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Second, he wants his regime to be removed from the US list of "bad actors," and be rewarded with economic and other assistance. Syria always feels that the Bush administration has been too harsh toward it and has never manifested a preference for rapprochement. Third, the US toppling of Saddam has created a deep feeling of suspicion in Damascus that its number will be up sooner or later.

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2//RIA Novosti (Russian News & Information Agency), Russia 19:41 15/09/2005
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050915/41406938.html

RUSSIA IS COUNTING ON CONTINUED STRENGTHENING OF RELATIONS WITH IRAN

NEW YORK, September 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia wants to see its relations with Iran continuing to improve, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Iranian president in New York Thursday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran considered Russia its closest ally.

Putin said, "Russia and Iran have a long-standing and very close relationship." Moscow and Tehran have "many joint regional interests, including in the Caspian Sea." He also said trade between the two countries was up 43% last year.

"I hope that following your election, this positive trend will continue," the Russian president told Ahmadinejad, "especially since as mayor of Tehran, you established very cordial relations with our largest cities: St. Petersburg and Russia's capital, Moscow."

The Iranian president told Putin: "We are very glad that in recent times you have been able to successfully overcome many problems in Russia, and have successfully strengthened the international authority of your country."

He echoed Putin's thoughts about Russian-Iranian partnership. "A powerful Russia is Iran's best friend and a powerful Iran is one of Russia's best partners," he said. END ITEM

3//The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea Updated Sep.15,2005 19:44 KST
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200509/200509150019.html

SIX-PARTY TALKS GRIND ON

Six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear dispute ground into their third day in Beijing on Thursday with few signs of any progress as North Korea reportedly continued to insist it should be given civilian-use light-water reactors. An official connected to the talks said things were unclear and there was little hope of a breakthrough.

(SNIP)

U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill described Pyongyang’s continued calls for Washington and others to build it a light-water reactor as a "nonstarter." "The deal consists of really a lot of what (North Korea) should want -- security guarantees, a recognition package, access to international financial institutions, and a very serious energy package," but North Korea was brushing all this aside for the sake of keeping impossible demands alive.

The South Korean and Chinese delegations tried in vain to mediate. China asked the U.S. if there was some room for light-water reactors in the statement of principles the six nations are aiming for, but the U.S. reportedly demurred. The Japanese press reported China asked the parties to reach a conclusion by Sunday, which suggests Beijing sees little point in continuing talks under the present circumstances.

Hardliners in Washington and Tokyo say light-water reactors require enriched uranium, which could lead to the manufacture of nuclear warheads. If the talks have to be adjourned again, as they were for 37 days until Tuesday, it could cast the efficacy of the six-party framework in resolving the dispute in serious doubt. Since the last round of talks, the U.S. delegation has been saying, “After Christopher Hill, it's John Bolton,” shorthand for referring the matter to the UN Security Council. Bolton is regarded as the most hawkish of the Bush administration’s neocons. As UN ambassador, he handles his country’s duties in the Security Council. He has described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a "tyrannical dictator" who made North Korea a "hellish nightmare" -- a compliment Pyongyang returned by calling him "human scum" and a "bloodsucker."

4//The Independent, UK Published: 15 September 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article312721.ece

CHILDLESS SLUR COULD COST MERKEL WINNING MARGIN
By Mary Dejevsky in Berlin

Six weeks ago, it seemed not to matter. So great was the lead her centre-right alliance enjoyed over all other parties that Angela Merkel seemed set to become German chancellor with that rare luxury in German politics, an overall majority.

But with the final polls before Sunday's election showing a mere hair's breadth between her likely coalition and one that the centre-left Social Democrats might cobble together, it suddenly could matter. Sex, that is.

The fact of Ms Merkel's gender always lurked in the background, of course. But so long as she was winning, the prospect that Germany could have a woman chancellor was noted with more curiosity than disapproval. For some it was a plus point, and a sign that Germany had come of age. Not only could a woman now head a major party, she could lead it into government.

That was then. Now, chivalry, equal opportunities or political maturity - take your pick - have all been cast to the winds. The doubts many Germans secretly harboured about having a woman chancellor are surfacing in a nasty way.

The lowest "below-the-belt" blow was struck by her chief opponent's wife, Doris Schröder-Köpf, who told Die Zeit weekly that Ms Merkel "does not embody with her biography the experiences of most women."

She went on to mention childbirth, bringing up children, and schools. Ms Merkel has no children.

Gerhard Schröder himself has been careful never to comment directly on Ms Merkel's private circumstances - in fact, she is married, for the second time, to a chemistry professor from Berlin, Joachim Sauer. As a many-times married man with no children of his own - Doris has a teenage girl by a previous marriage, and together they adopted a Russian orphan two years ago - he is hardly in a position to criticise Ms Merkel.

But Mr Schröder has cheerfully let his wife's comments stand, insisting that she had every right to voice her own opinions. No less cheerfully, he has pointedly brought up the SPD's family-friendly policies in words very similar to those used by his wife. And while some voters, especially women of the "women's liberation" generation, have been repelled by this line of attack, Ms Schröder-Köpf's remarks have prompted others to question Ms Merkel's credentials - as a woman, and thus as a politician. Germany is still conservative in its attitudes towards women: fewer work, either full time or part time, than in Britain or France, and married women are expected to have children.

(SNIP)

She is probably in a more difficult position than Margaret Thatcher or Hillary Clinton. Like them, she is regularly described as masculine, overbearing or disloyal - this last for the way she engineered the exit of her one-time patron, Helmut Kohl, the re-unifier of Germany, over a scandal about party funds. Unlike them, Ms Merkel is also taken to task for "feminine" weaknesses: "wavering" over her choice for finance minister, for instance.

That the lady is no actress need not be a failing in an age where people are said to hanker after truth and sincerity in politics. Up against Gerhard Schröder, whose charm, presentational brilliance and readiness to use every trick, she appears a rank amateur.

The truth is that if Ms Merkel fails to lead her party into government, her presentational inadequacy will be a real contributory factor. But the Chancellor's wife will also have had something to do with it.

5//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy Sep 14, 2005
http://www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2...

WORKING WITHOUT BOSSES
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 14 (IPS) - Women are playing a major role in the revolutionary Argentine workers' initiative of taking over factories that have been abandoned by their owners, and in so doing, rescuing jobs and salaries that seemed to have been lost forever.

"You can't cut off our water, we've paid all our bills," María Pino protests over the phone, while using her free hand to rifle through a stack of papers on a nearby shelf, searching for the file folder of receipts from the Aguas Argentinas water company to prevent a cut-off.

Pino has worked at the Grissinópoli baked goods company in Buenos Aires for 33 years. She was the "right-hand woman" of a succession of company presidents who ran the business from the height of prosperity into total ruin. Today, although she earns the same wages as the company's 16 factory floor workers, she holds the reins of this newly successful business, albeit one faced with the burden of old debts.

Grissinópoli is a member of the National Movement of Factories Recovered by Workers, a collective of roughly 80 companies formed in the late 1990s to group together bankrupted businesses that had been abandoned by their owners, but not by their employees.

The movement encompasses manufacturing and services industries hit by the four-year recession that began in 1998 and culminated in 2001 with the economic, social and political collapse that brought down the government of President Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001).

As well as factories producing everything from textiles, ceramics, glass and rubber to food and refrigerators, the network also includes transportation companies, educational facilities and even hospitals. Most of them are headed up by men, but in some cases, the horizontal organisational structure has helped women move into leading roles.

One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the world's governments in 2000 is to promote gender equality and empower women. But in this case, the progress achieved by women is not a result of a government policy. On the contrary, it was the women themselves who took control of the abandoned factories and other businesses and got them back on their feet.

The "recovered" factories are organised as cooperatives, with statutes and licences to operate.

Legal permission to take over their operation was obtained by presenting viability studies to the courts handling the corresponding bankruptcy proceedings, or by applying to provincial legislatures to request their expropriation.

The salaries drawn by the workers are called "returns." Everyone earns the same wages, which are divvied up in accordance with the income taken in that month. Decisions are adopted by majority vote in regularly scheduled assemblies.

The Brukman textile factory, abandoned by its owners in late 2001, currently employs 62 people, of whom 50 are women. Before the owners finally fled the heavily indebted company, it had reached the point where the women working there were paid a mere five pesos, or two dollars, a week.

The struggle to keep the factory from being shut down permanently dragged on from late 2001 to late 2003, and led to clashes with the police, forced evictions, and attempts to manipulate the protest for political purposes.

Finally, through successful organisation and a series of appeals to the courts, the women were able to get the factory back up and running normally.

In the interim, three factory workers became pregnant and gave birth, and the other women raised funds to cover their medical expenses and maternity leaves.

Now each worker takes home around 600 pesos (205 dollars) a month, and new staff are being hired.

The president of the cooperative is Elena Caliba. Her position does not entail working any less than the others or receiving a higher salary, nor is she authorised to adopt any decisions on her own.

"It means a lot more responsibility, because as well as working (on the machines), we have to deal with all the accounting, paperwork and sales," she told IPS.

The company is finally out of the red. "Every time we make a sale, first we cover expenses and taxes, and then we divide up the rest," she explained.

A similar situation was described by Liliana Correndo, from the cooperative formed to recover the Israelite Hospital in Buenos Aires.

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