Beware of Snacks, Poll Watchers Told/Philipp. Daily Inq.--New WMW

[Gloria]

Full excerpts, links up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR MAY 10, 2004

1//SwissInfo, Switzerland--SWITZERLAND CONDEMNS ABUSE OF IRAQI PRISONERS (The Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, has condemned the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by coalition forces. On Friday she summoned the United States and British ambassadors to express her outrage and denounce the abuse as an unacceptable breach of humanitarian law. Calmy-Rey said she told the US and British ambassadors to Bern, Pamela Willeford and Simon Featherstone, that the mistreatment of prisoners contravened international regulations. During a meeting at the Swiss foreign ministry, she reminded both diplomats that Switzerland - as the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions - had a special obligation to ensure that humanitarian law was upheld.)



2//The Jordan Times, Jordan--ARAB FOREIGN MINISTERS FOCUS ON POLITICAL REFORM(Arab foreign ministers turned their focus Sunday to the thorny issue of political reform, on the second day of closed-door talks aimed at preventing a repetition of the embarrassing collapse of an annual summit in March…Another official of the Cairo-based League, on condition of anonymity, said the secretariat of the 22-member organisation had drawn up a draft statement on "the Arab vision of internal reforms."…The official also said that the "Greater Middle East Initiative," which Washington is championing to bolster democracy in the region, was not on the agenda of the ministers' meeting. The United States says it wants to launch the scheme during a summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations in June. But several Arab countries, including US allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have criticised the initiative, fearing Washington wants to impose its own cultural models on the region.)



3//The Daily Times, Pakistan--PAKISTAN—A VIBRANT PRESS UNDER CONSTRAINT SINCE 2003 (The press in Pakistan, last year, remained fiercely independent in its criticism of the country’s military regime, observed the South Asian Free Media Association in its recently published report, “Media Monitor 2003”. It claimed the rise of the religious right and growing militancy in the name of religion caused problems for various parts of the media: the secular section of the press came remained under pressure while journalists supporting orthodox religious views came down hard on the Musharraf government.)



4//The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines--BEWARE OF SNACKS, POLL WATCHERS TOLD (Vigilance. Alertness. Flashlights. And anti-diarrhea tablets. Poll watchers would need these to safeguard the votes of their candidates from possible cheating in Monday's election. Some candidates who have big campaign funds already had their poll watchers undergo training for specific reminders on how to spot cheating techniques. Those who have meager funds would rely on volunteers to observe the counting of votes.)



5//The Guardian/Observer, UK--SUMMER HEAT WILL CAUSE DEADLY OZONE (But the latest ozone study, carried out by a team led by Alastair Lewis, of York University and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, has discovered that a dangerous new factor arises when temperatures soar into the high 30s. 'We went to Chelmsford to study ozone and isoprene levels last year,' said Lewis. 'By chance, we picked the two weeks of the heatwave. What we discovered was startling. When the temperature reached the high 90s and topped 100, plants and trees ... start to produce greatly increased amounts.' It is thought that isoprene acts as a kind of heat-shock molecule, protecting leaves from damage when temperatures rise above 35C. When plants are short of water, they produce even more. However, in the atmosphere isoprene acts as a catalyst driving the rate at which sunlight breaks down nitrogen oxide and turns it into ozone. The more isoprene there is, the more ozone is generated, effectively wiping out the moderate success the government has had in reducing levels.)