General Electric Plan Lights Up Putin--New World Media Watch...

[Gloria]

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

WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR OCTOBER 22, 2004

1//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--U.N., IRAQ CLASH OVER ELECTIONS (U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is at loggerheads with the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq over national elections scheduled to take place in that strife-torn country in January 2005… The world body now has only 35 international staffers in Iraq, of which six are election experts. In contrast, the United Nations had more than 600 international employees monitoring elections in Afghanistan last week. Asked if Iraq should postpone the vote because of the deteriorating security environment, Annan said: ''It will be their call, not ours.'' The ''ownership'' of the elections belongs to the Iraqis, he added. So far only one country -- Fiji -- has pledged to send troops to protect U.N. staff members in Iraq, despite a Security Council resolution urging all 191 member states to help provide a military force…''It will probably take weeks before the Fijians are trained on how to handle Australian weapons,'' one diplomat told IPS. Judging by the widespread insurgency, he added, the more important question is, ''who is going to protect the Fijian force?'')



2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--PRECISION-STRIKE DEMOCRACY (Fallujah may become the new Gaza. Or the new Grozny. Meanwhile, here's what's happening on the ground, as summarized to Asia Times Online by sources in Baghdad very close to the Fallujah resistance… As a national liberation movement, the Iraqi guerrillas, increasingly unified, are bound ultimately to prevail. For example, the Imam al-Mujahideen Brigades, a resistance coalition now operating under a central command, has grown to more than 7,000 members all over Iraq. They have access to an unlimited supply of heavy weapons - strategically placed throughout Iraq before the US invasion. At least 25,000 guerrillas - and counting - may now be in operation all over Iraq…The guerrillas meanwhile are succeeding in mobilizing the Iraqi urban masses, Sunni and Shi'ite, against the occupation. The ultimate aim of the guerrillas is urban revolution - exactly what Sistani will inspire if he does not get his fair elections. That's why every day the guerrillas target the already crumbling Iraqi infrastructure and bomb crowds of civilians: their aim is to make people realize that the key reason their lives are so miserable and dangerous is because the invaders refuse to leave.)



3//The Jordan Times, Jordan--HARIRI DEPARTURE THROWS COUNTRY INTO DEEPER POLITICAL, ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY (The resignation Wednesday of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri threw Lebanon into yet more political and economic uncertainty amid international pressure on influential neighbour Syria to pull its troops out of the country…The resignation and an apparent opposition boycott of consultations to form a new government are widely expected to give Lahoud a free hand to appoint a pro-Syrian figure as prime minister. Analysts said Hariri's resignation opened the way to a period of uncertainty until legislative elections scheduled for next spring. "But more than these elections, it is Syria's standoff with the international community that remains the main problem faced by Lebanon," a Lebanese banker specialised in Lebanese-Syrian affairs told AFP. "The question is to know how Syria, known for its immobility, will deal with the situation, under the pressure of the international community," he said.)



4//The Toronto Star, Canada--MARTIN MUZZLES CABINET ON U.S. ELECTION (Prime Minister Paul Martin served notice to his Liberal cabinet today to clam up with their personal opinions on the U.S. presidential election. He was responding to media questions in the wake of a newspaper column that quoted some cabinet ministers saying they favour Democrat John Kerry over U.S. President George W. Bush…Antagonism between the federal Liberals and U.S. Republicans exploded in the run-up to the American-led war in Iraq last year, with a string of verbal attacks against Bush. A spokeswoman for then-prime minister Jean Chrétien was forced to resign after calling the president "a moron," and former cabinet minister Herb Dhaliwal labelled Bush a failed statesman. Then there was the infamous "those bastards" comment by Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish.)

5//The Moscow Times, Russia--GENERAL ELECTRIC PLAN LIGHTS UP PUTIN (The visiting head of U.S. manufacturing and financial giant General Electric Co. told President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Russia's energy and rail transport industries are prime for investment by Western investors…Putin said he was "happy" that GE was raising its activity in the country… Putin also made a pitch for Russia's energy and rail sectors and he praised U.S. President George W. Bush for helping to consolidate Russian-American relations in recent years.)