Full excerpts, links NOW at
http://www.zianet.com/insightanalyticalTomorrow at Buzzflash.com
WORLD MEDIA WATCH For August 13, 2003
1//The New Democrat, Liberia (Published in The Netherlands)-- ANALYSIS: “GOD WILLING, I WILL BE BACK”: TAYLOR LEAVES IN STYLE (With no electricity, Taylor's TV speeches and CNN transmissions were for foreign audiences. Many in Monrovia who can afford a radio got glimpse from the BBC African programs. Thus the grand departure show was for foreign viewers, not Liberians, too hungry, too afraid and without communications means to know that their monster has left in such a staged style…But he has not yet given up on his orgy of death and destruction, and his departing words, “God willing, I will be back”, should serve notice to the new leaders-to-be what to expect. From a penniless exile in the 1980s, Taylor organised a force that would lead the region’s destruction. Now far wealthier, better connected, “God willing I will be back” could the beginning of round two. From West African states in the 1990s, he dispatched operatives into Liberia to lay the ground for his war. From Nigeria, where money can do anything as in most countries, Liberia is not out of the woods.)
2//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--AL-QAEDA GLOATS: AUSTRALIANS ARE NEXT(The new threat came as the director general of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, said that Australia's "close alliance" with the US has contributed to it being a target for terrorists…The US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, who began a visit to Australia yesterday, skirted the issue of Australia's close ties with the US, saying Australia was a target because it was "a greater threat to what
want to bring about". He was not surprised the alleged al-Qaeda claim mentioned Australia.)
3//The Daily Star, Lebanon--IRAN’S RICH AND WELL-CONNECTED FAVOR ECONOMIC STATUS QUO (“People are no longer afraid to speak out. They’re not … angrier, just more vocal,” he argues. Jahangir Amuzegar, Iran’s finance minister in the 1970s, disagrees: “It’s the envy factor,” he says. “I doubt anybody is getting poorer, but the trouble is that a tiny minority is getting richer very quickly.” It has been a bitter pill to swallow given that “the covenant of the meek,” or social justice, was a favorite catch-phrase of the leaders of Iran’s 1979 revolution. It has been made far worse, though, by the fact that the principal beneficiaries of wealth redistribution have been regime clerics and their closest allies.)
4//The Moscow Times, Russia--300 OBSERVERS AT CHECHEN VOTE ("There is forgery in elections in all Russian regions, and Chechnya is such a complex region that it would be naive to think everything will go all right there," Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva said at a news conference Tuesday…The Kremlin's favored candidate, acting Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov, was trailing in the most recent opinion poll released from the region. A Validata survey released at the end of June showed that 61 percent of respondents would not support him. Allegations are mounting that Kadyrov is unfairly using his administrative resources to ensure his election, Politkovskaya, who covers Chechnya for Novaya Gazeta, told the same news conference.)
5//The Guardian, UK--NEW TIGERS BARE THEIR TEETH (However, while Europe's traditional economic powerhouses are barely ticking over, the continent is not entirely without its success stories. To find them, you need to look east, to the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in the north, through Slovakia in central Europe, to the Balkans in south-east Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania). In a report by HSBC, released last week, the seven countries are given a catchy name: new Europe's new tigers.)
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