Gloria R. Lalumia's World Media Watch for November 9, 2007

WORLD MEDIA WATCH

Summaries are excerpted from the source articles; the featured article follows the summary section.

1//The Guardian, UK
WASHINGTON TELLS EU FIRMS: QUIT IRAN NOW

Multinational companies are coming under increasing pressure from the US to stop doing business with Iran because of its nuclear programme. European operators are facing threats from Washington that they could jeopardise their US interests by continuing to deal with Tehran, with increasing evidence that European governments, mainly France, Germany and Britain, are supporting the US campaign. It emerged last night that Siemens, one of the world's largest engineering groups and based in Germany, has pulled out of all new business dealings with Iran after pressure from the US and German governments. This follows the decision by Germany's three biggest banks, Deutsche, Commerzbank, and Dresdner, to quit Iran after a warning from US vice-president Dick Cheney that if firms remain in Tehran, they are going to have problems doing business in the US. The Foreign Office, while sympathising with City firms, has privately backed the US warnings in recent weeks, telling companies such as Shell and BP of the risks of continuing business with Iran. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has urged French energy firms Total and GDF not to pursue new business in Iran. Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, is joining him in pressing for new sanctions, probably at EU level. ... If economic sanctions fail to have an impact by next year, pressure will mount from Mr Cheney to launch air strikes against Iran. The under-secretary for political affairs at the US state department, Nicholas Burns, and the under-secretary at the Treasury, Stuart Levey, have made frequent trips to Europe to warn companies they face the loss of American business if they continue to deal with Iran.

AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES

2//RIA Novosti, Russia
IRAN UNLIKELY TO THREATEN U.S. TERRITORY IN NEXT 10 YEARS

Iran has no capability to build nuclear weapons that could reach U.S. territory within the next seven to 10 years, a Russian military expert said on Thursday. "Iran may develop primitive nuclear weapons, but not weapons capable of reaching the United States in the next seven to 10 years," said Col. Gen. Varfolomei Korobushin, first vice president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. He said the Iranian threat cannot be used to justify U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Central Europe. Iran has been under international scrutiny over its nuclear research, which Tehran says is aimed at generating energy, but Western nations suspect the Islamic Republic of pursuing a clandestine weapons program. The U.S. announced its Central European missile defense plans earlier this year, claiming the facilities were needed to counter possible threats from so called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. Moscow considers the plans a threat to national security.

3//The News International, Pakistan
TURKEY'S KURDISH PARTY WARNED TO CUT LINKS WITH REBELS

Turkey's main Kurdish party urged a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict on Thursday as Ankara warned of legal sanctions if the party fails to sever its alleged links with separatist rebels.

That is a peaceful settlement to the Kurdish conflict and broader cultural and political rights for the Kurdish community. But its refusal to brand the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a terrorist group, as Ankara does, and the sympathy its members often voice for the rebels have sparked accusations that it is a political tool of the PKK. The party came under fresh attack after three of its lawmakers travelled to northern Iraq on Sunday to participate in the release of eight Turkish soldiers captured by the PKK in a deadly ambush last month. Television footage showed them shaking hands with rebel fighters and signing papers on a table adorned by the portrait of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Demirtas said DTP efforts for reconcilitaion had encountered "an attitude of incredible intolerance and lynching" in Ankara. Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin, saying "public opinion believes they (the DTP) have links" with the PKK, issued a veiled warning the party might be banned if it fails to dissociate itself from the rebel group. "If they insist on serving PKK objectives on a political basis... whatever Turkey's constitution and legislation require will be done and they will have to bear the consequences," Sahin told Samanyolu television overnight. The DTP was created in 2005 as a successor to several Kurdish parties outlawed by the courts. Party chairman Ahmet Turk, a moderate and seasoned politician, is expected to be succeeded on Thursday by his deputy Demirtas, a little known figure, who many expect to have a less moderate approach to the Kurdish question.

4//EUobserver.com, Belgium
FAR-RIGHT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT GROUP ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE

The anti-immigrant far-right political group in the European Parliament is on the verge of collapse following internal fighting over comments made by an Italian member about Romanians and criminality. The Greater Romania party on Thursday (7 November) announced that it was withdrawing its five members from the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group following comments expressed by Alessandra Mussolini, grand-daughter of the facist Il Duce, about Romanians after a much publicised murder of an Italian last week. The suspected perpetrator is thought be a Romanian immigrant from the Roma community and prompted harsh rhetoric from far-right politicians in Italy, including Ms Mussonlini. In response, a letter by the head of the Greater Romania party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, states that "The unconsciousness of this lady [Ms Mussonlini] who makes easily generalisations, leaving to understand that all the Romanians are living like delinquents and are making dreadful crimes - remind us of her grandfather, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (...)." "With the exit of the 5 Romanian MEPs, who became independent again, the Identity-Tradition Sovereignty group disappears," says the letter. According to Mr Vadim, whose own party has been regularly accused of racism, Ms Mussolini is quoted in Romanian newspapers as saying: "Breaking the law became a way of life for Romanians. However, it is not about petty crimes, but horrifying crimes, that gives one goose bumps." Later on Thursday, it emerged that the Romanians were considering trying to stay in the group but get Ms Mussolini removed - in this way the group would be able to continue to exist. A decision is to be made next Tuesday. A spokesperson for the ITS group told EUobserver that they are going to "use the weekend" for negotiations and that it was "not possible to say" yet whether the group would survive. Under EU assembly rules, a party must have at least 20 members from six member states.

5//The Independent, UK
CHINA'S MEDIA SCORNS BLAIR'S £200,000 'CASH RAKING' LECTURE TRIP

Tony Blair earned the scorn of the Chinese media yesterday for accepting £200,000 for a three-hour spin through southern China, during which he gave a "cliched" speech and fitted in a quick jaunt around a high-class villa complex. "Is he worth the money?" asked some Chinese newspapers and compared the former prime minister's oratorical insights to those of a village official. The Guangzhou Daily said the trip was simply a "money-raking" exercise and complained that China was becoming a place for celebrities and former leaders to come and cash in. The paper said it was time for Chinese sponsors to think a bit harder about who they invite to open their supermarkets and walk down their red carpets. "We should exercise less ostentation and vanity ... learn more new and genuine knowledge - especially when we are using even a cent of taxpayers' money," the paper said. The 1.8 million circulation newspaper said the property company sponsoring his visit, Guangda, had also offered him one of the villas in the luxury estate, worth 38m yuan (£2.4m), although it declined to say whether he took up the offer. Perhaps he is holding out to buy the £3m Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire, as is widely rumoured. His trip that has garnered its fair share of other negative notices. Earlier in the week, foreign journalists were banned from the hall where Mr Blair was giving an address in the capital, reportedly at the request of his aides. They could only listen to the speech via a closed-circuit television feed but transmission was cut after he moved into a 40-minute question-and-answer session. The tone of the visit was set early on. Mr Blair arrived in Hong Kong on a private jet on Monday to start his lecture circuit, kicking off with a group of bankers at Merrill Lynch before heading over the border the following day. He travelled to Dongguan, a vast industrial city in the Pearlr river delta near the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, where many of the industrial goods fuelling China's remarkable economic boom are made. Dongguan, with a population of seven million, is also home to some of the factories producing the sub-standard toys that shops had to recall earlier this year. In an editorial, the China Youth Daily, which is affiliated to the Communist Party's Youth League, the power-base of Chinese President Hu Jintao, criticised the amount of Mr Blair's fee. In a comment that rang hilariously true to those used to hearing tiresome speeches by local officials in small towns, the paper said his speech was full of pleasantries and cliches on collaboration between the government and business, education, innovation and environmental protection, but was decidedly low on insight.

FEATURED ARTICLE

1//The Guardian, UK Friday November 9, 2007

WASHINGTON TELLS EU FIRMS: QUIT IRAN NOW

UK, French and German companies begin pullout under US pressure

David Gow in Munich and Ewen MacAskill in Washington

Multinational companies are coming under increasing pressure from the US to stop doing business with Iran because of its nuclear programme. European operators are facing threats from Washington that they could jeopardise their US interests by continuing to deal with Tehran, with increasing evidence that European governments, mainly France, Germany and Britain, are supporting the US campaign.

It emerged last night that Siemens, one of the world's largest engineering groups and based in Germany, has pulled out of all new business dealings with Iran after pressure from the US and German governments. This follows the decision by Germany's three biggest banks, Deutsche, Commerzbank, and Dresdner, to quit Iran after a warning from US vice-president Dick Cheney that if firms remain in Tehran, they are going to have problems doing business in the US.

The Foreign Office, while sympathising with City firms, has privately backed the US warnings in recent weeks, telling companies such as Shell and BP of the risks of continuing business with Iran. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has urged French energy firms Total and GDF not to pursue new business in Iran. Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, is joining him in pressing for new sanctions, probably at EU level.

The US is tightening its economic squeeze on Iran and last month unilaterally imposed a new round of sanctions. It regularly complains in private to the British and other European governments that American efforts are being undermined by European companies continuing to do business with Tehran. If economic sanctions fail to have an impact by next year, pressure will mount from Mr Cheney to launch air strikes against Iran.

The under-secretary for political affairs at the US state department, Nicholas Burns, and the under-secretary at the Treasury, Stuart Levey, have made frequent trips to Europe to warn companies they face the loss of American business if they continue to deal with Iran.

BP said back in 2005 that "politically Iran is not a flyer" because of the company's huge presence in the US. Rival Shell has been tentatively moving forward with engineering studies on a large gas project in Iran but has insisted in the past that it would only take a final decision once it knew it was commercially viable. A spokesman for the company would not comment last night but industry sources said it was a "very sensitive issue", given the scale of Shell's oil business in the US.

The two British banks most frequently mentioned in Washington in relation to Iran are HSBC and Standard Chartered. Both banks have scaled down their operations in Iran but maintain a modest presence in Tehran.

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Copyright 2007, Gloria R. Lalumia

World Media Watch