Gloria R. Lalumia's World Media Watch for December 19, 2007

WORLD MEDIA WATCH

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

1//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy
IRAQ: "BAD" WOMEN RAPED AND KILLED

Women are being killed by militia groups in southern Iraq for not conforming to strict Islamic ways, the police say. And, increased threats from militia groups is driving many women away from their homes. Basra police chief Gen. Jalil Hannoon has told reporters and Arab TV channels that at least 40 women have been killed during the past five months in the southern city. "We are sure there are many more victims whose families did not report their killing for fear of scandal," Gen. Hannoon said. The militias dominated by the Shia Badr Organisation and the Mehdi Army are leading imposition of strict Islamic rules. The enforcement of these ways comes at a time when British troops have left Basra, the biggest town in the south, to the Iraqi government. The Shia-dominated Iraqi government is seen as providing tacit and sometimes direct support to militias. The Badr Organisation answers to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the Shia bloc in the Iraqi government. The Mehdi army is the militia of anti-occupation Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. ... "The situation in Baghdad is not very different," Mazin Abdul Jabbar, social researcher at Baghdad University told IPS. "All universities are controlled by Islamic militiamen who harass female students all the time with religious restrictions." Jabbar said this is one reason that "many families have stopped sending their daughters to high schools and colleges." Earlier this year Iraq's Ministry of Education found that more than 70 percent of girls and young women no longer attend school or college. ... Iraqi liberals are deeply frustrated by the lack of personal freedom. "We are so disappointed with the loss of what there was of Iraqi women's achievements under a regime (of former president Saddam Hussein) that we saw as retarded," Salim Mahmood of the Iraqi Communist Party in Baghdad told IPS. "The Americans promised they would make Iraq a symbol of liberty and prosperity. Now it has neither."

AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES

2//The Guardian, UK
GOVERNMENT DEFENDS IMMIGRANT VISITOR ‘BOND' PLAN

Ministers today defended plans to demand British families put up a cash deposit when relatives visit from outside the EU, insisting the move would help "keep risky people out". Immigration minister Liam Byrne said the bond would ensure visitors returned home at the end of their stay.

The Home Office this morning declined to confirm reports that the family bond may be set at as much as £1,000, but a spokesman said that any financial security would have to be set "at a meaningful level" in order to be an effective deterrent. Byrne stressed that, if adopted, the bond would not be applied in every case, but only where there was considered to be a risk that visiting relatives may not return home. Byrne said: "Tougher checks abroad mean we keep risky people out. By next spring we'll check everyone's fingerprints when they apply for a visa. Now we're proposing a financial guarantee as well - not for everyone, but where we think there's a risk. "Our aim is to make the system more secure, but also to ensure that we maintain the UK's position as a destination of choice for tourists. In 2006, people from overseas spent £15.4bn in the UK with the tourism industry employing 1.4 million people."... Other proposals laid out in a Home Office consultation paper, published today, include slashing the standard visa time for non-EU tourists from six months to three in a bid to crack down on illegal immigration and working. The home office proposals also suggest the creation of a specific business and specialist visa - which could cover arts and showbusiness performers, as well as film crews making movies in the UK - and a special visa for one-off events like the Olympics. Today's consultation was launched as the government announced that more than 1 million fingerprints have been collected from foreign nationals applying to come to the UK as part of the biometric visa programme. Visa applicants in more than 120 countries are required to provide fingerprints to come to the UK for work, study or tourism and biometric checks have matched more than 10,000 prints with individuals who had previously been involved in immigration cases or asylum applications in Britain.

3//EUObserver.com, Belgium
SWEDISH TRADE UNIONS LOSE EU LABOUR CASE

The EU's highest court has delivered a blow to the Swedish system of collective bargaining - seen as underpinning the country's highly successful social model - by ruling that Swedish unions cannot force a foreign company to observe local pay deals. In a keenly awaited judgement, the court said that a trade union blockade which forced a Latvian company using cheaper Latvian labourers into bankruptcy was illegal. "Such action in the form of a blockade of sites constitutes a restriction on the freedom to provide services, which, in this case, is not justified with regard to the public interest of protecting workers," said the court. The case arose in 2004, shortly after eight central and eastern European states with cheaper and more flexible labour forces, joined the European Union and was seen as a testing ground for member states with a more rigid and socially protected workforce. The dispute centred around wages with the trade unionists urging Latvia's Laval - building a school in the Swedish city of Vaxholm - to pay higher Swedish construction sector wages to its Latvian workers. The company refused leading the unionists to block the site eventually forcing Laval to leave. But the court said that while such collective action can sometimes be justified under community law to protect against social dumping - using workers with less social rights and lower wages - it cannot be used to force a company to enter into negotiations on pay where it is not clear what the outcome will be. ... The court also said that union action forcing foreign companies into wage negotiations of "unspecified duration" is liable to make it "less attractive or more difficult" for a company to carry out construction work and "therefore constitutes a restriction on the freedom to provide services." The freedom to provide services is a key pillar of the EU's internal market rules. ... The Nordic states say the collective system is the basis for their highly successful Nordic social model, which sees high employment and high social protection. Reacting to the case, leftist Danish MEP Soren Sondergaard said it was a "catastrophe for the Nordic model, where trade unions have the right to protest against employers to secure decent collective agreements."

4//RIA Novosti (Russian News & Information Agency), Russia
UKRAINE'S NEW CABINET TO START WORK ON WEDNESDAY

Ukraine's new Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Tuesday her government would hold its first session on Wednesday, focusing on the national budget. Ukraine's parliament approved the outspoken pro-Western coalition leader's return as premier earlier on Tuesday and backed the new government later in the day. Tymoshenko received the required minimum of 226 votes in support of her nomination. The rival parties did not take part in the vote. Tymoshenko said the new Cabinet's first task would be to prepare a new budget by New Year. "The new government's first steps in the remaining few days will be to determine our financial resources, amend the budget, and submit it to parliament for approval." Tymoshenko also said Ukraine would stick to its commitments to transit Russian natural gas to Europe, but would urge for talks with Moscow to remove intermediary companies from the gas market, in reference to RosUkrEnergo, the sole supplier of Russian gas to the country, which is 50% owned by Russia's Gazprom. "There is [Ukraine's national oil and gas company] Naftogaz and there is Gazprom, and there are the governments of Russia and Ukraine. Intermediaries are not needed on the gas market," she said.

5//The Mail & Guardian, South Africa
ZUMA IS NEW ANC PRESIDENT

Jacob Zuma is the new president of the African National Congress. The announcement was greeted by an outpouring of joy and ecstatic cheering by ANC delegates at the party's conference in Polokwane shortly before 9pm on Tuesday. Thabo Mbeki received 1 505 votes and Zuma 2 329. A display of fireworks greeted Zuma's ascension outside the main conference marquee and some delegates poured out of the tent and into the drizzling rain. ... Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) expressed dismay at Zuma's election as president. "This is a dismal day for the ANC and for South Africa," DA leader Helen Zille said in a statement made available after the announcement. "It is an indictment on the ruling party that they could find no better candidate than Jacob Zuma to lead them." Zille said the Polokwane conference had exposed many of Zuma's supporters as unruly and ill-disciplined populists who could not observe the basic norms of decent, democratic behaviour. "These are the people to whom Zuma owes his election as ANC president and he will have to return the favour. He will be accountable to them." Zille said the ANC will now be held hostage by populists and left-wingers, leaving a growing vacuum at the centre of South African politics. Zuma had carefully avoided making any policy pronouncements during his campaign for the ANC presidency, she said. "But we know he has reactionary views on gender issues and that he has surrounded himself with dubious advisers. This is unlikely to change." ... The election of Zuma as ANC president is of historic importance, former state president FW de Klerk. "The decision is of historic importance to South Africa since it will have a major impact on the leadership of the country for the next five to 12 years," De Klerk said a statement. "The key to success will be our ability to abide by the Constitution and the national accord that it represents." ... Zuma still faces the possibility of the NPA taking him back to court on corruption charges. The charges, thrown out of court last year without a hearing, centre on his relationship with businessman and fraud convict Schabir Shaik, who was found guilty in 2005 of soliciting an arms-company bribe for Zuma and jailed for an effective 15 years. President Thabo Mbeki sacked Zuma as deputy president of the country soon after the Shaik verdict.

FEATURED ARTICLE

1//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy December 18, 2007

IRAQ: "BAD" WOMEN RAPED AND KILLED
By Ali al-Fadhily*

BAGHDAD, Dec 18 (IPS) - Women are being killed by militia groups in southern Iraq for not conforming to strict Islamic ways, the police say. And, increased threats from militia groups is driving many women away from their homes.

Basra police chief Gen. Jalil Hannoon has told reporters and Arab TV channels that at least 40 women have been killed during the past five months in the southern city.

"We are sure there are many more victims whose families did not report their killing for fear of scandal," Gen. Hannoon said.

The militias dominated by the Shia Badr Organisation and the Mehdi Army are leading imposition of strict Islamic rules. The enforcement of these ways comes at a time when British troops have left Basra, the biggest town in the south, to the Iraqi government.

The Shia-dominated Iraqi government is seen as providing tacit and sometimes direct support to militias. The Badr Organisation answers to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the Shia bloc in the Iraqi government. The Mehdi army is the militia of anti-occupation Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Women who do not wear the hijab are becoming prime targets of militias, residents say. Many women say they are threatened with death if they do not obey.

(SNIP)

"The situation in Baghdad is not very different," Mazin Abdul Jabbar, social researcher at Baghdad University told IPS. "All universities are controlled by Islamic militiamen who harass female students all the time with religious restrictions."

Jabbar said this is one reason that "many families have stopped sending their daughters to high schools and colleges."

Earlier this year Iraq's Ministry of Education found that more than 70 percent of girls and young women no longer attend school or college.

Several women victims were accused of being "bad" before they were abducted, residents say. Most abducted women are later found dead. The bodies of several were found in garbage dumps, showing signs of rape and torture. Several bodies had a note attached saying the woman was "bad", according to several residents who did not give their name.

A Shia cleric in Baghdad spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity to defend killings.

"We are an Islamic country and we must commit to the restrictions of our religion," he said. "We must not allow corruption to invade our families under flag of freedom and such nonsense."

Sunni clerics offered a different view.

"It is against Islamic regulations for women to expose their hair and bodies," Sheikh Tariq al-Abdaly told IPS in Baghdad. "But this is not an Islamic state, and so all we can do is to advise women, same as we advise men, to follow those regulations. In any case, punishment for such mistakes should certainly be much less than execution."

Iraqi liberals are deeply frustrated by the lack of personal freedom. "We are so disappointed with the loss of what there was of Iraqi women's achievements under a regime (of former president Saddam Hussein) that we saw as retarded," Salim Mahmood of the Iraqi Communist Party in Baghdad told IPS.

"The Americans promised they would make Iraq a symbol of liberty and prosperity. Now it has neither."

Copyright 2007, Gloria R. Lalumia

WORLD MEDIA WATCH