Gloria R. Lalumia's World Media Watch for January 4, 2008

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: GOVERNMENT FRAGMENTS FURTHER 

As sectarian tensions escalate politically, a new fissure is appearing within the already fragmented Iraqi government.  Adnan Al Dulaimi, head of the Sunni political bloc the Accordance Front in the Iraqi Parliament, has been placed under house arrest by Iraqi and U.S. security forces in the Adil neighbourhood west of Baghdad.  Iraqi security forces also detained his son -- Makki -- and 45 of his guards. They were accused of manufacturing car bombs and killing Sunni militia members in the neighbourhood who have been working with the U.S. military. ... The Accordance Front warned that the crackdown against them could derail Iraq's already struggling political process, and the Front said in a statement before walking out of parliament, "It will increase political tension at a time when Baghdad is relatively peaceful.""Al-Dulaimi is a terrorist just like other Sunnis who pretended to be participating in politics and peaceful efforts of reconciliation," Haydar Kathum, a follower of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) -- a Shia political and religious group led by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim -- told IPS in the Karrada area of Baghdad. "Sunnis are all terrorists, but they pushed some of their leaders to the parliament so that they can fight the new Iraq project from the inside."  Similar accusations toward members of the Sunni political group -- which holds 44 seats of the 275 seats in parliament -- were heard throughout 2007 from Shi'ite groups in the Iraqi Parliament, especially the Shi'ite Coalition led by the SIIC and the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.  "This man [Al-Dulaimi] should be held responsible for the terrorist acts that he conducted without any consideration for the possible political consequences," Jalal Al-Sagheer, one of the Shi'ite leaders of SIIC in Baghdad told IPS. ... Al-Sagheer also referred to the new SIIC's policy to eliminate yesterday's allies as they are no longer necessary given the completion of sectarian cleansing of Baghdad and other mixed areas of Iraq.

AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES 

2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
A SLAP IN THE FACE FOR PARLIAMENT 

The end of 2007 produced a telltale indication of what the New Year seems likely to bring to Iraq. "We the Iraqi members of Parliament signing below demand a timetable for withdrawal of the occupation forces [MNF] from our beloved Iraq," 144 members of the 275-member Parliament, a clear majority, wrote in a declaration April 2007. Despite this, the George W Bush administration and the Iraqi government led by US-installed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki  pushed a resolution through the UN Security Council to extend by another year the legal cover for foreign troops to operate in Iraq.  The move on December 18 violated both the Iraqi constitution and the resolution passed earlier this year by the Iraqi Parliament.  Many Iraqi lawmakers say that any renewal of the UN mandate not ratified by Parliament is illegal. The move almost guarantees an increase in violence and a deepening of sectarian tensions.  "Bypassing the Iraqi Parliament and continuing to undermine the Iraqi political process will push more Iraqis to choose armed resistance instead of political non-violent resistance," Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant at the Public Policy Office of the American Friends Service Committee in Washington, an independent peace group, told Inter Press Service.  "The US role in supporting the unpopular and unelected Iraqi cabinet will increase violence and undermine Iraqis' plans to achieve national reconciliation," Jarar said. "The best way to support reconciliation in Iraq is to stop supporting a minority of Iraqi separatists against the majority of Iraqi nationalists."  The policy of building up armed Sunni militias is already leading to Sunni divisions with Shia groups, and with the Shia dominated government.  "One can only wonder, now that the United States has 'liberated' Iraq from Saddam Hussein, just who will liberate Iraq from the United States," Jarrar wrote in a recent article.  

3//The Frontier Post, Pakistan
AFGHANISTAN CALLS ON IRAN TO DELAY DECISION ON REFUGEES

Afghanistan's government called Thursday on Iran to delay its decision to expel or punish more than a million Afghan refugees living there without proper documents. Tehran has said it has warned one-and-a-half-million Afghan refugees living in Iran without proper papers that they face arrest and detention in camps for up to five years. Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said his government was not "formally" told about the move but called on the Iranian authorities to delay their decision. "We've not formally received what we see in media. But we believe what is being said in media is not inconsistent with what we've agreed over," he said, referring to dialogue between Kabul and Tehran over the issue in recent months. "We hope that those decisions are not executed at least during the freezing months of the winter," he told a news conference in Kabul. Baheen said a government delegation would "very soon" travel to Tehran to discuss the topic and other related issues with Iranian officials. Afghanistan has complained over the speed of the expulsions, saying the country does not have the capacity at the moment to absorb the returning refugees. More than two million Afghans live in Iran while a similar number remain in eastern Pakistan after they fled war and unrest in their homeland over the past three decades.  

4//Today's Zaman, Turkey
DAVUTOGLU RULES OUT ‘BARGAIN' WITH US OVER PKK 

Ahmet Davutoglu, chief foreign policy advisor to the prime minister, has dismissed charges that the United States had agreed to cooperate with Turkey in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in return for certain assurances from Ankara in a give-and-take bargain. 

"There has been neither any demand -- secret or open -- from the United States nor assurances from Turkey," Davutoglu told CNN Türk late on Wednesday. According to Davutoglu, the architect of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government's foreign policy, a country is bound to lose if it engages in bargaining with other countries to secure help with its terrorism problem. "There can be no bargaining over the issue of terrorism," he said.  The United States, which has long turned a blind eye to Turkish calls for action against the PKK in Iraq, eventually agreed to provide real-time intelligence about the PKK and gave the Turkish military airspace clearance for air strikes on PKK targets in northern Iraq. The cooperation followed a meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog(an and US President George W. Bush on Nov. 5 during which Bush called the PKK "an enemy of Turkey, of the United States and of Iraq." ... Amnesty and reform plans have sparked media speculation that Erdogan pledged to Bush at the Nov. 5 meeting to take those steps at the request of the United States.  Davutoglu, however, rejected the charges and said that US cooperation against the PKK was not solely a product of the White House meeting. He explained that Turkish-US relations were finally being based on a "healthy foundation," for the first time since the end of the Cold War. In the past, the United States was positioned as the decision-maker in the Turkey-US relationship and Turkey as its ally that blindly supported decisions made in Washington, he went on to say. Over the past five years, on the other hand, Ankara has come up with sound proposals to aid the solution of the Iraq crisis and other deep-seated disputes in the Middle East, boosting its credibility in the region as well as US confidence in Turkey's ability to influence developments in that region.  Today, he said, Turkey's support for US policies is no longer seen as taken for granted and Ankara is consulted on key policies concerning its region. 

5//The Guardian, UK
SCIENTISTS TAKE ON BROWN OVER NUCLEAR PLANS 

A group of leading scientists and academics today condemns as undemocratic and possibly illegal the government's plans to force through a new generation of nuclear power stations to meet Britain's energy needs for the next 30 years.  They warn that questions about the risks from radiation, disposal of nuclear waste and vulnerability to a terrorist attack have not been addressed even though the government was ordered last February to repeat a public consultation on energy supply after the exercise was declared unlawful by a high court judge.  Today the nuclear consultation group, made up of 17 energy economists and several of the government's independent advisers on nuclear waste, condemned the methods used in the second attempt to gather public and expert opinion.  "We are profoundly concerned that the government's approach was designed to provide particular and limiting answers," said Dr Paul Dorfman, a spokesman for the independent group, which includes university professors from Oxford, Sussex, Lancaster and Rutgers in the US. "Those answers risk locking in UK energy to an inflexible and vulnerable pathway that will prove unsustainable," he added.  In an 87-page report, the group says: "Significant issues were not consulted on in any meaningful way or resolved in practice. It has left the government vulnerable to legal challenge and may lead to hostility and mistrust of any future energy decision," the paper warns. ...  The report comes as the government prepares to give the go-ahead next week for a major expansion of nuclear power, which could herald the building 20 new reactors in the UK by private companies. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, is convinced, as was Tony Blair, that nuclear power is needed to ensure UK energy security and to limit carbon emissions.  The intervention of the academics could trigger fresh legal action, however. Yesterday  Greenpeace, whose legal challenge to the energy review was upheld last year, said it would wait to see the government's formal response to the consultation process on Tuesday before deciding whether to return to the courts. A new court case could delay the start of building new stations by a further year. 

FEATURED ARTICLE 

1//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy   December 2, 2008

IRAQ: GOVERNMENT FRAGMENTS FURTHER

By Ali al-Fadhily 

BAGHDAD, Dec 2 (IPS) - As sectarian tensions escalate politically, a new fissure is appearing within the already fragmented Iraqi government. 

Adnan Al Dulaimi, head of the Sunni political bloc the Accordance Front in the Iraqi Parliament, has been placed under house arrest by Iraqi and U.S. security forces in the Adil neighbourhood west of Baghdad. 

Iraqi security forces also detained his son --Makki -- and 45 of his guards. They were accused of manufacturing car bombs and killing Sunni militia members in the neighbourhood who have been working with the U.S. military. 

(SNIP) 

Abdul Karim al-Samarraie of the Accordance Front told reporters that the group would not return to parliament until Dulaimi was allowed to leave his home. On Saturday al-Samarraie stated, "When I went to meet him I was stopped and told that he is under house arrest. This is a violation of the rights of an MP who wants to come to the parliament." 

The Accordance Front warned that the crackdown against them could derail Iraq's already struggling political process, and the Front said in a statement before walking out of parliament, "It will increase political tension at a time when Baghdad is relatively peaceful." 

"Al-Dulaimi is a terrorist just like other Sunnis who pretended to be participating in politics and peaceful efforts of reconciliation," Haydar Kathum, a follower of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) -- a Shia political and religious group led by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim -- told IPS in the Karrada area of Baghdad. "Sunnis are all terrorists, but they pushed some of their leaders to the parliament so that they can fight the new Iraq project from the inside." 

Similar accusations toward members of the Sunni political group -- which holds 44 seats of the 275 seats in parliament -- were heard throughout 2007 from Shi'ite groups in the Iraqi Parliament, especially the Shi'ite Coalition led by the SIIC and the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. 

"This man [Al-Dulaimi] should be held responsible for the terrorist acts that he conducted without any consideration for the possible political consequences," Jalal Al-Sagheer, one of the Shi'ite leaders of SIIC in Baghdad told IPS. 

But, "what happened in the Adil neighbourhood must be dealt with away from politics," Al-Sagheer stressed. 

Al-Sagheer also referred to the new SIIC's policy to eliminate yesterday's allies as they are no longer necessary given the completion of sectarian cleansing of Baghdad and other mixed areas of Iraq. 

The other side of the story comes from Dulaimy's supporters. 

"Doctor Adnan Al-Dulaimi is a well known academic in Iraq and the whole Islamic world," his nephew Laurance Al-Dulaimi told IPS, "He worked hard to establish peace in Iraq and he exposed himself to threats by al-Qaeda by joining the political operation in Iraq." 

"It is unfair that he is rewarded with such cheap accusations by those cheap corrupt officials and politicians," the nephew added. 

Dulaimi has been targeted many times by Iraqi resistance fighters, but they failed to assassinate him. He has insisted upon keeping his house and office in the Sunni neighbourhood that was controlled by resistance fighters rather than moving to the Green Zone where he would have had better protection.  

Sunni observers talked to IPS about the arrests, and expressed other opinions. 

"This man was one of the reasons that the Shi'ite Coalition controlled the situation in Iraq the way they do now and he deserves what is happening to him," Omar Mahmood, a lawyer who is close to the Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars led by Harith Al Dhari, told IPS in Baghdad, "He drew Sunnis to be cheap cover for the faked political operation that helped American occupation have routes in Sunni areas." 

An Iraqi resistance fighter spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity. 

"The poor old guy sacrificed his faith and reputation for a cheap chair in the parliament and now they are throwing him into the garbage can like used Kleenex tissue," the man told IPS in Baghdad, "We always advised him that the Islamic Party and the Shi'ite Coalition would definitely get rid of him as soon as he is no more needed, but he listened to his pocket more than listening to the voice of reason." 

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Copyright 2007, Gloria R. Lalumia

WORLD MEDIA WATCH