Gloria R. Lalumia's World Media Watch for January 11, 2008

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 10:39am.

Gloria R. Lalumia

WORLD MEDIA WATCH

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

1//Gulfnews.com, United Arab Emirates
LEAGUE LEADERS SEEK TO EXPAND INTERVENTION IN IRAQ

An Arab League delegation is expected in Iraq soon as an effort to reactivate the role of the Arab League after almost one year of the resignation of Mokhtar Lamani, League special envoy to Iraq, Iraqi politicians have said. The delegation will be headed by Ahmad Bin Hili, and its visit will constitute a relaunch of the role stopped since the resignation of Lamani last year. The new effort drew different reactions from Iraqi political circles. "The Iraqi government is not giving guarantees to any Arab movement to contact freely with the feuding factions in Iraq, besides there are no guarantees to respond to the Arab League's suggestions considering the national reconciliation process," Akram Al Rawi, a member of the Sunni Islamic Party told Gulf News. ... "We don't trust the move because it will be biased to some parties, besides we don't trust Arab League's ability to persuade Baathists and officials of former regime to abandon their weapons and violence," said Hatem Al Taee, a member of Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr's movement, in a statement to Gulf News. ... Some newspapers in Baghdad see the new Arab move in Iraq as a support to the US efforts to undermine Iran's influence in Iraq.

AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES

2//Azzaman in English, Iraq
SECURITY WORSENS IN BAGHDAD DESPITE U.S. CLAIMS OF IMPROVEMENT

The security situation in Baghdad is deteriorating very quickly. Of course this bit of information no longer has any meaning for Iraqis as it has become an integral part of Iraq's media discourse in the years since U.S. invasion of 2003. But it assumes a special significance right now since it comes in the aftermath of the empty official statements made recently with regard to security conditions in Iraq and particularly Baghdad. The synchronized bombing of churches in three major cities in the country - Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk - and the ostensible surge in bomb attacks targeting U.S.-supported Arab Sunni militias, government targets and U.S. Marines are indications of worsening security conditions despite Iraqi government's efforts to present a different picture. The upsurge in insecurity is a natural outcome of the drastic failure to lead in a country whose ruling political factions are the ones to blame. They are the ones who shoulder the responsibility for the deterioration in security. Following a short ‘lull', the current deterioration is extremely dangerous as it comes in on the heels of false statements and lies of gains in security. There were obvious signals that conditions would aggravate but the authorities ignored all of them. ... This is the real picture of conditions in the country outside the rotten official chambers which contain nothing but lies and slogans.

3//EUObserver.com, Belgium
SARKOZY SEEN AS BACKING BLAIR FOR TOP EU JOB

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair will attend a conference of French president Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party UMP on Saturday (12 January), in what is said to be his first intervention for a party other than his own. The move is fuelling speculation that Mr Blair, who belongs to the UK's center-left Labour party, is in the running for EU president - a new high-profile job that can be held for up to five years starting in 2009. The two men will debate Europe and Mr Blair may get clear backing from Mr Sarkozy in exchange of his participation at the conference, according to media reports. The UMP meeting marks the launch of its pre-electoral campaign before the municipal elections in France on 9 and 16 March - but there is set to be much speculation around Mr Blair's attendance. The president of the socialist group in the French national assembly, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has accused Mr Sarkozy of preparing the ground for Mr Blair's candidacy for the EU top job with Saturday's event. "I see something emerging from the UMP's side and from the president of the republic (...), which is preparing Tony Blair's candidacy for EU president", Mr Ayrault was reported as saying by French news agency AFP on Tuesday (8 January). "This candidacy is not acceptable, because it is not acceptable that the first EU president is a man who supported and participated in the war in Iraq", he added.

4//The Daily Times, Pakistan
IAEA SEEKS TO SOOTHE PAKISTAN IRE OVER EL BARADEI COMMENTS

The UN atomic watchdog attempted Thursday to smooth over a spat with Pakistan over recent comments made by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on the issue of nuclear safety. A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency insisted that ElBaradei's comments were intended to "call attention to the need to bolster nuclear safety and security measures, not only in Pakistan, but also everywhere in the world where nuclear materials or facilities exist."

ElBaradei and the IAEA "follow closely all situations that could have a potential impact on nuclear safety and security anywhere," said the agency's spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. ... ElBaradei had wanted to underline the need to boost nuclear safety worldwide amid "concern about the possible ramifications of political violence and extremism in the Middle East region and nuclear security in Pakistan," she said. The statement came after Islamabad angrily dismissed what it perceived to be ElBaradei's criticism of Pakistan's atomic weapons safety. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq had told a weekly press briefing on Wednesday that ElBaradei should "be careful about his statements and ought to remain within his mandate". "Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapons state," Sadiq insisted. "Our nuclear weapons are as secure as any other nuclear weapons state. We therefore believe statements expressing concern about their safety and security are unwarranted and irresponsible." The day before, ElBaradei had been quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat as saying he feared "chaos ... or an extremist regime could take root in that country, which has 30 to 40 warheads", and was "worried that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan".

5//The Independent, UK
THE ROTTEN HEART OF ITALY: SEE NAPLES AND DIE (OF THE STENCH)

The city of Naples, Italy's third biggest, the capital of the south, is caught in a trap of its own devising. And if you drive to the suburb of Pianura where police have been fighting with residents this week, you can get a good idea of the cruelty and fatality of this trap; and why there is a whiff of fear in the city's air just now, mixed with the stench of putrid rubbish. The fear is that the Naples disease, which has put its rubbish-clogged streets on the world's news bulletins and newspapers day after day, is beyond cure. That for all the bold talk by politicians and by the new "rubbish tsar", who took up his emergency powers yesterday, there really is no way out. Nowhere in this city has escaped the crisis that has been building since 21 December, the date of the last regular rubbish collection. The collections ceased because there was no longer anywhere to put the stuff: the plant where they compact solid waste into bales had again reached capacity and could take no more. The city's landfill sites were closed years ago, on the orders of magistrates. The incinerator designed to burn the bales, that should have been completed and commissioned years back, is only half-built, the works frozen while magistrates investigate dirty dealings. So the domestic rubbish, dumped in wheelie bins on the street and awaiting collection, stayed where it was chucked. And accumulated. And accumulated and accumulated some more.

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Gloria R. Lalumia's World Media Watch for January 11, 2008

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