JAPAN OFFERS $1.5B AID FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION/New WMW

Full excerpts, links up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR OCTOBER 17, 2003

1//Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines--LOVE-HATE WELCOME AWAITS BUSH IN MANILA(Protesters themselves are getting ready. Effigy makers and banner painters have been in overdrive, casting Bush as a demon, a rampaging warmonger and a big bug for protests against his visit…Hundreds of silk-screened US flags hang to dry before they will be put to the torch during Bush's eight hours in Manila.)

2//The Jordan Times, Jordan--JAPAN OFFERS $1.5B AID FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION (The money is intended to cover reconstruction work “for the coming one year.... It is mostly designed to cope with reconstruction demand for 2004,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference…While avoiding mentioning a sum for multiyear aid, Fukuda said further assistance would be mostly loans. The Japanese media have reported Japanese aid would reach $5billion, mostly in loans, from 2005 to 2007.)

Related: SDF GOING TO SOUTHERN IRAQ IF LDP WINS ELECTION (Samawa has not experienced any attacks against occupation forces since April and is considered the safest area in Iraq, according to a senior official of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority for the region.)



3//The Independent, UK--SADDAM’S NAME MORE POPULAR THAN EVER IN IRAQI OIL TOWN (In the Sunni Muslim heartlands along the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, Saddam is the apparent victor over the US in the eyes of the inhabitants. It is thought the former Iraqi president may even be hiding in the region. Local leaders said guerrilla attacks were happening more frequently because many people who used to work for Saddam, often in his security services, were out of a job, and there had been a furious reaction to the random searches, arrests and shootings by US soldiers.)



4//Mail & Guardian, South Africa--SA GENERIC AIDS DRUGS BREAKTHROUGH (The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is celebrating what it calls a “ground-breaking” decision on Thursday by the Competitions Commission that found two giant pharmaceutical firms culpable of charging excessive prices for anti-retroviral drugs and abusing their dominant positions in the market…The importance of this case ties into the need for anti-retroviral drugs to be accessible to the people living Aids. Currently there are no generic version of the anti-retroviral drugs sold in the country and therefore the multinational cartels are able to monopolise the markets through their patent rights.)

5//Inter Press Service, Italy--GM CROPS SUFFER ANOTHER BLOW (Genetically modified crops have proved a danger to wildlife in two out of three major experiments carried out in Britain…. Several non-governmental organisations said the results were conclusive enough to warrant an immediate ban on GM crops. The results are being presented to the European Union and are expected to strongly influence EU policy on GM crops.)
Related: CROPS GIANT RETREATS FROM EUROPE AHEAD OF GM REPORT (Monsanto, the huge American biotechnology company which has pioneered GM crops, is withdrawing from many of its European operations and laying off up to two thirds of its British workers.)

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GM CROPS SUFFER ANOTHER BLOW (Genetically modified crops have proved a danger to wildlife in two out of three major experiments carried out in Britain…. Several non-governmental organisations said the results were conclusive enough to warrant an immediate ban on GM crops. The results are being presented to the European Union and are expected to strongly influence EU policy on GM crops.)
Related: CROPS GIANT RETREATS FROM EUROPE AHEAD OF GM REPORT (Monsanto, the huge American biotechnology company which has pioneered GM crops, is withdrawing from many of its European operations and laying off up to two thirds of its British workers.)
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EDIT: Sorry not trying ot hijack your thread :( But this really hit me square on!

And whatever happened to those Japanese troops?

2//

Related: SDF GOING TO SOUTHERN IRAQ IF LDP WINS ELECTION (Samawa has not experienced any attacks against occupation forces since April and is considered the safest area in Iraq, according to a senior official of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority for the region.)

since the going rate in Iraq is $4 billion a month