Putin may be in trouble....

maybe we'll have a similar scenario play out here....(story #4)

Full excerpts, links up in the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash....


WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JANUARY 24, 2005

1//The Jordan Times, Jordan--IRAQI VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE WON’T BE EXTENDED – IOM (A two-day extension of voter registration for Iraqi expatriates will not be stretched further despite a low turnout worldwide, organisers said on Sunday. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) official Peter Erben, who heads the Out of Country Voting (OCV) programme, told a press conference that the deadline will not be extended because of technical reasons related to rechecking data and verifying the number of voters at each designated registration and polling centre. Erben added that 188,000 Iraqi expatriates in 36 cities around the world registered for the elections since January 17 — of which 11,000 in Jordan. The IOM, which is conducting the OCV on behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, predicted that around a million Iraqi expatriates would register for the elections…News reports said there was a general sense of apathy for the polls. The Associated Press said some of the Iraqis waiting in line at registration centres in Amman refused to be photographed or give their names to reporters. It quoted many as saying they were afraid that Iraqis who oppose the vote might recognise them…One Iraqi residing in Amman said she wasn't interested in voting for a national assembly that would act under US occupation, adding that she was not aware of any of the candidates running.)



2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--THE KIRKUK TINDERBOX (…In October/November, 2004 it was widely reported that the Turkish military had begun drafting contingency plans for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in early 2005, with at least 20,000 troops. Officials said that the Turkish General Staff had urged approval from the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and to sound out the US. "The current phase is to show the United States that we're serious," a Turkish government source said. "After the Iraqi elections in January, the Turkish military will be ready to move." It would be a major offensive in northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish militias from controlling the area. The Turks were very concerned by the reported Kurdish effort to squeeze out ethnic Turks from Kirkuk…While relations between Turkey and US have cooled down primarily over Iraq, Turkey has come closer to its historic enemy Russia. After the exchange of visits by Erdogan and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to Ankara, relations between them, historically soured by Shi'ite and Sunni rivalry and enmity, are improving in the background of the turmoil in Iraq and increasing chaos in the region...relations between Syria and Turkey have warmed up, with an exchange of visits by Syrian President Bassar Assad and Erdogan. There is talk of Russia supplying state-of-the-art missiles to Syria. In the past Turkey would have denounced such a deal. At the same time relations between Turkey and Israel, which were very close during the Cold War and reached an almost "allies" level after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have deteriorated sharply, with Erdogan accusing Israel of state terrorism and asking it to leave Kurdish north Iraq alone. Israel has been training Kurdish Peshmergas to operate in the neighborhood, specially in Iran and Syria.)



3//Albawaba.com, Jordan--IRAN SAYS US WAGING “PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR” ON TEHRAN (Iran's Information Minister Ali Younessi said in Tehran Sunday that threats issued by US officials were part of a psychological war waged on Iran. "The Americans issued those statements to influence ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the Europe," Younessi told reporters, according to the official IRNA news agency. Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in the capital Sunday that threats recently hurled by US officials against his country are part of a psychological war aimed at exerting pressure on Europe to tow the US line. Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Asefi said that the United States actually wants Europe to fail in its talks with Iran…"No country listens and even European states and President Bush`s comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency.)



4//The Moscow Times, Russia--LIBERAL MINISTERS TAKE THE BLAME (Liberal ministers Alexei Kudrin, German Gref and Mikhail Zurabov, the architects of the Kremlin's controversial benefits reform, have said they are ready to take the blame for the way it has been handled and for exposing President Vladimir Putin to criticism. The attempt to take the heat off Putin came as he faced mounting anger over the loss of millions of pensioners' Soviet-era benefits and opinion polls showed his approval rating plummeting by 20 percentage points over the last year…Analysts across the political spectrum said the pressure on the liberal ministers was another sign of growing panic within the siloviki over Putin's position, which now looks under genuine threat for the first time in years. Independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky said that the siloviki are not only tired of a government that they consider too liberal, but of Putin as well. "If Putin's rating drops much more, they will likely decide to ditch him," he said. The benefit reform has now alienated a group that had previously been one of Putin's biggest support bases, Piontkovsky said. "Putin disappointed the liberals and the intelligentsia when they understood that he was stepping back from democracy. The governors hate him after he pushed through a bill abolishing their direct election. After the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the business elites now look on him as an enemy. And now the pensioners are disappointed," he said.)



5//The Guardian, UK--SCOURGE OF POLIO RETURNS TO AFRICA (An international team of doctors is set to launch a desperate, last-ditch bid to save Africa from polio, a scourge once believed to have been defeated but which has recently returned to haunt the continent. Scientists say the attempt is a make-or-break effort to eradicate this crippling, sometimes fatal illness. Success would see poliomyelitis follow smallpox and become the second disease to be completely eradicated from the planet. Failure, and the disease could slip though the net of international controls set up to contain it, and undo 17 years of international effort costing £1.6 billion…. In Nigeria - which had reduced its cases to a few dozen - there was an outbreak of more than 800 cases. This last figure represents the tip of an iceberg, however. Polio - which is spread by person to person contact and invades a victim's nervous system - only causes detectable paralysis in about one in 200 victims. This means that at least 160,000 people must have been infected. Unaware of their condition, they will then have gone on to infect others.)

In a recent conversation, they expressed their continued dismay with their government, and the hope which bubbled there in 1991 has burst and dispursed. When Putin withdrew the direct election of Governors and other government officials, the Russians lost faith in Putin and their fledgling democracy.

I was in Moscow in 91 and helped with their very first election - which installed Yeltsin. The despair and hopelessness at the time was so pervasive that there was little hope that voting would make any difference. I spoke passionately that elections was the first step on a long road to freedom and liberty. I even managed to persuade a few souls to keep hope alive and work for this change. I told them my guess was tha tit would take 20 years for real change to occur.

Now, as I speak with my Russian friends, I must concede how easy it is to manipulate elections. I must concede my own error in promoting hope for them as our own American model has fallen apart. We console each other and, while it is still apparent that we have a far better life in America, we find ourselves agreeing that the power of the wealthy class has stifled and prostituted the masses. We agree that neither of us have a representative government and, as such, can not reasonably continue to hope for change through the channels of democracy - otherwise known as war by other means.

I believe that America is more likely to overcome the rich, but that is simply based on the history of our people. It takes such a blatant act as to demonstrate a total and callous disregard for the common welfare before it happens. But, just as the American Civil War was predicated on tax and distribution inequities (not slavery - though that became the touted causus belli and was a much needed reform), it is likely that America will face another Civil War in the 21st Century. And, once again, it will be caused by the rich class ingoring the plight of those of lesser means who act as their willing slaves to fill their coffers.

I hope that I am wrong about this, but I have not been wrong often in my predictions.

seen the decay over the last few years. Sometimes I think I'm seeing some karmic thing going on in many countries at the same time...the parallels are disconcerting.