Full excerpts, links up now at
http://www.zianet.com/insightanalyticalTomorrow at Buzzflash.com
WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR APRIL 9, 2004
1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--WHEN FEAR TURNS TO ANGER (The Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq may finally silence the ideologically motivated optimists who led America into Iraq in the first place and clung to their delusions in defiance of reality. But things will only get worse. The likelihood of civil war has only been delayed a bit as Sunnis and Shi'ites fight against the common foe. Should the Americans leave, they will turn on each other…This war has been escalating with increasingly brazen critiques of the rival communities that were not seen even two months ago. The only things they agree on are the need for an Islamic government (though they disagree on what it will look like) and their insistence that the Jews and Americans are to blame for all their woes…The Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, is known by soldiers as "can't produce anything" because, as one army major explained, "it is understaffed, getting funds is a long and drawn out process, they are out of touch with the reality on the ground and their mission is unrealistic given their constraints".)
2//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--VIOLENCE THREATENS TO UNRAVEL U.N. PLANS FOR IRAQ (Growing military attacks on foreign civilians and the violent uprising against the U.S. military occupation are threatening to unravel a U.N. plan for nation-wide elections in Iraq and to jeopardise a proposed role for the world body in stabilising the country…Salim Lone, former spokesman for the late U.N. Under-Secretary-General, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in a bomb blast at the U.N. compound in Baghdad last August, advises against U.N. participation in Iraq in the current environment. ''I do not think that any U.N. staff should be in Iraq now,'' he told IPS. Lone, who was injured in the Baghdad blast, said it would be a ''terrible mistake'' to send U.N. staff back to Iraq ''when the security situation is infinitely worse than it was last August, and when there is now public criticism of the United Nations, even from mainstream Iraqi public figures, including from Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani''.)
3//The Toronto Star, Canada--CANADA DOESN’T HAVE TROOPS FOR IRAQ (Canada is unlikely to participate in an international force to protect United Nations employees in Iraq because military resources are tapped out, Prime Minister Paul Martin suggested today… Canada hasn't been approached for help and apparently isn't offering any…The prime minister made the announcement during a campaign-style swing through Quebec, where anger over the Iraqi invasion runs deep.)
4//TurkishPress.com, U.S.--GUL: THERE HAS BEEN A DANGEROUS ESCALATION IN IRAQ (''There has been a dangerous escalation in Iraq. We are extremely concerned about recent developments,'' Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters on Thursday. When asked about news stories claiming that the United States had requested Turkey to send soldiers to Iraq, Gul said, ''dispatch of Turkish soldiers to Iraq is out of question.'' ''We have been telling from the very beginning that tension could escalate because of lack of information about culture and structure of the region. We hope that our recommendations would be taken into consideration. There has been a dangerous escalation in the country.'' )
5//Deutsche Welle/dw-Worlde.de, Germany--SEPT. 11 TERROR SUSPECT RELEASED ON BAIL (Mounir el Motassadeq, the only man worldwide convicted over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, has been freed by a German court on Wednesday pending a new trial ordered by a federal tribunal…Motassedeq's lawyers believe that the sentence could be quashed entirely when the case goes to retrial, saying that there is a possibility that it could collapse on the same grounds as his original conviction due to key evidence being withheld by the United States. Motassadeq's new trial is likely begin on June 16, but with a different panel of judges than that which convicted him last year.)
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