An American woman named Sidney Jones has hit the news
An American woman named Sidney Jones has hit the news headlines recently. Her statements and her very existence have drawn a range of views.
Many say that Jones, who is the Southeast Asian director of the International Crisis Group (ICG), has contributed to the promotion of human rights in the country. Where as many others accused Jones of helping to 'disintegrate' the nation.
State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Hendropriyono said the ICG and some other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had sold important information to certain parties for money. Hendro said that information could damage Indonesia's reputation.
The press and NGOs have become important pillars of democracy. Unfortunately, there are times when NGOs use their reports to get funds from donor countries. Worse, the reports of the NGOs have been used as references by international donors to give financial aid.
In the case of Jones, the Islamic community in Indonesia had been disturbed by her reports over Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) in relation to the Bali bombings. It was Jones who introduced Jamaah Islamiyah terminology to the world as if she was the most well- informed person about Islam and Muslims in Indonesia. And Jones' reports have apparently been used as a reference by the U.S. Congress. The result is that Indonesians have since found it difficult to enter America and some other Western countries.
We do need a free and critical press and NGOs to uphold democracy, but their freedom and criticism must be based on their love for the country.
-- Republika, Jakarta
Terrorists' attacks in Saudi Arabia
After the bloody weekend terror attacks, officials in Saudi Arabia persistently asserted that the country's oil production and its ability to provide crude to world markets had not been jeopardized. According to them, the terrorists attacked housing areas of foreign workers precisely because the "hard" targets of oil production plants are so well protected.
Nevertheless, the successful terror strike was a serious blow to the ruling Saudi monarchy whose inability to safeguard its own homeland from terrorism was again evident.
For the United States, the situation is almost as distressful.
Washington wanted a strong foothold in the oil-producing country. But the war in Iraq seems merely to have increased restlessness in Saudi Arabia. And Iraq's own domestic situation remains extremely shaky.
Instability in the crude market is likely to continue for a long time. One has no faith in an improvement in the Saudi state of affairs or political developments in Iraq. And, more importantly, there is no confidence that the United States is able to control the increasingly complicated situation in the Middle East. -- Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland
Efforts to repair Iraq
After more than a year of bloody turmoil in Iraq, the United States should have changed tack and made genuine efforts to repair its seriously damaged image. Its mishandling of the transfer of power to the Iraqis, slated for June 30, is a case in point.
The U.S.-installed Interim Governing Council named Iyad Allawi, a member of the IGC, to head the government that takes over on June 30. The IGC has been unpopular with most Iraqis for comprising Iraqi exiles. Even Lakhdar Ibrahimi, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, was taken aback by the announcement of Allawi as the new prime minister. Allawi's selection could be seen as a pre-emptive bid to consolidate the council's grip on power and turn the transitional government into a U.S. puppet. It is a slap in the face for the U.N. as well.
Neither Iraq nor the United States stands to benefit from this skullduggery. Washington is widely perceived as meddling in the formation of Iraq's new caretaker administration. The United States, being the occupier power, should be acting in good faith to help Iraq become an example of democracy in the Middle East - as President George W. Bush has promised on several occasions. Ibrahimi's efforts are being stymied by the United States' surreptitious tactics and willy-nilly insistence on retaining its massive army and firepower in Iraq.
-- The Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, Egypt
Attacks in Saudi Arabia
The terrorists are apparently trying not only to topple or undermine the Saudi royal family, which rules the country, but also to destabilize the international community through Saudi Arabia. Every measure must be taken to prevent this from happening.
The Saudi government must beef up its counterterrorism measures. It has failed to prevent a series of terrorist bombings that have occurred in its oil industry cities and in the capital Riyadh since last year. It needs to take tougher steps than before, including finding terrorist bases and cutting off their financial support.
According to some observers, a backdrop to the incident is the fact that the Saudi public is frustrated by a domestic political system that has seldom seen reforms and an unemployment rate for younger Saudis that is reported to be more than 20 percent. Along with reinforcing counterterrorism measure, the Saudi government may have to stabilize the domestic situation through political and social reforms.
The terrorist problem is not one that Saudi Arabia can handle alone. The international community must support Riyadh by further expanding the global coalition against terrorism.
-- Yomuri Shimbun, Tokyo
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Le Figaro, Paris, on the 60th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings:
Women and men of today have discovered the atrocious nature of this period. The soldiers stacked up in rowboats throwing themselves toward concrete walls spitting fire, the young men from America and Great Britain who are often poorly understood on this side of the Atlantic, the incessant bombings that razed towns - Caen, Saint-Lo, Cherbourg and so many others. ...
Sixty years later, this is the last moment to reunite the survivors. And for the first time it is possible to invite the Germans.
... The history of today is conducted with the Germans of our time. The generations who from now on inhabit our neighboring country consider themselves innocent of the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers. As a result, June 6 has turned into a celebration of freedom. ...
The bad news is that the ceremonies require thousands of policemen and soldiers to block the route from bombers. Without any doubt they will be there, concealed, dreaming of the spectacular assassinations of heads of state. These twilight killers are proof that the battle for liberty has still not been won. ...
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El Mundo, Madrid, Spain, on Bush-Iraq:
The pressing need that the Iraqi officials feel of distancing themselves from the White House in order to gain credibility was made clear in the appointment process of the new Iraqi president. Adnan Pachachi had to turn down the post for the stream of criticisms he received for being (L. Paul) Bremer's favorite candidate, which paved the way to the theoretically more independent(Ghazi Mashal Ajil) al-Yawer. But don't fall into the trap: The latter as much as Prime Minister (Iyad) Allawi are in greater or lesser measure, also men of the Bush administration. Like Pachachi, al-Yawer studied at George Washington University and lived comfortably in exile until the fall of Saddam.
The speech he made after his appointment demanding "full sovereignty" for Iraq is much of a show. To stop the spiral of violence, which yesterday (June 1) caused the oil price to skyrocket to its highest in 14 years, the new Iraqi government will have to truly break off with whom still pulls the strings. --- MORE[
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The Jordan Times, Amman, Jordan, on the Khobar attack and other terror strikes in Saudi Arabia:
The "masterminds" of such attacks may have deluded themselves into believing that their senseless actions can force the disruption of oil supplies from an area which is close to the core of the Saudi oil industry.
With international oil prices surging to new heights and threatening, in the process, the fragile global economic order, the attackers expect to wreak havoc with the supply and price of oil worldwide.
But despite the current of tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the top crude oil exporter had promised to increase production. Following the attacks in Khobar, the Saudi government reiterated that pledge, saying such terrorist actions would not deter its "commitment to the world and to our friends in America."
...These attacks are not new. But they are now more frequent. Therefore, Saudi Arabia deserves all manner of support from the Arab and international community.
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Il Sole 24 Ore, Milan, Italy, on Italy-U.S. relations:
If Italy rose again from dictatorship to democracy and came out from the abyss of the war that the fascist regime put it into, it owes it first of all to the decisive role of the U.S. as much in the victorious military campaign against the Nazi forces occupying the peninsula and as the postwar reconstruction of the of the country.
But today this fact risks being submerged and overshadowed by a wave of indiscriminate and instrumental anti-Americanism, already present in Italy before the arrival of George W. Bush in the White House and the war in Iraq.
So much so that even with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Rome by the allied forces, just because the American president will visit to celebrate this, the radical left have organized a series of protests with motives that do not seem focused on contesting the unilateral policies of the Republican administration and its unhappy management of the post-Saddam period, but rather from a general intolerance and rejection of what America has represented in the last half century.
There is ... more than one good reason to remember how much Italy owes the U.S.
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Expressen, Stockholm, Sweden, on the attacks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia has finally begun to take seriously the threats of terror, hitting suspected al-Qaida cells with a rod of iron.
But the security efforts will not be enough to check the terror wave. The Royal Family must also have a look at its own - in many respects - rotten construction.
There are good and progressive forces within the dynasty, like the Crown Prince himself, Abdullah, but there are also reactionary forces who put obstacles in the way of all reformists and scoop from the same well as al-Qaida.
As long as this power struggle continues, it will be hard to achieve lasting progress when it comes to ... women's rights , political participation and religious tolerance. The United States should take a look at its alliance with the royal family.
To scale down its own dependence of oil and to increase the pressure for reforms would be a good first step.
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Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio, on planned terrorist attacks:
Bad as the Iraq war has been, at least this country has had no major terrorist attacks since 9/11. But Tuesday brought two pieces of bad news.
Government officials said they think terrorists are planning a major attack this summer and are already deployed here.
Meanwhile, a respected British-based think tank offered its guess that al-Qaida still has 18,000 terrorists scattered around the world.
The 340-page survey rejects completely the Bush notion that Iraq is the front line of the war against terror. The Bush administration has, of course, rejected the institute's criticism of the Iraq war.
But, given the administration's own need to keep pressing the anti-terrorist campaign in this country to keep funding it, to keep warning people, the White House cannot convincingly argue that the situation is much better than the institute suggests, a year after the fall of Saddam.
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The Herald, Rock Hill, South Carolina, on John Kerry's decision to accept the Democratic nomination:
John Kerry's trial balloon about delaying his nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate apparently popped. ...
Delaying the nomination would have been a logical tactic. Would Democrats really care if Kerry failed to utter the words "... and I accept the nomination," especially if it helped level the playing field?
Well, maybe. Some Democrats reportedly thought such a move would appear too calculated and might backfire. Officials in Boston, where the convention will be held, were miffed. And the Republicans were beginning to make hay with the idea, saying only Kerry could be both for the nomination and against it.
So, on Wednesday, Kerry announced that he would, indeed, accept the nomination when offered in Beantown.
"Boston is the place where America's freedom began, and it's where I want the journey to the Democratic nomination to be completed," Kerry said in a prepared statement.
Voters might well ask themselves whether any of this matters one way or the other. The nominating conventions, once events of high political drama where real battles for the nomination took place, now are little more than glorified campaign commercials for the respective candidates.
We would advise Kerry to hold off on announcing who his running mate will be. That's about the only suspense left in the process.
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The Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, on global warming:
Perhaps a movie threatening tsunamis, wind storms, grapefruit- sized hailstones, flash freezings and a flooded Manhattan can get people to pay attention to an environmental threat that's too often ignored.
At least that's what environmentalists are hoping after last week's opening of "The Day After Tomorrow." This film offers a catastrophic picture of man-made global climate change.
Granted, real-life global warming will look nothing like this movie, in which the Earth's temperature rises in a matter of days.
In fact, the Earth's temperature is rising about one degree per year. But the effects, including rising oceans and melting ice caps, are building up. They will eventually affect plant, animal and human life.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration's allegiance to nonrenewable energy industries is undermining efforts to curb global warming. That shortsighted attitude should change. Cleaner energy sources, which do not emit gases that are increasing the Earth's temperature, deserve greater support. ...
We may never live to see the effects of global warming. But preserving the Earth for our descendants should still matter.
GetAP 1.00 -- JUN 4, 2004 01:29:17