MPs Press for a Vote on Sending More Troops/UK--New WMW

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR MAY 19, 2004

1//The Telegraph, UK--MPs PRESS FOR A VOTE ON SENDING MORE TROOPS (Tony Blair is facing growing demands for a vote in Parliament before the Government sends another 3,000 British troops to Iraq. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers want the Commons to be consulted before any decision is taken to commit forces to operations outside the area of southern Iraq currently controlled by British troops or to put them under American command…Officials insisted that no decision had yet been taken on sending more troops, despite widespread speculation in Whitehall and Westminster that Britain is poised to increase its military commitment substantially.)



2//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--PAKISTAN: AFTER THE HAMMER, NOW THE SCREWS(The "Hammer and Anvil" operation was designed by the United States to trap foreign and Afghan fighters between US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan troops across the border. It proved a failure, with the recent high-profile deployment of the Pakistani army in the South Waziristan tribal area failing to send anyone of note scuttling from their sanctuaries into waiting US arms…Fresh contingents of Pakistani armed forces have been sent to Wana (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan) and Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier Province, but officials close to the military say they fear they are "walking into a death trap". About 20,000 troops were deployed for the South Waziristan operation.)



3//Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--SANCTIONS UNLIKELY TO HURT SYRIA (Analysts say the long-threatened sanctions will not affect the economy directly because sanctions of sorts have been in place for years because Syria is on the U.S. 'black list' of states sponsoring terrorism. Trade between the United States and Syria is a modest 300 million dollars a year, but several U.S. companies are developing Syria's oil and gas sectors. Bush did not ban U.S. investments in Syria. Between 300 and 400 U.S. companies have representative offices in Syria, according to the U.S. embassy in Damascus. These include IT firms such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Compaq…The 22-member Arab League has said the embargo would only harden Arab opinion against the United States.)


4//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--KERRY MAY NOT BACK FREE TRADE DEAL (Australia and the United States today signed an historic free trade agreement amid concerns the US Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry may not back the deal. Trade Minister Mark Vaile and his US counterpart, Robert Zoellick, signed the deal in Washington overnight after more than 12 months of negotiations…Mr Vaile, who has spent the past two days talking to Democrat and Republican members of Congress, said the trade deal now put the Australian-US economic relationship on par with the strategic and defence links between the two nations… House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said the agreement would be put to Congress as soon as possible. "We will move that through Congress some time I think this year," he said.)



5//The Hindustan Times, India--‘POWER FOR ITSELF HAS NEVER ATTRACTED ME…MY AIM HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO DEFEND THE SECULAR FOUNDATION OF OUR NATION’ (Towards the end of the campaign, when Sonia Gandhi had given an interview to the HT, she had made her position on the Prime Ministership amply clear. She had no interest in the job, she said. That wasn't why she was in politics. Of course, it was difficult for people to understand that because most politicians wanted to reach the top. But she was not like that. She was a reluctant politician. She was in it out of a sense of duty, not because of ambition.)