George Bush & Al Gore

US presidency
still important to
world: Analysts

LONDON, Nov 3: The US Presidential election remains as big a watershed as ever in world affairs and most nations appear more comfortable with the prospect of a win by Vice President Al Gore than a George Bush victory......more

C P Thakur

India for enhanced
south-south cooperation
in health sector

BEIJING, Nov 3: India today called for ushering in a new era of technical and economic cooperation among south-south nations to reduce dependence on developed countries in meeting basic requirements in the ....more

Defector says Iraq close
to having nuclear bomb

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: Iraq has designed a crude nuclear bomb and has the equipment to build it but lacks the necessary uranium or other fissile ...more

Saddam Hussein

Maker of hostile Saddam
film gets death threat

LOS ANGELES, Nov 3: The maker of an unflattering film about Saddam Hussein yesterday woke to find his home splattered with blood-red paint, his ....more

US concerned over
"Talibanisation"
of Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: The United States has expressed concern over a "possible Talibanisation of Pakistan" as the vicious.....more

Are teenagers hanging
up on cigarettes?

LONDON, Nov 3: The youthful addiction to mobile telephones that dismays so many parents and ....more

Fiji captures 11 rebel
soldiers, hunt continues

SUVA, Nov 3: Fiji troops captured 11 rebel soldiers today and hunted another nine as authorities.....more

Idea of US-India Working
Group for better ties mooted

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: Indian supporters, who helped raise funds to the tune of three million dollars ....more

US presidency still important to world: Analysts

LONDON, Nov 3: The US Presidential election remains as big a watershed as ever in world affairs and most nations appear more comfortable with the prospect of a win by Vice President Al Gore than a George Bush victory.

While there are complaints from abroad that world affairs have dropped down the agenda among American voters, international respect for the power of the US presidency is undiminished despite the end of the cold war.

Dr David Mervin, a lecturer in US politics at Britain’s University of Warwick, dismisses suggestions that the world should be less concerned about who is the next US President.

"The US is still massively involved in world affairs," he told Reuters.

"From the Middle East, to Yugoslavia to Indonesia — you name the area — the United States is a significant and, overwhelmingly, the most significant player," he said.

"The office of the US President is as important as it ever was. Full stop."

Like many analysts contacted by Reuters outside the United States, Mervin laments what he regards as trivialisation of the office by concentration on the personalities of the contenders rather than their policies.

"Presidential elections have become so personality linked," he said. "Everything now has to do so much with how a candidate does in front of the television camera."

The following is a round up of some media and analysts’ views of the Presidential contest from around the world:

Germany

Pictures of Al Gore passionately kissing his wife tipper have featured heavily in the German media, although the importance of marital stability in an election campaign was probably lost on a public who in 1998 elected Gerhard Schroeder as Chancellor. He has married for a fourth time.

The conservative die welt daily, in an article run under that photograph, said the election would probably be won by the candidate who offered to spend more, despite the prolonged economic boom the United States is enjoying.

"The right to live in the white house will be decided by who bids highest," the paper said.

International guerrillas must want George W Bush in the White House, said Senan Kornelius, Foreign Editor of Germany’s influential liberal daily, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

"Bush would be a President who would act more according to immediate national interest and, when in doubt, preach restraint. He thus serves the isolationist and unilateralist tendencies in the republican camp, above all in Congress," Kornelius wrote.

"Anyone who does not want to see America as the world’s policeman must hope bush takes power. Also operating on this logic are the international terrorist groups against which US troops are now on alert — whoever attacks soldiers encourages calls for retreat in the US and hence Bush’s policy.

"But what the Texas Governor seems not to realise is that this complex world needs not less but more America — at any rate one that handles affairs with great sensitivity."

China

China, which maintains a policy of not interfering in other nations’ internal affairs, has made no official comment on the election or its preference between the two candidates.

State media reports have been mainly objective and factual, focusing on speeches, conventions and polls rather than analysis and comment on personalities and policies.

However, academics say Gore is China’s favoured candidate as he is most likely to maintain President Bill Clinton’s policy of constructive engagement with Beijing.

Bush, they say, is more likely to take a hard line with China early in his tenure to contrast with Clinton, and could increase support for Taiwan, including arms sales.

France

The French, current holders of the European Union presidency, would vote 59 percent for gore and only 41 percent for Bush if they could cast ballots in the US election, according to a recent opinion poll.

The poll, published by Roman catholic newspaper La Croix, said support for Gore rose according to the education level of the person responding, with 84 percent of college graduates preferring the Vice President over the Texas Governor.

Reflecting France’s traditionally critical view of the United States, most of those surveyed said they hoped the US Government would have less influence in future on the European Union (77 percent), the world economy (75 percent), international politics (70 percent) and films and music around the world (69 percent).

Among issues that have grabbed headlines in France was Bush’s record on capital punishment, which most French disapprove of strongly.

"Whether we like it or not, our own future is made as much on the other side of the Atlantic as here," l’express editor-in-chief Denis Jeambar wrote in an a recent article.

As for the choice between Bush and Gore, l’express wrote: "If only Bill (Clinton) were running..."

Egypt

Political analyst Mohamed Al-Sayed said said most Egyptians believed it did not matter who would be the new US President because of what they saw as Washington’s unconditional support for Israel in the Middle East conflict.

"Most people think it’s irrelevant," he said.

"Generally levels of hostility to the United States have been rising steadily and people are fed up with displays of its unconditional support for Israel."

Ibrahim NAfie, Editor-in-Chief of the state-owned daily Al-Ahram, said "talk about foreign policy issues in the American elections remains theoretical, in that it is directed towards american domestic opinion".

India

India is exulting this year in what most believe is a definite end of cold war related tensions between Washington and New Delhi, which used to be a Soviet ally. Public opinion is focused more on this than the elections.

Traditionally, Indians worried if a Republican was President because the party was seen as tilting towards arch-rival Pakistan.

"The care (among Indians about who might win) has gone because of the unprecedented American interest in India," political analyst Bhabani Sen Gupta told Reuters.

Sen Gupta believes Indians would favour Gore as President simply because "Bush is an unknown quantity".

Japan

Coverage of the US Presidential election in the Japanese media has been thin and has mostly concentrated on side issues.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper ran a recent front page article on the differences in clothing of the two candidates.

It said Gore, trying to repair his image as A "policy wonk", had started to shift from wearing a traditional two-button, dark suit to shirt and jeans.

Bush, on the other hand, trying to shake off his "weak on policy image", had kept his clothing conservative.

Mexico

Tied to the United States through the North American free trade agreement, a 2,100-mile (3,380-km) border and a long history of suspicion, war, and problems such as the drug trade and the flow of illegal immigrants, Mexico has been curiously silent about the outcome of the US election.

Andres Rozental, a former Ambassador tipped as a possible Foreign Minister Under President-elect Vicente Fox, said the lack of commentary was due to the perception that the foreign policy stances of bush and gore were fundamentally the same.

In addition, the closeness of the US race meant commentators and foreign policy watchers had adopted a wait-and-see approach.

"They don’t want to make mistakes in the way they assess the situation...And they don’t want to take sides on this," Rozental told Reuters.

Italy

In the last stages of the US election campaign, Italian media have focused mainly on how close the battle has turned out, with no commentators willing to place a firm bet on the winner.

Instead, Italian eyes turned to side issues ranging from which candidates observed a day of rest to how much the campaign has cost and how many times Al Gore kissed his wife tipper in his final walkabouts.

"They did nothing but kiss each other all the time. On the campaign bus, on the platform, behind the scenes," said one Italian correspondent.

On the serious note of which candidate should win, political analysts would not be drawn.

"The (Italian) centre-left have adopted the democrats as their cousins and the centre-right have done the same with the Republicans. It’s comfortable to have similar people in power abroad. It makes you strong," said Sergio Romano, political columnist and former Italian Ambassador to Moscow.

South Africa

Herman Hannekom, a Pretoria-based regional political analyst, told Reuters: "Africa does not care who wins the election. Africa sees no gain because it knows that neither gore nor bush really care about the continent nor have an understanding about what the continent is about."

Richard Cornwell, of the South Africa Institute for Security Studies, said: "If we end up with bush then africa tumbles off the map."

"Gore will be better for Africa but the bottom line is that Africa doesn’t really matter to the American people."

Australia

Australian media love a good election campaign and have given the US Presidential race generous coverage.

Coverage has focused on Gore’s failure to enliven his presidential campaign and the Bush juggernaut.

In recent weeks, Australian media have sniffed blood on the US campaign trail and the blood is Al Gore’s.

Australia’s only national newsmagazine, The Bulletin, ran a cover story last week with the headline "bushwhacked".

The national Australian newspaper said Gore could not match Bush in the "personality stakes" but added: "There is something drastically wrong with a political system that can allow someone (Bush) with such a poor record and such limited experience in public life to be catapulted by the forces of wealth, privilege and special interests into the job of the world’s most powerful leader." (REUTERS)

India for enhanced south-south cooperation
in health sector

BEIJING, Nov 3: India today called for ushering in a new era of technical and economic cooperation among south-south nations to reduce dependence on developed countries in meeting basic requirements in the health sector, especially in reproductive health.

"We have the rather piquant situation of having the largest market area, and also a significant production marketing base; but still being dependent on a few countries in the developed world to supply our basic requirements," Union Minister of Health C P Thakur said.

Addressing the sixth annual board meeting of the partners in population and development here, Thakur said south nations could "play a significant role in ushering in a new era of technical and economic coordination between the member countries in the area of reproductive health."

He noted that several countries in the south have established an industrial base strong enough to produce goods and commodities like drugs, contraceptives, vaccines and medical equipment.

"India is self-sufficient in production of most vaccines, drugs and equipment. Manufacturing capacity for quality medical equipment has also been one of the recognised achievements in our country," he said at the three-day meet attended by Health Ministers and senior officials from China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia.

Partners in population and development is an inter-Governmental alliance of 16 developing countries, created for the purpose of improving and accelerating the transfer of knowledge, expertice and skill in the fields of population and development through south-south cooperation.

Thakur said partner members must have an agreement in principle that priority should be given to the produce of south countries while procuring such goods and services from abroad.

Speaking on the Indian experience in this regard, the minister said that India has decided to persuade donors to procure goods and services available within the country.

For example, he said UNICEF used to supply to india drugs and vaccines only from international sources.

"Now, UNICEF and the who not only encourage our own country to use our own produce, but also procure or supply drugs and vaccines to neighbouring countries," he said citing items like oral polio vaccine and measles vaccine.

Procurement from within the country has not only reduced the cost but has also motivated the local manufacturer for improving their quality and to expand their range and quantum of their products, he said.

"If drugs and vaccines produced in India or Indonesia are good enough in times of difficulty, these should be good at any other time," he said.

"Of course, there should be no compromise on quality and reasonableness of the price," he said. (PTI)

Defector says Iraq close to having nuclear bomb

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: Iraq has designed a crude nuclear bomb and has the equipment to build it but lacks the necessary uranium or other fissile material, a former iraqi nuclear physicist who defected said.

"I would say (a bomb of) a few kilotons can be done in Iraq now," said Khidhir Hamza, who once headed Iraq’s nuclear weapons design programme. The bomb would probably be too bulky to be fired on a missile, but could be transported by an airplane and dropped on a target, he yesterday said.

"The design was considerably improved after the (1991) Gulf war," Hamza said at the carnegie endowment for international peace. "Right now I don’t know if they have the uranium, but the design is there."

The construction of the bomb would probably take a few months and it would also have to undergo another process, called hardening, to transport it safely, said Hamza, whose book "Saddam’s bombmaker," was recently published.

A US intelligence official said Iraq currently does not have the infrastructure to build a nuclear bomb. "We don’t believe they have the fissile material," he added.

If Iraqi President Saddam Hussein started his own programme to develop fissile material, a key ingredient for nuclear weapons like separated plutonium or highly-enriched uranium, it would take two or three years to complete, Hamza said.

"Or he can get some from abroad if he can, then he will have it immediately," Hamza said, suggesting Russia might be a potential supplier.

If Iraq built more than one nuclear weapon, Saddam would probably not keep it secret, he said. "He’ll test one, declare himself a nuclear power, and get the whole region polarised in his direction," Hamza said.

Iraq initiated its nuclear weapons programme in the early 1970s to be on par with Israel, and in 1974 Hamza and other Iraqi scientists went to France and purchased a nuclear reactor which was to be monitored by the French atomic energy agency.

Then Israel "made a mistake" by bombing the reactor in 1981, relieving Saddam of the monitoring, Hamza said. In 1982 Saddam started a secret nuclear programme that was more ambitious and bigger than the original, he added.

Defection tale

Hamza said in his book that it became apparent to him during debriefings by the CIA that Iraq had persuaded UN inspectors that Baghdad’s nuclear effort had never progressed beyond basic research, that the bomb-design centre was a materials research facility and that equipment to make explosives had been destroyed.

"I informed them it (the equipment) had been removed a week before the allied (Gulf War) bombing," the book said.

The CIA appeared surprised that Iraq learned through a Hungarian connection to manufacture nuclear triggers and about the role of two German firms in supplying Iraq with equipment and components, the book said.

The book describes Hamza’s escape from Baghdad in 1994 and efforts to defect to the United States which finally succeeded at the US Embassy in Budapest in August 1995. His one nonnegotiable demand was that in return for information his wife and children must be extracted from Iraq.

In October 1995 his oldest son was sitting in a Baghdad coffee shop when a "deranged looking man in rags" approached and started muttering as if begging but then whispered his son’s name when he got close, the book says.

The son walked away and the beggar followed and when it appeared no one else was around, the beggar handed the son a letter from Hamza and told him to be in mosul the next day.

The family was hidden by members of the Kurdish opposition until Rick Francona, an Air Force Intelligence Officer, and "a tall blond CIA man" arrived and got them out and on a flight to germany, where they lived in CIA safe houses for months waiting for clearance to go to the United States, the book said. (REUTERS)

Idea of US-India Working Group for better ties mooted

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: Indian supporters, who helped raise funds to the tune of three million dollars to the Democratic party’s poll campaign, are now busy pushing the idea of setting up a US-India Working Group under the National Security Council (NSC) to improve bilateral relations.

The group would be on the lines of the Council set up with China a few years ago and work to remove the remaining irritants between the two countries.

It has been proposed to Vice President Al Gore that if he is elected as the next President he should take steps to set up this group to function under Deputy National Security Advisor in the NSC to give priority and develop what have been up to now a bundle of separate and often contradictory policy elements.

The areas that the group could consider include the contentious nuclear non proliferation, administering residual sanctions imposed post Pokhran-11, widening the scope of trading contracts, developing cooperation to counter terrorism, deepening infotech cooperation, immigration matters and loosening nuclear energy cooperation like the US has undertaken with China.

The Democratic party’s Indian campaign activists, including Mr Dinesh Shastri, say that Vice President Ai Gore has had experience in promoting ties with China leading to the signing of the trade treaty last month giving a go-by to the past practise of reviewing the trade ties every year based on human rights record. On the oft-repeated criticism that Mr Gore, unlike the Republican party rival, would pressurise India to sign the CTBT, the activist says he is very keen that US Congress adopts the measure first before preaching it to others. The numbers in both the Houses in favour of the Republican party would make it difficult to have it passed in the Congress in the near future, they point out.

With election campaign costs going up manifold and limitations imposed by the Election Commission on use of funds from the corporate sector, both ruling Democratic and Republican parties were looking for a new set of donors to fill their coffers.

The Silicon Valley high tech Indian entrepreneurs have chipped in at the right time making a difference to the clout the Indian Americans would enjoy in US political system in the coming years. In a first gesture, US President Bill Clinton greeted the Indian community on the Diwali day. Vice President Ai Gore followed suit the next day.

The influential US newspaper, Los Angeles Times, in an article titled ‘Indo Americans’ begin to flex political muscles a few days back, said wealthy members of this community had made a significant contributions (funds), especially to the Democratic party, and in return were getting access and recognition. The newspaper carried a series of interviews with American politicians and Indian American leaders.

A romance is going on between India and the United States for quite some time and President Clinton accentuated it, says Los Angeles Attorney Shan Thevar who has been active in California politics for over 25 years. India was no longer seen in the context of Pakistan but in the context of the global economy and vast market, he said.

Between April and September this year, Indian Americans contributed almost three million dollars to the Democratic party mostly from the West Coast, according to Mr Dinesh Shastry. They also contributed substantially to the Republican campaign, though figures are not immediately available.

Republican Congressman from California Edward Royce said the American Indians were making concerted effort to become a political force. The nation’s Indian American community of 1.2 million people, of which two hundred thousand make a living in Southern California, was one of the best educated and most affluent Asian American groups and was the fastest growing, Mr Royce said.

Veteran political watchers believe Indo American have a considerable advantage over other immigrant groups from Asia because of their experience with democracy, exposure to the West and proficiency in English. While they may not be as visible as the Chinese or the Japanese, their roots are deep in California, where immigrants from India have lived since the turn of the 20th century. Majority of them were Sikhs working as farmers in the Yuba city area.’’ We have made enough money now is the time to focus on other areas Mr Naresh Arora,’’ a Silicon Valley activist told La Times.

One of the most politically active Indo American, Jessie Singh, a 42- year- old agricultural engineer, came here in 1986 from his native Punjab village with 20 dollars in his pocket. He went on to build BJS Electronics into a software empire with a turnover of 150 million dollars per year. Mr Singh helped to collect one hundred thousand dollars for Vice President Gore and another 400,000 dollars for the Congressional candidate from San Jose.

Nearly fifty per cent of 1,34,400 immigrants who came on visas for skilled workers( h1b visas) during the last two years were from India, according to Immigration and Naturalisation Services.(UNI)