World of OpinionOn U.S. relations with Iran:
What’s worrying Washington is the information that al-Qaida members in Iran took part in the recent bombing attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as well as suspicions that Teheran is developing nuclear weapons. Because of this, the world may be confronted with the same dilemma as it was during the war in Iraq. There is a broad unity in the world that no country should be able to shelter terrorists and that the nonproliferation treaty should be respected. The disunity is about the method. And if the American conclusion will be that something similar will work in Iran, then the world order as we know it is in a bad fix. On the Middle East ‘roadmap’:
The Israeli government’s conditional approval of the so-called roadmap to peace was hastily called “historical.” That word is often better avoided. The diplomatic dustbins in the Middle East are full of “historical” plans which in the end have amounted to nothing. The roadmap – as the name says – only gives directions about how to proceed, if both parties possess the required good will. Only there are no guarantees for the existence of good will on either side. The U.S.-led roadmap does have a unique feature in that it requires simultaneous action from both sides without allowing them to wait for the other side to make a first move. Sharon’s government has so far refused to do anything before there is a complete stop to terrorist strikes. The Palestinians, in turn, have said that the brutal Israeli occupation has made it impossible for them to persuade extremist groups to a cease-fire.
The new Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas should now quickly gain the upper hand with terrorists, which not only exist among the ranks of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, but also fairly close to his own government. The task will be impossible if life in the occupied regions remains miserable and the population only sees him as someone who is doing the dirty job for Israel.
On small nuclear weapons:
Recently, both houses of Congress passed defense spending bills that authorize research for small nuclear weapons. The Senate approved even development of such weapons subject to the consent of Congress. The Senate and House of Representatives are expected to modify their respective versions into a single measure that President George W. Bush is expected to sign into law. However small, they are still nuclear weapons. If their yield is 5 kilotons, they have one-third the destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One misstep could spread radioactivity and cause extensive damage. In fact, an underground test detonation of a 2.3-kiloton bomb 52 meters deep several years ago contaminated a 2.5- kilometer radius of the area with high-level radioactivity.
… the United States already has a vastly superior array of modern conventional weapons, and the superiority edge continues to grow. We see no need for nuclear arms to counter countries that support terrorism. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insists the United States will simply do research on small nuclear weapons, but it is easy to imagine the temptation to proceed to develop and test them. We hope the United States will immediately abandon the idea of making no distinction between conventional weapons and nuclear weapons.
On St. Petersburg:
St. Petersburg celebrates its 300th anniversary – and the celebration is one in which Britain can take some vicarious pride.
It is said that as a child at his mother’s home near Moscow, the future Peter the Great found, rotting in a shed, a derelict English sailing boat. The discovery inspired him with a love of seafaring and of the technical and aesthetic achievements of the West. … It was this enthusiast for the English maritime tradition who founded the imperial city on the Gulf of Finland. Peter sought a sea outlet to the West, for a channel for the transmission of European arts and a nexus of international trade. St. Petersburg was Russia’s “window on Europe”: Francophone, cosmopolitan and courtly, built of Finnish stone by Scots architects. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the city represented half of the dichotomy Tolstoy saw in the Russian character: the sophisticated, urbane and rational alternative to the earthy and superstitious Muscovites. …
Today, we have a Russian leader who perfectly exemplifies the Tolstoyan dichotomy. Vladimir Putin is a born St. Petersburger, an experienced European diplomat and an avowed friend of President Bush; but he is also the very type of lugubrious Russian who, 10 years after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., retains an innate suspicion of the West. His conversations during the Iraq conflict – informed by a new strain of European contamination – suggest a mind uncomfortable with either a Western or an Eastern identity. The years ahead will not allow such ambivalence. As he celebrates his native city’s tricentennial he would do well to remember the spirit in which Peter I founded the place.On Europe’s economy:
The closure of financial markets in the U.S. and U.K. brought momentary calm to the main foreign exchange markets yesterday but no one will be surprised if turmoil is renewed later this week.
Europe has entered serious economic turbulence without an agreed road map to get out. The long-predicted decline of the dollar has given the euro the strength its architects hoped for – but at the worst possible moment.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is facing the self-reinforcing threats of recession and possible deflation. Most of the other eurozone economies are not doing much better (though France grew by 0.3 percent in the first quarter). In these circumstances they need a sharply increasing currency like a hole in the head. The erupting euro will make exports more difficult and imports easier, thereby exacerbating the threat of recession. …
What can Europe do? The rising euro has aggravated Europe’s real economic problem – deficiency of demand. That should be dealt with by putting more money into people’s pockets and industry’s coffers by cutting interest rates and easing fiscal policy. But the eurozone’s masochistic fiscal rules will not permit deficits above 3 percent of GDP even when unemployment is over 10 percent.
Germany is supposed to raise taxes or cut public spending – the reverse of what it should be doing to prevent its economy from going into free fall. …
Germany now – and maybe the rest of Europe later – is facing an actual fall in prices. Not “benign” deflation when technology forces down the price of computers but malign deflation when falling prices prompt consumers to postpone purchases of ordinary goods (knowing they will be cheaper later) and companies to cut investment and employment to stave off falling sales and profits.
The psychology of deflation is such that rational people, by postponing purchases, can unintentionally bring about a disastrous consequence. Europe must act now to stimulate its own growth and in the process prove it is a major economic zone in its own right and not a satellite of the U.S.
The Guardian, London
On recent earthquake in Algeria:
Algeria suffered an earthquake of devastating consequences last week: more than 2,200 dead and 10,000 injured and thousands of families homeless. The quake measured 6.7 on the Richter and tumbled housing blocks and buildings like playing cards in the affected zone, the super-populated coastal region beside the capital. Yesterday (Tuesday) another earthquake struck. …
These precedents and the systematic lack of response by the government in the face of expectable misfortunes explains the angry reception the victims gave President Abdelaziz Bouteflika when he visited the quake area.
The fundamental reason for such a high fatality rate in this earthquake is not so much the fury of nature but rather the incompetence and negligence of a dictatorial regime gangrenous with corruption.
Idleness and corruption continue to permit the construction of buildings which violate the most elemental of norms in security and resistance. In Japan a quake of 7 on the Richter caused hardly any material damage and no victims Monday. …
El Pais, Madrid