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Once
the terms of Russia's involvement in the Kosovo peacekeeping force had been
agreed Monday, the Russian press started to worry about the financial effects
of the country's participation. Segodnya pointed out that the
3,600-strong Russian presence in Kosovo--along with its 1,200-member contingent
in Bosnia--will cost about $500 million per year--for which "there is no money"
in the 1999 budget. (The paper also noted that the Kosovo mobilization will
leave the Chechen war in the hands of "untrained drafted soldiers with broken
weapons.") The "respect" shown to Russia at the weekend's G-7 summit could also
prove costly. Izvestiya said
that "the G-7 leaders only pretended that everything was OK in Russia's
economy. ... One thing is to write off a poor country's debts and quite
another--to write off the debts of a member of the club of elite states."
Regarding the G-7's decision to write off much Third World debt, as long as the
money is redirected to social programs such as health, poverty reduction, and
AIDS education, the Nation of Pakistan said, "[E]conomic good conduct
that requires tightening of belts and good governance is something that the
Third World was badly in need of. The fact that Russia has been denied any
further debt relief until it has implemented the necessary reforms should be
enough to convince the Third World debt relief seekers that the G8 means
business." The Economic Times of India struck a contrary note,
however, when it pointed out, "[A]s with all loan write-offs, the move is
unfair to those nations that have repaid their loans."
With
less than one week to go before British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "firm" June
30 deadline for a breakthrough on last year's stalled "Good Friday Agreement"
on Northern Ireland power-sharing, newspapers in Britain and Ireland are
showing concern. Since the Irish Republican Army refuses to decommission its
weapons before representatives of Sinn Fein, its political wing, are seated in
the new Northern Ireland executive, and since the Unionist leader refuses to
call the assembly to order before the IRA gives up at least some of its arms,
the current stalemate seems fairly intractable.
Ireland's Sunday
Business Post
called for the British prime minister to apply his
Kosovo spirit to Northern Ireland, saying, "[I]t's time for Blair to assert his
position and power to effect change, demonstrated so clearly in the Balkans in
recent weeks." Britain's Independent took a similar tack, observing, "The situation is far from precisely parallel, but it
is still a chastening thought that the Kosovo Liberation Army is, under
conditions of vastly greater duress, handing in its guns at a rather faster
rate than the Provisional IRA seems able to arrange." An op-ed in Wednesday's
Turkish Daily
News suggested that this might not be such a good thing, however. The
piece drew on the experience of Cyprus in the 1950s (or, at least, one rather
skewed view of that experience) to argue against the disarmament of the KLA. "A
time will come," the authors argued, "when the people of Kosovo will have to be
protected from new attacks and atrocities of the Serbians. At that point, NATO
forces will not be able to provide this protection."
Back
in Kosovo, the Guardian of London reported Wednesday that returning ethnic
Albanians are targeting gypsies for reprisals. The story says that the gypsies
are perceived to have "sided with the Serbs during the war and the 10 years of
repressive direct rule which preceded it." Meanwhile, gypsies trying to leave
Kosovo are being turned back by Serb officials. A "clear sign," according to
the Guardian , "that despite his defeat, President Slobodan Milosevic is
still trying to ethnically engineer the future of the devastated province." The
"justice minister" of the KLA told the paper, "This is a tragic turn of events.
The gypsies were always the most oppressed members of the community, but they
have been manipulated for so long by Belgrade that it has destroyed much of the
feeling of social solidarity between them and Albanians."
An editorial in Thursday's
Japan Times
speculates that "pique seems to have figured prominently" in the selection this
weekend of Turin, Italy, as the site of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. The
paper reports that after scandals surrounding Olympic venue selections, the
procedure was reformed so that International Olympic Committee members are
prohibited from visiting potential locations. Instead, a 15-member selection
panel narrows the field of possible venues to two final contenders, with the
final selection being made by the IOC. For the 2006 games, Sion, Switzerland,
was the "clear favorite" of the two finalists, offering good venues, a "strong
tradition of winter sports," and "the political and economic security that the
Olympic Games need." However, according to the Japan Times , "the
grandees of the IOC resent being given a fait accompli and voted against the
recommendation to remind the world just who makes the final choice." Another
"ugly" motive was anger at the Swiss, the paper claims, since Swiss IOC member
Marc Hodler was largely responsible for exposing the IOC corruption. The
article concludes, "Even the mere perception of bias or unfairness undermines
the Olympic ideal. The only question is how far the movement must go to rid
itself of the taint it has acquired. Clearly, it [ha]s not yet gone far
enough."
