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Tue, 20 Jan 04
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NE-@latvia-usa.org
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Jan 19, 2004 22:54 PST
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NATO ENLARGEMENT DAILY BRIEF (NEDB)
Tuesday, 20 January 2004, 01:26 EDT
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* NATO LEADER CONFIDENT ALLIANCE CAN COPE WITH ALL TASKS -
BBC Monitoring / Bild am Sontag
* ALBANIA PREPARES LEGAL PACKAGES TO FIGHT TRAFFICKING,
ORGANIZED CRIME ? AP / Llazar Semini
* EU SEEKS AFGHANISTAN CONFERENCE TO SHORE UP SUPPORT ?
Reuters
* U.S. SEEKS TO ENGAGE EU IN MIDEAST DEMOCRACY DRIVE ?
Reuters /
Paul Taylor
* ANNAN SIGNALS HE'LL AGREE TO SEND U.N. EXPERTS TO IRAQ ?
NYT / Warren Hoge
* SLOVENIA, LATVIA OPPOSE "TWO-SPEED EUROPE" - BBC
Monitoring / Slovene radio
* SLOVAKIA HAS ABOUT 800 SOLDIERS IN FOREIGN MISSIONS ?
SITA
* MACEDONIA TO APPOINT NEW ARMY CHIEF IN FEBRUARY ? MIA
* EU'S INCOMING NEW DEMOCRACIES LINGER UNDER THE SHADOW OF
COMMUNISM ? AFP / Beatrice Khadige
* TURKEY WELCOMES GREEK CAMPAIGN PLEDGE FOR JOINT REDUCTION
OF DEFENSE SPENDING ? AP
* ROMANIA TO PURCHASE ANOTHER HERCULES C-130 PLANE ?
ROMPRES
* U.S. POLITICAL ATTENTION ABOUT TO SWITCH FROM IOWA TO NEW
HAMPSHIRE ? AP / Tom Raum
---------------------------------------------
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NATO LEADER CONFIDENT ALLIANCE CAN COPE WITH ALL TASKS
BBC Monitoring / Bild am Sontag, 18 Jan 04
Text of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer guest
commentary by German newspaper Bild am Sonntag on 18
January entitled "NATO is facing new tasks"
The year 2003 was not a good year for transatlantic
relations. The controversy over the treatment of Iraq has
severely tested our transatlantic family. However, the time
of controversies is over now. Europe and the United States
are facing major challenges with which they can cope only
together.
What great discussions is NATO facing?
First of all - Afghanistan. We have to double our efforts.
Those who want to win the antiterror war must not lose
Afghanistan. Therefore, the extension of the NATO presence
beyond the capital, Kabul, is the right step both
politically and militarily. Germany has made major
contributions to this. However, I expect all alliance
partners to be even more prepared to provide enough troops
and equipment for this task.
Second - Iraq. Nobody doubts that the stabilization of
Afghanistan is NATO's priority task. However, a discussion
on a major NATO role in Iraq is not impossible. When the
discussion starts, we will have to deal with each other
carefully on both sides of the Atlantic.
Third - the Balkans. NATO played a key role in the
pacification of southeast Europe. Its resolute intervention
terminated the civil wars there and led the Balkans back on
the road to Europe. However, peace there is not yet
self-supporting. The time has come in Bosnia to replace
NATO troops by an EU mission. But Kosovo and the Balkans as
a whole still need the stabilizing presence of the Atlantic
alliance.
Can NATO do all that? It can - if its member states want
this and suit their actions to their words. This means in
the first place that the declarations for military reforms
must not remain mere lip service, but have to be reflected
in a concrete increase in military capabilities. All NATO
states have promised improvements. It will be my task as
new NATO secretary general to resolutely remind them of
this.
ALBANIA PREPARES LEGAL PACKAGES TO FIGHT TRAFFICKING,
ORGANIZED CRIME
AP, 19 Jan 04, by Llazar Semini
TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Goaded into action by the recent
deaths of 21 would-be illegal immigrants to Italy, the
government will introduce reforms aimed at fighting human
trafficking, terrorism and organized crime, an official
said Monday.
U.S. and Italian experts will aid the government in drawing
up anti-terror, anti-crime and other measures, said
government spokesman Aldrin Dalipi. He said the reforms
would also tackle corruption in the ranks of police and
customs officials.
Legal sanctions envisage severe penalties including long
prison sentences and confiscation of property financed
through illegal means -- "an extreme measure that would cut
financial resources to organized crime," he said.
"With these laws, 2004 will be a decisive year in the fight
against trafficking and organized crime," said Dalipi.
He spoke amid a nationwide sweep begun last week by police
to confiscate real estate,speedboats and other properties
belonging to persons linked to organized crime.
Despite government claims in 2002 that human trafficking
had been disrupted, 21 persons died of exposure Jan. 9
after their boat failed en route to Italy, leaving it
stranded in the Ionian Sea amid high waves and fierce
winds.
Parliament on Monday agreed to create a committee to
investigate the deaths. Once constituted, it will be given
90 days to research the tragedy.
Lax border controls have made Albania a popular point of
transport for local and foreign illegal immigrants trying
to reach the West. Internal and border security are among
the greatest problems faced by the country in its drive for
eventual NATO and European Union membership.
Dalipi said the ranks of police and other government
employees were being cleansed of corrupt officials, and the
government planned to invest money to reduce poverty in
areas where most of the human trafficking occurs.
EU SEEKS AFGHANISTAN CONFERENCE TO SHORE UP SUPPORT.
Reuters, 19 Jan 04
BRUSSELS, Jan 19 (Reuters) - The European Union has called
on the United Nations to hold a conference on Afghanistan
to shore up the government as it swims against a rising
tide of violence towards elections, a spokeswoman said on
Monday.
The meeting would be a follow-up, two years on, to a
donors' conference in Tokyo and a U.N.-backed agreement in
the German city of Bonn that brought President Hamid Karzai
to power after American-led forces toppled the radical
Taliban regime.
"It would be something in between a donors' conference and
a political conference," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman
for the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. "We see
this as a way to revitalise the international community's
engagement."
Solana visited the Afghan capital of Kabul last week and
will report back to foreign ministers of the 15-nation bloc
who are due to meet in Brussels next Monday.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been keen for a
conference to regenerate support for a country whose
political and economic transition is threatened by a
resurgence of militia violence.
Gallach said the conference, which would be organised by
the United Nations, was likely to be held in March and -
since the Bonn process is still under way - hosted by
Germany. According to a report last September by the aid
agency Care and the New York-based Center on International
Cooperation, just 40 percent of $5.2 billion in aid pledged
in Tokyo had been released and nearly a quarter of that had
been diverted from long-term reconstruction to short-term
emergency needs.
Gallach said that in addition to the political and economic
situation, the international conference would also address
the security situation, which has cast doubts over
Afghanistan's ambitious plan to hold its first free
presidential poll in June.
Only 350,000 of an estimated 10 million voters have been
registered so far because the United Nations considers vast
areas of the country too dangerous to work in.
About 12,000 U.S.-led troops are hunting remnants of the
Taliban and their al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan, while a
NATO-led force of 5,700 troops maintains security in Kabul
and is preparing to expand its influence to lawless
provinces.
U.S. SEEKS TO ENGAGE EU IN MIDEAST DEMOCRACY DRIVE
Reuters, 19 Jan 04, by Paul Taylor, European Affairs Editor
BRUSSELS, Jan 19 (Reuters) - The United States is seeking
to engage European allies in President George W. Bush's
drive for democracy in the greater Middle East, partly to
heal the rifts of the Iraq war.
Initial reaction has been interested but somewhat
sceptical.
U.S. officials say involving Europeans through both NATO
and the European Union in the initiative launched by Bush
late last year is one of the administration's top
priorities for 2004.
Bush is expected to give more pointers to his approach in
his State of the Union message to Congress on Tuesday.
"We are looking at ways to work better together with the EU
on the greater Middle East, in security, economically and
in promoting democracy and human rights, as we did in the
Cold War towards Eastern Europe," a U.S. official in
Brussels said.
He said Washington wanted to build on the EU's existing
Euro-Mediterranean dialogue - known as the Barcelona
process - which offers North African and East Mediterranean
partner states trade and aid benefits in return for
economic and political cooperation and reform.
Senior U.S. officials began consultations at EU and NATO
headquarters and in European capitals this month in
preparation for joint initiatives at a series of NATO,
Group of Eight and EU-U.S. summits in June.
The aim is to convince European allies not only to take a
greater share of the military burden in Afghanistan and
Iraq, but also to work on a long-term effort to reshape the
Arab and Muslim world promoting democracy and market
economics.
EU officials welcome the consultation but some say their
U.S. partners appear to have little clear plan so far,
differ among themselves, and are still at the stage of
brainstorming.
LIKE COLD WAR?
"We have had the Barcelona process for a long time. We have
to find ways of broadening the Barcelona process and
finding mechanisms for including other countries," a
spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told
Reuters.
One U.S. official compared the objective with the East-West
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),
launched in Helsinki in 1975, which historians say
contributed to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe by
emboldening dissidents.
The CSCE provided a founding charter and a forum for
cooperation on security, economics and human rights.
But European officials question whether such a structure is
feasible for the greater Middle East, since there is no
such common thread uniting a vast region stretching from
the sands of Mauritania to the mountains of Afghanistan.
In European eyes, the Bush administration's willingness to
work in partnership on the greater Middle East is welcome
after what many see as a troubling period of U.S.
"unilateralism".
But EU officials are critical of the low priority the U.S.
initiative gives to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, which European governments see as the core
dispute and key source of radicalism in the region.
"The Israel-Palestine conflict is the heart of the Middle
East problem. It is the main driver and the main
ideological reason for terrorism," one EU official said.
The Europeans are concerned that hardliners in Washington
increasingly posit democratising the Middle East as a
pre-condition for solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
ENGAGEMENT OR ISOLATION
EU officials say the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process has been a key brake on the Barcelona
process, with countries such as Syria and Lebanon
boycotting meetings and putting a brake on cooperation in
protest at Israeli actions.
Another brake on the process has been the reluctance of
authoritarian Arab governments to engage in a process
designed to achieve gradual "regime change" by stealth.
The U.S. initiative also aims to advance Bush's security
agenda of fighting the spread of weapons of mass
destruction and preventing militant groups from gaining
access to them.
The United States and the Europeans can both claim some
success in persuading Libya to forego its weapons of mass
destruction programmes and pressuring Iran to halt
enriching uranium and accept intrusive snap inspections of
its suspect nuclear programme. But they still differ on
the policy mix between engagement and isolation of what the
United States brands "rogue states" such as Iran and Syria.
Washington is not comfortable with the differing approach
to Iran and does not want the Europeans to reward Tehran
prematurely with a trade agreement before it addresses
other Western grievances, the U.S. official said.
ANNAN SIGNALS HE'LL AGREE TO SEND U.N. EXPERTS TO IRAQ
New York Times, 20Jan 04, by Warren Hoge
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 19 ? Secretary General Kofi Annan
gave strong indications on Monday that he would accept a
request to send United Nations experts to Iraq, in a move
that could help end the stalemate over how to turn over
authority to an Iraqi-led government.
Mr. Annan met Monday with top American, British and Iraqi
officials from Baghdad. The meeting came after months of
ill will between the United States and the United Nations,
which refused to authorize the Bush administration's
decision to use military action. Last fall, after a fatal
bombing at its Baghdad headquarters, the United Nations
pulled out of Iraq, citing security concerns and a lack of
clarity about its role.
Striking a stance that was at once cooperative and
cautious, Mr. Annan told a news conference that he
understood the urgency of the issue but that "further
discussions should take place at the technical level."
Those discussions began almost immediately, with United
Nations election experts being briefed on the complicated
political plans by which the occupation authority hopes to
transfer power to Iraqis on June 30.
Diplomats said that despite Mr. Annan's careful public
statements, it appeared likely that he would decide quickly
to approve the request. A European diplomat who took part
in the meeting said, "In my experience at the United
Nations, when you say you'll consider something, you've
already put your foot on the slope."
The occupation authorities had largely shunned the United
Nations in their political planning but have suddenly
turned to it now that the most revered cleric among Iraq's
majority Shiite Muslims, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has
objected to the American plans for a transition and has
instead called for direct elections. Thousands of his
followers have staged demonstrations backing his plea. A
march on Monday in Baghdad drew 100,000. [Page A10.]
According to participants in the meeting on Monday, a
representative of the ayatollah gave assurances that he
would accept the conclusions of the United Nations experts.
The United States has maintained that there is not enough
time to organize direct elections.
Emerging from the meeting, L. Paul Bremer III, the American
administrator in Iraq, pronounced it "a very good, open and
candid exchange" and declared, "The encouraging news from
today is that the secretary general agreed to consider this
request very seriously."
A senior United States diplomat reported that Mr. Annan
asked many questions about current conditions in Iraq but
appeared interested in finding ways to take up the offer.
"We didn't get a yes answer, definitely not, but my sense
of the meeting was that he was forward leaning," the
diplomat said.
Last month, Mr. Annan sent a letter to Abdel Aziz al-Hakim,
the associate who was at the meeting on Monday, saying
direct elections might not be manageable in the short time
before the June 30 transfer date under current conditions
in Iraq.
Ayatollah Sistani is reported to have dismissed that letter
as one written under pressure from the Americans but also
to have said that he might change his mind if a United
Nations team came to Iraq and verified the judgment that
holding direct elections was unreasonable in the time
frame.
On one crucial point for Mr. Annan, he said that while any
United Nations activities would be constrained by security
considerations, the occupation authorities had promised to
do all they could to protect workers.
The occupation authorities' invitation to Mr. Annan
represented an apparent admission that the United Nations
has a role to play in Iraq immediately, not just one after
the transfer of sovereignty this summer, a point that Mr.
Annan had been seeking to make.
Attending the meeeting in addition to Mr. Bremer were Sir
Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, the No. 2 official at the
Coalition Provisional Authority; John D. Negroponte, the
American ambassador to the United Nations; and three other
American officials, William Burns, the assistant secretary
of state for near eastern affairs; Kim Holmes, the
assistant secretary of state for international
organizations; and Robert Blackwill, who is coordinating
Iraq issues for the National Security Council; as well as
eight members of the Iraqi Governing Council.
In confronting the request for assistance from Iraq's
occupation powers, Mr. Annan faced a quandary.
The Security Council refused to approve military action
last year, and the United Nations has been excluded by the
United States from the political planning that was set last
November in an agreement that made no mention of any role
for the world organization. Mr. Annan is consequently eager
not to appear to be validating a process he had no role in
formulating.
Mr. Annan removed international staff from Iraq in October
after attacks on relief workers and the bombing of the
United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad in August that
killed 22 people.
The suicide bomb blast on Sunday at the gates of the United
States administrators' compound in Baghdad, which killed at
least 24 people, underscored the instability on the ground
and reminded officials in New York that their people would
probably be targets if they went back and associated
themselves with the occupying forces.
But if he resisted the invitation to expand the world
organization's presence and enhance its role in Iraq, Mr.
Annan could end up fulfilling the frequent prediction of
President Bush's that the United Nations risks becoming
"irrelevant" and going the way of the League of Nations.
He is said by aides to be unforgiving of himself for having
sent the original United Nations mission to Baghdad without
better preparation for its security. Among the 16 staff
members killed was the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de
Mello.
The date of the bombing, Aug. 19, is still a fresh one for
people in the East River headquarters, many of whom counted
the victims in Baghdad among their friends.
As for what duties United Nations people would have in
Iraq, Mr. Annan is concerned that they be assigned to
specific areas where they could have impact and not be used
just to bring a degree of international legitimacy to the
occupation.
Mr. Annan has set three broad conditions for the United
Nations' return: "clarity" on the scope of the
organization's role, security assurances and guarantees
that the responsibility would be commensurate with the
risk.
The mission to study the election process is a relatively
limited one in that context, but Mr. Annan cautioned people
on Monday against thinking that a "massive" United Nations
presence in Iraq was under consideration now.
Late on Monday, the Security Council heard a closed-session
report from Adnan Pachachi, this month's chairman of the
Iraqi Governing Council, on the situation in Iraq.
At a preceding lunch with Security Council members, Mr.
Annan was asked by one of the ambassadors whether he
intended to make his decision on the mission to Iraq
"sooner or later," according to one of the participants.
He replied, "Sooner."
SLOVENE, LATVIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS OPPOSE "TWO-SPEED
EUROPE"
BBC Monitoring / Slovene radio, 19 Jan 04
[Announcer] Latvian Foreign Minister Sandra Kalniete is on
official visit to Slovenia today. This morning, she held a
press conference with her host Foreign Minister Dimitrij
Rupel. Tomaz Grden reporting:
[Reporter] Latvia - this country, too, will join the EU on
1 May - and Slovenia have very good relations according to
the assurances of both chiefs of diplomacy. Minister Sandra
Kalniete and Minister Dr Rupel devoted most of their talks
to EU issues. With regard to this, the Latvian foreign
minister, who is also a candidate for European
commissioner, stressed:
[Kalniete speaking in English fading to Slovene
translation] Speaking about a European Union, we are both
unanimous that the intergovernmental conference must
continue as soon as possible. A two-speed Europe or the
creation of a middle group would be the worst case scenario
for Europe.
[Reporter] Kalniete was in favour of seeking things in
common and for strengthening cooperation within NATO,
whilst Dr Rupel singled out the improvement of economic
ties.
[Rupel] This will probably be aided by the prime minister's
[Anton Rop] visit which should happen soon. In Latvia, he
will be accompanied by a group of businessmen.
[Reporter] The Latvian guest, Sandra Kalniete, and Dr Rupel
also discussed at length the problems which Slovenia will
have to face as EU [presumably OSCE] president - that is,
[the situation in] Georgia, the situation in Belarus, in
Iraq and in the Balkans area.
SLOVAKIA HAS ABOUT 800 SOLDIERS IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
SITA, 19 Jan 04
About eight hundred Slovak soldiers are currently serving
in missions abroad. Their participation in 15 different
foreign operations has increased Slovakia's credit
internationally, the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry wrote
in an assessment of the country's preparations for NATO
membership in 2003. Last year, 2,729 professional soldiers
left the country's armed forces for private sector jobs and
one hundred officers accepted a lower rank to keep their
job in the army. Out of the planned 1,820 professional
soldiers, the army hired 1,271. The Slovak Army continued
its transformation into a fully professional army and
further reduced its staff, equipment, stock, and operating
costs. Out of nineteen NATO members, only France has not
yet signed Slovakia's admission documents. Twelve countries
have already delivered signed documents to their depositor,
the United States Government.
As a NATO member Slovakia has pledge to contribute more
than 1 percent to NATO budget, of which 0.49 percent will
go to the civilian budget and 0.53 percent to the military
budget and security investment program.
MACEDONIA TO APPOINT NEW ARMY CHIEF IN FEBRUARY
MIA, 19 Jan 04
Ohrid, 19 January: The principles on further cooperation
referring to the agenda of Macedonia's membership in NATO
have been agreed at my meeting with Defence Minister Vlado
Buckovski, President Boris Trajkovski said.
Asked about new chief of the Macedonian Army (ARM) Staff,
Trajkovski said that he consulted military experts and in
accordance with his authorities, he would appoint the new
chief in February.
EU'S INCOMING NEW DEMOCRACIES LINGER UNDER THE SHADOW OF
COMMUNISM.
AFP, 20 Jan 04, by Beatrice Khadige
When the European Union expands to take in 10 new countries
on May 1, there will be no magic wand to wipe out the
stains for a group of young democracies still undergoing
transformation after half a century of communist rule.
"The acceding countries ... are young democracies," the
European Union's Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen
said in the countdown to the expansion.
"They are still countries in the process of political
transformation ... Political culture is still developing,
and sometimes I must say that political culture is missing
in these countries," he said.
Eight of the 10 incoming EU members were 15 years ago still
in the communist bloc.
Since breaking free, new governments have been set up only
to fall, resulting in new coalitions, or early elections,
notably in the three Baltic former Soviet republics.
However, Andres Kasekamp, a political scientist at the
prestigious university of Tartu in central Estonia, said
this was not a sign of political instability.
"Despite the rapid turnover in government cabinets, there
has been continuity in policy that successive governments
have followed and in that sense there has been stability,"
he said.
Candidates to the EU, and in some cases NATO, jumped onto
the task of adapting to the organisations' rules, with
some, notably Hungary, gaining praise for their efforts.
Although in Slovakia and the Czech Republic government
coalitions have been undermined by internal dissensions,
minority governments managed to hold on and push through
their programmes.
However, Raimundas Lopata, the head of the Vilnius
Institute for International Relations and Political
Sciences, told AFP "democracy in the Baltics is still very
fragile," pointing to the scandal surrounding Lithuanian
President Rolandas Paksas, facing impeachment over
suspected links with crime rings.
"We have all the needed mechanisms installed but never had
checked them out and now is the first serious test," he
said.
From the United States Vladimir Socor, a Senior Fellow at
the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
(IASPS), said Lithuania's performance had been convincing
in the crisis.
"It also shows the strength of Lithuania's state
institutions generally (other than the Paksas presidency).
These are holding up remarkably well," he said.
"The presidential impeachment is having no effect on
Lithuania's reliability as a Euro-Atlantic ally and its
consistently high economic performance."
The EU's eastern future members do experience throw backs
to communist times from time to time.
Vladimir Meciar, who steered Slovakia to independence from
the Czech Republic in 1993, was frowned on during his stint
as prime minister between 1994 and 1998 due to his
authoritarian style and his lack of openness on the
privatisation process and his failure to explain his
suddenly-acquired wealth.
Populism, corruption are rife in the ex-communist
countries, where people are "disappointed with democracy,"
according to sociologist Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, director
of the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw.
"Disappointment with democracy, the lack of faith in laws,
the conviction that pathologies like corruption, nepotism
and the abuse of power are omnipresent have reached a level
which has not been seen since the start of the
post-communist transformations," she told a conference last
week.
TURKEY WELCOMES GREEK CAMPAIGN PLEDGE FOR JOINT REDUCTION
OF DEFENSE SPENDING
AP, 19 Jan 04
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
on Monday welcomed a campaign pledge by Greek Foreign
Minister George Papandreou to begin negotiations for a
joint reduction in defense spending if he is elected
premier.
"It shows good intentions," Gul told Greece's Mega Channel.
"We want to create a new climate in this part of the world.
Therefore it's a good wish and we have the same wish. In
fact we have already started reducing expenses"
Papandreou made the promise Saturday along with a proposal
that the freed funds be used for education and social
programs.
Turkey announced in June that it would begin trimming its
defense budget as part of a long-term plan to restructure
NATO's second largest army.
Papandreou said discussions with Turkey on weapons spending
would begin immediately if the governing Socialist party
pulls off a come-from-behind victory against the
conservatives in March 7 elections.
He is widely expected to be formally elected head of the
Socialists on Feb. 8 to replace Premier Costas Simitis, who
resigned as party leader in early January but plans to
remain in his post until the elections. Papandreou is the
sole candidate so far for the leadership post.
Under the Greek system, the leader of the winning party
automatically becomes premier.
As foreign minister, Papandreou built his reputation on
improving relations between the two NATO nations, which
have come close to war three times in the past 29 years
over territorial disputes and the divided island of Cyprus.
Both countries have in the past decade spent billions of
dollars for defense as part of a regional arms race.
ROMANIA TO PURCHASE ANOTHER HERCULES C-130 PLANE.
ROMPRES, 19 Jan 04
Bucharest, Jan 19 /Rompres/ - Romania in 2004 will purchase
another Hercules C-130 military air carrier, which will
bring to five the number of such planes included in the
inventory of the military air forces, Secretary of State
with the National Defence Ministry (MApN) George Cristian
Maior told a recent stock-taking meeting of the MApN. The
purchase will be conducted under an agreement with the US
Defence Department that also includes an upgrading
programme for the other four planes, of which only one is
still in operation. The programme is financed with American
assistance funds and contributions from the MApN, said
Maior. The fleet of strategic carriers is included in
Romania's bid of forces to NATO. According to the chief of
the General National Army Staff (SMG) Mihail Popescu, the
package of forces also includes detachments of mountain
troops, NBC protection, light infantry, as well as three
upgraded frigates that will soon join the military naval
forces.
Popescu underscored that until the total standardisation of
the Romanian military technique is reached, the Romanian
troops will leave Romania with all the necessary equipment
for the operation theatre outside Romania.
U.S. POLITICAL ATTENTION ABOUT TO SWITCH FROM IOWA TO NEW
HAMPSHIRE
AP, 19 Jan 04, by Tom Raum
CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) - The U.S. political spotlight
is switching to the state of New Hampshire. And the race
here is tightening, just as it had in Iowa.
While Monday's Iowa caucuses provided the first Democratic
contest of the year, New Hampshire holds the first primary
election, on Jan. 27.
Former NATO commander Wesley Clark and Connecticut Sen. Joe
Lieberman, who skipped the caucuses, have pretty much had
New Hampshire to themselves as their major rivals
campaigned in Iowa. They're about to get a lot of company.
Even before Monday's Iowa caucus results, polls here showed
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean clinging to a shrinking
lead as front-runner out of a total of eight candidates,
with Clark and John Kerry gaining on him fast.
Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, won Iowa's leadoff
presidential caucuses, and Sen. John Edwards of North
Carolina came in with a strong second-place finish. Dean
finished third.
For more than a half-century, New Hampshire has been viewed
as one of the key starting points for presidential
campaigns -- unusual for a state with a tiny population, no
major cities and only four electoral votes.
The primary gained national prominence in 1952 when it
first listed candidates by name. Before then, voters
selected only delegates.
That 1952 primary offered a surprise: Sen. Estes Kefauver
of Tennessee beat President Harry Truman after spending a
lot of time in New Hampshire. Not that Truman cared -- he
had decided in private not to seek re-election and didn't
campaign at all. After the primary he made it official.
In the 1968 primary, Sen. Eugene McCarthy's strong
second-place finish helped galvanize opposition to the
Vietnam War and push President Lyndon Johnson from the
race.
In 1976, a little-known peanut farmer and former Georgia
governor, Jimmy Carter, won the Democratic primary, helping
his march to the presidency.
In the 1980 Republican contest, Ronald Reagan came back
from a loss to George H.W. Bush in Iowa to win here.
Bill Clinton, burdened in 1992 with allegations of marital
infidelity and avoiding the military draft, revived his
campaign and finished a close second to Paul Tsongas of
Massachusetts and went on to win the presidency.
However, John McCain's strong win over George W. Bush in
2000 didn't lead to a convention victory.
As many politicians have learned the hard way, it isn't
always whether you win in New Hampshire -- but whether you
finish stronger than expected.
In 1972, Edmund Muskie of Maine won the Democratic primary.
But anti-war candidate George McGovern made a strong
second-place showing, 37 percent to Muskie's 47 percent.
That was enough for a launching pad for McGovern, who went
on to win the Democratic nomination.
"We didn't win the New Hampshire primary," McGovern said
Sunday as he campaigned here for Wesley Clark, "but
everybody thought we did."
Two tiny villages in northern New Hampshire -- Dixville
Notch and Hart's Location -- will be the first to vote in
next Tuesday's primary, as they do in presidential
elections. Both have a tradition in which all citizens vote
at midnight, after which the votes are counted.
Clark's campaign announced on Monday that he would end a
daylong bus swing through New Hampshire next Monday near
midnight in Dixville Notch. There are just 23 voters there:
12 Republicans, 11 independents and no Democrats. The 11
independents are eligible to vote in the Democratic
primary.
The New Hampshire primary has also been a good winnowing
process in the past.
For those able to continue, the next obstacle course is the
Feb. 3 contests in seven states: Arizona, Delaware,
Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South
Carolina.
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