MEDIA REACTION: EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC: DPRK NUCLEAR TEST;

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 001088 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC: DPRK NUCLEAR TEST; SAO PAULO ¶1. "Bush Has No Trump Card" Center-right O Estado de S. Paulo (10/13) editorialized: "By saying that the US does not intend to attack North Korea, George W. Bush was unusually and involuntarily transparent.... Bush is trying in vain to disguise the obvious fact that he does not have, either on the table, or up his sleeve, any serious option for the new international crisis created by Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-Il. But how could he have one if he has done everything wrong in regards to supposed or real threats made against the US following September 11?.... The Iraqi adventure has been the mother of all Bush's disasters.... When Kim Jong-Il requests direct negotiations with the US - which obstinately refuse to agree with that - he just wants to do business. His apparent goal is to revive the agenda of agreements that was drafted and then abandoned by the Clinton administration, through which, in exchange for surveillance of the North Korean nuclear facilities, the US would supply energy and food to that nation of famine-wrought 23 million people.... What the US shortsightedness is now helping to destroy is what has been left of the NPT." ¶2. "Apocalypse Soon" Political Scientist Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira remarked in liberal, largest national circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo (10/13): "Before condemning North Korea and Iran, as the US is doing, and forcing the Security Council to approve sanctions, it is necessary to exam the factors that led the two nations to reject the nuclear weapons non-proliferation policy.... In his State of the Union Address in January 2002, President George W. Bush accused Iraq, Iran and North Korea of being allied to terrorists, forming an 'axis of evil' and threatening peace in the world.... President Bush adopted a national security doctrine based on threatening preventive attacks... whose program consisted in increasing defense expenditures , strengthening democratic links and challenging regimes that are hostile to US interests and values.... In view of such circumstances, North Korea felt threatened and decided to develop its program to produce weapons so that it could have a dissuasion element against any possible US attack.... And Bush's decision to terminate the agreement reached by the Clinton administration revived tensions in the region, in addition to interrupting the peace process between the two Koreas.... How come President Bush now demands that North Korea and Iran respect UNSC resolutions? He did not respect the SC and unilaterally determined the invasion in Iraq after saying that the UN would be 'irrelevant' if it did not agree with US purposes." McMullen