"There is a time for praise and a time for questions", writes Fabrice Rousselot. "The declarations of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and yesterday's announcement by a Libyan source of the signature of an 168 million euro arms contract are not favorable for the unconvincing though repeated denials of the French president. By trying so hard to have us believe that the single conviction of his wife had achieved a miracle, Sarkozy finds himself having to deal with a PR operation that has gone wrong. Everyone knows all too well that, since Libya 'opened up' in 2004, France has participated in the race for military contracts with Tripoli. At some point, the president is going to have to come clean about the Bulgarian Medics affair, having built his election campaign on the theme of an 'Irreproachable Republic'." (03/08/2007)

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Hans-Hagen Bremer contests that everything that happens in the world of diplomacy should immediately be made public. "However, in the case of the Bulgarian nurses, about which Nicolas Sarkozy very publicly made a big fuss, keeping the details of the deal with Libya secret was inexcusable. Foreign Minster Bernard Kouchner's denial of the existence of a military pact before parliament, despite Sarkozy's having signed it along with the nuclear memorandum, was a sad performance. Either Kouchner, who wasn't present at the signing of the agreement, wasn't informed by his boss or there really is something to hide. Either that or Gaddafi's statements weren't true. Whatever the case, for a president who promised more transparency in foreign policy the affair is embarrassing, and the longer Sarkozy keeps up the secrecy the more embarrassing it will become." (03/08/2007)

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Karin Volmer criticises France's weapons deals with Libya, saying that they contribute to the build-up of arms in the Middle East. "Politicians have found a new hobby: exchanging people for weapons. France is delivering millions of euros in weapons technology to Libya in return for the release of the Bulgarian nurses... Naturally it's a good thing that the case was made public. Following all the criticism of its weapons deals with Saudi Arabia, Washington can now accuse France of also helping the Muslim world to boost its weapons arsenal." (03/08/2007)

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German writer Reinhard Kaiser questions the logic behind "memorial laws" that make denial of the Holocaust or genocide a punishable offence. "The credibility of the Holocaust suffers when not believing it becomes taboo... It could be that in the not too distant future the credibility of the Holocaust diminishes further - with the passage of time, with the death of survivors who can give living testimony, with the fading of memories that are passed on from one generation to the next, with the integration of a growing number of people from countries with different cultural and historical backgrounds. Educating people about it will become increasingly necessary and difficult... Perhaps it would be better to allow ourselves the freedom to abandon the regulations governing the denial and trivialisation of the Holocaust and follow the examples of Great Britain and the United States, where there have never been such laws, instead of generalising them in the form of some European framework agreement on how to deal with controversial chapters of history." (02/08/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » History, » Germany, » Europe
All available articles from » Reinhard Kaiser

Rudolf Rezsohazy, professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), considers that we cannot resolve all of Europe's historical injustices and that some countries should drop their demands to do so. "To want to straighten things out generations, or centuries after the events, will cause more harm than good. ... Two principles are opposed to one another: the right to land based on parentage and the rights of current inhabitants. Inhabitants should clearly be given priority over those who idolise land. The right to land is an ideology created by nationalist who venerate the land of ancestors, cherish it, sing its praises, and lend it virtues, calling it 'Father', or 'Mother'. It is even kissed as if a crucifix. And yet land, in itself, is a neutral, material reality. It is given its significance by men who establish themselves on it and value it. However, reason unfortunately has little influence over mysticism." (03/08/2007)

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The weekly comments on the report presented on Thursday, August 2nd by the Independent Police Complaints Commission [IPCC] on Scotland Yard's public statements following the police's shooting on July 22nd 2005 of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian wrongly suspected of terrorism. "The police have been found not just to have botched the operation but also to have misled the public afterwards. ... When details of its report were leaked to the press, police arrested a reporter and his girlfriend in separate dawn raids. This week's report was toned down following legal threats from the officers facing criticism. ... The more the Met [Metropolitan Police] harries the IPCC, the more others will call for the body to be strengthened. Meanwhile Gordon Brown, the prime minister, is trying to convince MPs to give the police new anti-terrorism powers. That was already hard. It will be no easier after this week's reminder that on one occasion officers made a deadly mess with the ones they had, and tried to fudge it afterwards." (02/08/2007)

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"The decision of the [Dutch] Minister of Defence Eimart Van Middelkoop [Centre-left] not to arm navy warships with cruise missiles illustrates the debate in the Netherlands around the armed forces", considers editorialist Rob de Wijk. "His predecessor, Henk Camp [liberal], wanted to turn the Dutch armed forces into a first division team. In general, right-wing politicians want the armed forces to not only participate in peacekeeping missions, but also wage war. Left-wing politicians see the army more as a peacekeeping force that should engage in relatively low-risk activities. ... This debate remains a typically Dutch discussion in keeping with our tradition of neutrality and marks a traditional aversion in our foreign policy for military power." (03/08/2007)

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Columnist Stavros Tzimas comments on the new Greece-Bosnia and Herzegovina Friendship Building opened in Sarajevo by Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, after it was rebuilt with funds from the Hellenic Plan for the Reconstruction of the Balkans (HIPERB). "Athens wanted to underline its wish to be part of the international effort to rebuild the former Yugoslavia and at the same time to heal the breach in relations between the two countries arising from Greece's pro-Serb stance during the war. Underneath the warm reception given to the Greek Prime Minister, there was a sense of suspicion, if not disapproval, surrounding the visit. ... Unfortunately, it appears that we Greeks are still paying for our unrestricted support for Serb nationalism during the Yugoslavia crisis. Our fondness for (former Serb leader Slobodan) Milosevic has made us the enemy of the Muslims, the Croats, the Albanian Kosovars and the Slav-Macedonians – that is, all the other peoples of the southwestern Balkans. Was it worth it?" (02/08/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » History, » Greece

On August 2nd, 1980, a terrorist bomb blew-up Bologna's train station, killing 85 people and wounding 200. Interviewed by Luciano Nigro, Renato Zangheri, who was mayor of the town at the time, says that he is glad that "finally, 27 years after the events, the State secrecy is being lifted. All the same, it remains difficult to tell who is responsible for such a tragedy. There is more to this single bomb. We know that the bomb was planted by neo-fascists, but the planning took place much higher-up. Whoever chose to strike on a first Saturday in August, when grandparents and children leave for the seaside, had very precise intentions. ... They wanted to carry out other episodes, triggering a mechanism of civil war. It was a terrorist attack aimed against democracy, where democracy was doing best [in Italy]." (03/08/2007)

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In the recent Pisa study Romania came 34th out of 43 countries. Education Minister Cristian Adomnitei now plans to reform the education system and introduce compulsory nursery school for all children above the age of three. Marius Nitu comments: "In theory, compulsory nursery school is a wonderful idea that could help smooth out the differences between children starting school. But in reality no one has taken into account the fact that the first prerequisite for a successful law is its enforceability. Bucharest would need another 15,000 nursery school places. Moreover, in other European countries most nursery schools have groups of 20, not 40 to 50, as we do here in Romania... Most of Bucharest's nurseries have only one room for eating, sleeping and playing. In rural areas the law will be even more difficult to enforce because even if a nursery exists there is rarely any way of getting the children to it. There are no buses for them." (03/08/2007)

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The Portuguese Competition Authority (Adc) has condemned Portugal Telecom (PT) to a record fine of 38 million euros for abuse of its dominant market position. Paul Ferreira considers that "this condemnation, which PT will appeal against in court, is an important turning point in the defence of consumer interests. This is the first time a Portuguese company has been sanctioned for this type of abuse. ... The history of PT shows that the company appreciates neither competition nor rules. Thus the PT has become emblematic of the practices that have contributed to making our country a territory that is not very competitive and not very easy to compete with: the defence of the monopoly at the distribution of profits among shareholders at the expense of consumers and the economy's competitiveness. And as of this morning, the PT can no longer say that all this is mere disparagement." (03/08/2007)

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The German government is demanding the restitution of works of art that remained in Poland after the Second World War. Mariusz Muszyński and Krzysztof Rak see this as a setback for the German-Polish policy of reconciliation that has been conducted since the 1990s. "For Poles who know their history, this demand for the return of cultural assets sounds cynical... Many of the current problems between Warsaw and Berlin arise from the fact that the Polish side has shown too much political naivety and not enough determination. This is why the victims of National Socialism have not received true compensation, but only a modest donation 'ex gratia' (i.e. out of pity). And Germans are still making property claims. By demanding the return of cultural assets the Germans are trying to force the Poles to foot yet another bill for the Second World War." (03/08/2007)

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The Czech Minister for Culture Vaclav Jehlicka has announced a number of budget cuts and raised the issue of a possible merger of Prague's two opera houses: the National Theatre and the State Opera. Vera Drapelova comments: "In the euphoria after 1990 everything looked rosy. Vienna, Berlin and Paris have more than one opera house so why shouldn't Prague? people asked... The State Opera has gone through 15 years of agony. It never achieved a clear profile as an alternative to the National Theatre. The 'second' opera houses in other European capitals, such as the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Volksoper in Vienna or London's English National Opera, all differ dramatically from the 'first' houses in these cities. They either have a much wider programme, a repertoire which includes operettas and musicals, or radical production concepts. The State Opera in Prague provides none of this - just more of what the National Theatre has to offer. This situation is intolerable." (03/08/2007)

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All available articles from » Vera Drapelova

Author Philip O Ceallaigh, who was born and grew up in Ireland, has been living in Bucharest for seven years now. His first book "Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse", for which he received the 2006 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, tells stories about the Romanian capital. O Ceallaigh talks about life in Bucharest: "Bucharest is not a city that developed normally or naturally - it was forced to grow. [Nicolae] Ceausescu brought in people from the provinces, built apartment blocks for them to live in and forced them to move in... After the fall of the regime hundreds of people - most of them pensioners - were left living in these Ceausescu blocks, where I now live too. These people are aware that after working hard all their lives they now own practically nothing. For these people 1989 was followed by a period of stagnation. In my stories I asked myself how they come to terms with this absurd and hopeless situation." (03/08/2007)

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The Spanish Supreme Court decided on Tuesday, July 31st, that the Academy that trains the police in the Basque country should sport the Spanish national flag. Manuel Martin Ferran, the daily's chronicler, makes no secret of how tired he is of this sort of dispute. "If being Spanish carries a certain amount of charm, it can also be remarkably tiring. Among ourselves here, no subject is ever properly decided upon, and the long catalogue of conflicts resulting from our common reality has become really wearing. Take the flag question, for example: a real nightmare that, with its monotonous recurrence, is symptomatic of the territorial illness we suffer from. ... By surprising coincidence, the ERC separatists are demanding that the Catalan flag be displayed alongside the Spanish one in all police stations in Catalonia. We are making little progress this way and becoming increasingly tired." (03/08/2007)

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All available articles from » Manuel Martín Ferrand