In the dispute over the rehabilitation of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat points to the Pope's responsibilities beyond the sphere of the Catholic Church: "The moral power of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church goes far beyond guiding the more than one billion Catholics worldwide. People listen to the Pope on matters of war and peace, hate and charity. … Benedict wanted to patch up the divides in the Church, not raise doubts about the genocide of the Jews. But his decision was a mistake. The leaders of the Catholic Church in the 1940s have been accused of indifference towards the Holocaust. Moreover, Benedict is a German. Israel and the Jews in Germany are angry about the Pope's decision. And many German Catholic bishops have criticised him in a tone harsher than ever before. … The task of the Pope cannot be confined to defending the teachings of his own Church; he must show sensitivity towards mankind in general and in all its diversity." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Global

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comments on the worldwide protests sparked by Pope Benedict XVI's rehabilitation of the four traditionalist bishops: "In addition to rehabilitating a Holocaust denier - which should never have happened - Pope Benedict has offered full membership in the Church to bishops who themselves admit they do not adhere to the fundamentals of Church doctrine, and who lead a movement that rejects the basic tenets of democratic societies. The damage to the Church in general and to the Papacy in particular is immeasurable." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Weltanschauung, » Germany, » Europe, » Global
All available articles from » Daniel Deckers

In the dispute over the rehabilitation of Richard Williamson the conservative daily Rzeczpospolita, which often adopts an anti-German stance, defends Benedict XVI: "It's hardly surprising that the Germans are sensitive in the matter of Holocaust denial. The sensitivity of German Chancellor Angela Merkel when it comes to offending the sensibilities of the Jews is also understandable – as is her concern over the fact that a Pope from Bavaria is being accused of hindering dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jews. One can't help feeling that the Chancellor is being guided by the majority of German media. She has reminded the Pope that he must adopt an unequivocal stance on the issue of Holocaust denial. But is this really necessary? During his general audience on January 28 Benedict XVI talked about his solidarity with the Jews, the importance of remembering the Shoah and his visits to [the concentration camp in] Auschwitz. … Can one still claim that the Vatican is avoiding the subject of 'Holocaust denial'?" (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Poland
All available articles from » Piotr Semka

The liberal daily Corriere del Ticino comments on a sermon by Abbot Régis de Cacqueray-Valménier, leader of the Society of St. Pius X, from which the Society's aim to turn Pope Benedict XVI away from the goals of the Second Vatican Council can be inferred. "The abbot's sermon says in no uncertain terms what the Society wants from the Pope: the return to a premodern Christianity and a church doctrine antecedent to Vatican II. If the sermon reflects the Society's true ideas, it is not they who have returned to the Church, but the Church which has come closer to them. It is the Society of St. Pius X which now welcomes the entire Catholic Church in its midst, which went astray in the laicist and progressive confusion of the Council. ... Will the traditionalists succeed in converting the Pope, who at the beginning of his Pontificate stressed the need for renewing the Second Vatican Council with utmost vigour?" (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Weltanschauung, » Global
All available articles from » Carlo Silini

In a dispute between Romania and Ukraine that has lasted for forty years the International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that the majority of an energy-rich area in the Black Sea belongs to Romania. "If the estimates about the natural resources in this particular area of the Black Sea turn out to be more or less realistic … we have gained not only an economical but also a geopolitical advantage. … Not only could the intelligent extraction of these resources put us in the happy position of becoming independent of Moscow and the pipelines that run through Ukraine. … If the government follows through on its plans of building reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant by 2014, we will be able to supply energy to neighbouring European states with fewer resources. This would be possible above all due to the European Commission having announced that it plans to invest 500 billion euros in building up an energy network connecting the member states in a bid to pre-emt blackmail attempts from the East. This situation puts us in a privileged position within the EU." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » EU Policy, » Energy, » Ukraine, » Russia, » Europe, » Romania
All available articles from » Laura Cernahoschi

The daily Delo writes that the provincial elections in Iraq do not signal the normalisation of the situation in the country. "The relative calm on the day of the regional elections has conveyed the false impression that the war is over and the situation is 'normalised'. But such a distorted view of the situation can be dangerous and lead to the geo-strategic relations and the hundreds of thousands of civilian victims being ignored. …The Iraqi civil war has not yet ended. The American withdrawal, the consequences of which are not foreseeable, has only just begun. At least half a million people were killed in the war, while five million have been left homeless. The economy, the school system and the health system have collapsed. The security forces whose numbers include many formerly and currently active insurgents are weak. Extreme interpretations of Islam – in this formerly secular state – are finding more and more followers. Provincial elections? This is nothing but baloney for those who want to hear good news from the region at all costs." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » Iraq
All available articles from » Bostjan Videmsek

The Europeans' difficulties in finding a common foreign policy also render their aid measures ineffective, writes the daily Postimees: "No one doubts that European aid is necessary. Aside from in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine we support projects in Africa, Latin America and Central Asia, and even in Eastern Europe. In all these places people need and have the right to better living conditions. But there are too few control mechanisms for deploying aid. When buildings we have built serve to stockpile arms or hide smuggling tunnels we shouldn't be surprised when they are attacked and our money is lost. The aid organisation Oxfam summed up the situation many years ago. 'Aid money trickles away like water in a leaky bucket. But the challenge lies in finding and repairing the leak, not in pouring all the quicker'." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Europe
All available articles from » Martin Kala

Against the background of the protests by English workers at the use of foreign labour at an oil refinery, British author and film producer John Lloyd examines the history of relations between the UK and its immigrant workers in the left-liberal daily La Repubblica. "Since the post-war period right up to the present the fear of English workers has always been the same: to see their jobs stolen by immigrants who have already brought down the wage level, or even both. These fears have a precedent in the 19th century, when employers imported cheap labour chiefly from Ireland. At the beginning of the 21st century the UK likes to cast itself in the role of a multicultural society. It sees itself as tolerant, although it never was. But none of these experiences, whether positive or negative, have influenced the views of the British on the European Community. Of all the most important economic powers the UK remained the least convinced of the merits of the Community. The current economic crisis has made the workers insecure. Their anger against the Italian workers is less a form of racism than a reflection of the need for the UK to control its borders, halt the influx of foreign European workers and – as unfortunately the British Prime Minister said, create 'British jobs for British workers'." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Migration, » United Kingdom
All available articles from » John Lloyd

The historian Niall Ferguson writes in the Financial Times that people refuse to name the true problem of the recession: "Call it the Great Repression. The reality being repressed is that the western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Many governments are too highly leveraged, as are many corporations. More importantly, households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Worst of all are the banks. The best evidence that we are in denial about this is the widespread belief that the crisis can be overcome by creating yet more debt. ... The aim must be not to increase debt but to reduce it. Two things must happen. First, banks that are de facto insolvent need to be restructured – a word that is preferable to the old-fashioned 'nationalisation'. ... The second step we need to take is a generalised conversion of American mortgages to lower interest rates and longer maturities. The idea of modifying mortgages appals legal purists as a violation of the sanctity of contract. But there are times when the public interest requires us to honour the rule of law in the breach. ... No doubt those who lose by such measures will not suffer in silence. But the benefits of macroeconomic stabilisation will surely outweigh the costs to bank shareholders, bank bondholders and the owners of mortgage-backed securities. ... Only a Great Restructuring can end the Great Repression. It needs to happen soon." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » U.S., » Global
All available articles from » Niall Ferguson

The new EU legislation on illegal employment remains half-hearted, the left-leaning daily die tageszeitung writes: "The advocates of the directive argue that the responsibility should finally be passed on to employers. In Germany this is already the case. Yet illicit work is still thriving and many are working without legal protection and are powerless to defend themselves against wage dumping or inhuman working conditions. Nonetheless, each year more people decide to flee unemployment in their home countries to do slave labour in Europe. If the EU wants to break this vicious circle it must finally present what it has been promising for years: a balanced immigration concept. But most member states are against this. The only time they can reach a consensus is when it comes to further sealing off Europe." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Economic Policy, » Germany, » Europe
All available articles from » Daniela Weingärtner

The liberal Gazeta Wyborcza comments on the growing fear of foreign workers in other European countries, which has been aggravated by the financial crisis: "In times of crisis the argument that sealing off labour markets is absurd from an economic point of view doesn't have any impact with Western politicians and unionists. The trade unions in other EU countries are beginning to demand the closure of job markets for foreigners – including citizens from other EU states. Unemployment is rising across the EU. According to the figures of the EU Statistical Office almost 18 million people have no jobs. Although the anger of the trade unionists in the UK is directed against the Portuguese and the Italians who are to be employed in construction at the refinery in Lincolnshire, no one can guarantee that their banners won't bear anti-Polish slogans tomorrow. After all, there are around a million Poles living in the UK." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Poland
All available articles from » Jacek Pawlicki

The business newspaper Les Echos writes that Spain cannot solve its severe economic crisis with its current policy. "An economic drama is being played out south of the Pyrenees. The number of unemployeed rose by 200,000 in the month of January alone ... although José Luis Zapatero's socialist government had just announced a recovery plan worth eleven billion euros. ... For the most part the free fall of the Spanish economy can be explained with reference to what has nourished it for so long: debt. Spain has put too much stock in the belief that it had found the virtuous way to growth. And that is now taking a heavy toll. José Luis Zapatero now appears weak at the height of the storm. His economic strategy is difficult to make heads or tails of. Above and beyond the bursting of the real estate bubble, this crisis has shown up the basic weaknesses of the Spanish economy: insufficient competitiveness, wages that have risen too sharply in recent years, a lack of specialisation in production and an inflexible labour market." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Economic Policy, » Spain
All available articles from » Nicolas Barré

Denmark's students enter the labour market too late, the Danish daily Politiken writes, adding that it would be perfectly justified to limit the student grants (under the State Educational Grant and Loan Scheme SU) that every student receives irrespective of parental income to a maximum of four years. "No one is suggesting the introduction of tuition fees or the abolishment of SU. It is still a good idea to invest in higher education. But limiting SU to four years is an effective approach to reducing the length of university education. Those who started their courses four years ago can consider taking out a loan or getting a job. … All the options [for shortening the time it takes to complete courses] should be examined and evaluated – including that of charging fees for graduate courses. For every university student that enters the job market a year earlier society becomes a half a million crowns richer." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Denmark

The Italian city of Lucca wants to protect pasta and pizza from foreign influences and ban sushi and kebabs. The daily Trouw asks how Italian Italy's cuisine really is: "The caliphate of Baghdad created the first enduring food legacy between the 9th and 11th century: spaghetti. This hard dry pasta was made from a special kind of wheat – durum – which at that time didn't grow in Italy. … The tomato is another icon that even today remains inseparably bound up with Italian cuisine. But the tomato, too, was once an exotic fruit. It was only after the discovery of America by Columbus (a true Italian) that the Spanish brought tomatoes to Europe for the first time in 1523. … And the same goes for capsicums, pepper, potatoes and chocolate. These are all products that only became cornerstones of Italian cuisine in the course of centuries. So it is indeed an international cuisine in the truest sense of the word. If there's one thing that really is open to international influences it's food." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Public Culture, » Italy, » Global
All available articles from » Kees de Vré

The government of the Belgian region Wallonia wants to set up an international institute for biotechnology. The Flemish daily De Standaard writes that the institute with the code name "Destination Nobel Prize 2020" is to "breed" a Nobel Prize winner. Until now, the paper recalls, three of the ten Belgian Nobel Prize winners have been Walloons. "But first we must put the term 'Walloon' in perspective. Albert Claude, winner of the prize for medicine, works in America. Jules Bordet, who also won the prize for medicine, worked at the Institut Pasteur in Paris for many years. And the Dominican friar Dominique Pire, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, spent much time abroad. Wallonia starts with a W, like 'World'. Sixty-eight percent of Belgians living abroad are - let's not forget - French speaking. ... But the average Walloon is anything but a world conqueror. ... Nevertheless they've got a Nobel Prize coming to them." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Science / Research, » Belgium
All available articles from » Christophe Deborsu

The drop in sales at many print media will lead to several closures this year, Lluís Bassets, deputy editor of the daily El País predicts in his blog. But he insists that quality journalism must live on and make greater use of the new technologies: "I have already written that this year I will have frequent occasion to write about journalism. All that is happening now confirms this and moves me to mention a few ideas I will expand on later: This [journalism] is an indispensable task. Perhaps print newspapers will disappear, but we journalists must not give up. Journalism is more important than ever in this period of crisis and change. And the new technologies must not be allowed to become a hindrance but must be turned into efficient tools in our hands. This is not about protecting a guild or an old profession that represents a special craft. It's about democracy and [informed] citizens." (04/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Print media, » Online media, » Spain
All available articles from » Lluís Bassets