The left-liberal daily La Repubblica writes that Italy's return to nuclear power is spurred by economic interests but makes little sense: "It is clear as daylight why France wants to build nuclear power plants in Italy. The deal is extremely attractive for the French energy company Areva, especially since ... after parting ways with its once loyal German partner Siemens it is now keen to look out for number one. ... But it is less clear why this should happen in Italy of all places. The arguments for developing an independent power supply are watertight. ... The arguments for keeping up with technological progress, by contrast, are shaky at best. All experts agree that the technology of the third generation nuclear power plants is an interim solution. Fourth generation plants, which produce no nuclear waste, should be ready by 2030. Is it sensible to build nuclear power plants that will be obsolete at most five years after completion (2025 if all goes well)?" (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Energy, » Corporations, » France, » Italy
All available articles from » Maurizio Ricci

The Berliner Zeitung regrets Italy's return to nuclear power, writing that the nuclear lobby is blocking the development of renewable energies: "The energy companies are afraid of new technologies because from their point of view they have one basic fault: they call their own monopoly into question. Wind and solar energy are produced decentrally for economic reasons - by local or individual operators. The nuclear lobbyists can still argue that nuclear power plants are indispensable to ensure the base load, because wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun only shines during the day. But as soon as the storage problem has been solved wind and sun will be what big industry fears: energy for the man on the street. ... Italy is ill-advised to put the future of its energy policy in the hands of the French nuclear industry. That will cost the country plenty of money it will lack later on - to develop new energies." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Environmental Policy, » Energy, » France, » Italy
All available articles from » Frank Nordhausen

Following Italy's decision to build a new nuclear plant in cooperation with France the daily La Vanguardia writes that the Spanish government is now also under pressure to act: "The case of Italy like that of Sweden - which 30 years after a referendum [in favour of abandoning nuclear power] is now hedging its bets on nuclear power plants - puts [Spanish head of government José Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero under pressure to reconsider his radical rejection of nuclear power. Regardless of rather irrational preferences and phobias a modern country must be able to find a certain balance between the three fronts that define the future viability of the different energy resources: the battle against climate change, economic competitiveness and the security of energy supplies." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Environmental Policy, » Energy, » France, » Italy, » Spain, » Sweden

For the first time in Barack Obama's term in office, a prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, has been freed from the Guantánamo prison camp on Cuba. The Independent comments on his claim that he was tortured. "He did not claim that British intelligence was actually doing the dirty work, but that it was complicit at one or more removes. Nor can that charge be dismissed so easily; it has been made in identical terms by others who have returned from Guantánamo. ... Meanwhile the Attorney General is consulting the Director of Public Prosecutions about a possible criminal investigation into the conduct of British security agents in relation to Mr Mohamed, but has reached no conclusion. It is hard to escape the impression that all this activity is not just so much ducking and weaving designed to protect the security services and obscure the truth." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » United Kingdom, » U.S.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Russian oil company Yukos, once more faces trial for fraud and money laundering. The daily Gazeta Wybrcza is unhappy that other Russian oligarchs have not also faced such treatment. "Khodorkovsky has been sitting in prison since 2003 because he did not acknowledge the rules established by the Kremlin: society, the economy and the opposition must be silent and renounce their political rights. The powerful guarantee stability and development, and rely on the oil industry in doing so. Khodorkovsky, by contrast, had his people in the regions - not just anybody, but state governors. He profited from enormous tax breaks and in return invested huge sums in the oil industry. Ethically speaking that wasn't all on the up and up, but it was exactly what all the other oligarchs were doing at the time. ... The oil czar was put behind bars, while the other super-rich became the darlings of those in power." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Corporations, » Economic Policy, » Russia
All available articles from » Marcin Wojciechowski

In the liberal daily La Stampa Enrico Bettiza refutes the charges that anti-Romanian xenophobia is rife in Italy: "The problem of criminality exists. ... True, only one percent of the roughly one million Romanians living here are involved. … But even that percentage adds up to around 10,000 people, which is more or less comparable with the number of those who were sent back to their own country by [French head of state Nicolas] Sarkozy. … It is the remaining 990,000 – the largest foreign segment of Italy's population – that suffers against its will the consequences of immoral pressure and ethnic discrimination. … The governments on both sides are eagerly awaiting the results of the first test of how strong the European identity of the Romanian community is, which will be the first to elect an Italian candidate to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This is the first time that Romanian immigrants are being put on an absolutely equal footing with Italian voters as regards exercising their rights and obligations as European citizens." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Migration, » Integration, » Italy, » Romania
All available articles from » Enzo Bettiza

The trend towards liberalisation in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic made the fall of the German Communist Party, or SED, possible in the first place, comments Gerd Appenzeller in the daily Der Tagesspiel: "The number of symposia, lectures and exhibitions is growing continuously in the twentieth year since that historic turning point – and with it the danger that memories focus solely on events in Germany. Politicians and historians who see things in a European context are trying to prevent this. … These initiatives [in Berlin] are aimed at pointing people's attention to the fact that without the reform processes in Poland, Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia the power of the SED regime would not have been eroded. … It seems a bitter irony that certain reform states without the help of which the fall of the Berlin Wall would never have happened are today particularly hard hit by the global financial crisis. The cynics who call themselves pragmatics will now probably try to tell us that gratitude is not a category of political action. But there are reassuring indications that the German government is aware of its moral responsibility." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » History, » Germany, » Europe, » Global
All available articles from » Gerd Appenzeller

The president of the Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer criticises in the daily El País the widespread concept of a multi-polar world in which the US surrenders part of its international power to up-and-coming states like China, India or Russia: "All these [voices] are mistaken. The power of the US may be experiencing a marked decline, but a multi-polar order would imply that several powers had different opinions on how to deal with the world, and also that they were prepared to use their power to realise these plans. This is not the case. On the contrary, we are witnessing the birth of a non-polar world in which the main competitors of the US are too busy with the problems in their own countries and with their direct neighbours to try and contest any attempts by others to take on the most difficult international challenges. … In the coming years it is increasingly likely that those who ask the US for help in a crisis will receive a 'no' in response. And it is unclear whether anybody else will be in a position to say yes." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » U.S., » Global
All available articles from » Ian Bremmer

Following the takeover of Dutch energy company Nuon by the Swedish energy producer Vattenfall for 95 billion crowns [around 8.7 billion euros] the daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet calls for the Swedish energy giant to remain in state ownership. "The energy production market is vulnerable to competition. Why should Vattenfall be stuck off the government's privatisation list? Because energy is not a product like any other. It plays a role in security policy and can be seen as part of a country's infrastructure. Vattenfall supplies electricity to more than 850,000 households and companies in Sweden. This is something that it's good to know is in the hands of the state." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Energy, » Corporations, » Sweden, » Netherlands

Since last week the Swiss bank UBS has been providing client data to the US tax authorities. The daily Le Temps comments in dissatisfaction: "All Uncle Sam had to do was swing his baton, and our country promptly complied and discarded its tradition of banking secrecy. ... Only blind pride can lure us into thinking that tiny Switzerland is strong enough to stand up to the world's major players. In forcing our country to violate its own laws, the US wanted to show who calls the shots. It behaved like an imperial power that honours its agreements with Switzerland just as it sees fit. This is all the more telling if it is true - as official sources have it - that the US would have received the same information if it had awaited the outcome of the proceedings that were already underway." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Fiscal Policy, » Switzerland
All available articles from » Daniel Perren

The Czech National Bank has accused Western media of scaring off investors through undifferentiated reporting on Central and Eastern Europe. The business paper Hospodářské noviny fully agrees: "The Czech Republic has extended almost no loans in foreign currencies. ... Czech banks are not dependent on loans from the bank market. Slovakia and Slovenia are to a certain extent protected by the euro. ... Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are countries in jeopardy. ... In Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia loans drastically exceed bank deposits. ... Investors can hardly lump Central and Eastern Europe together in one basket like that." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Central Europe, » Eastern Europe
All available articles from » Lenka Zlámalová

The daily newspaper Dnevnik comments on the public debate about whether Bulgaria's classical authors or more modern authors should predominate in the reading curriculum at schools. "This dispute will remain unproductive if it doesn't lead to a debate about what is to be expected from the secondary education level. What do we want to convey? Identity or adaptation? Love for all things Bulgarian … or for the civilisational, or in other words universal values that apply beyond our national borders? If schools want to foster identity the current predominance of Bulgarian classics must remain intact. If they want to promote universalism foreign authors must also be included. The identity versus universalism debate is a serious one because it has the potential to strengthen the cultural divisions in modern Bulgarian society." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Bulgaria
All available articles from » Boiko Pentchev

Le Monde comments on the difficulties of implementing the "Grand Paris" construction project in France's capital: "'Grand Paris' is neither the least pertinent nor the least important construction project launched by Nicolas Sarkozy. Its ambitions were legitimate: giving Paris and its surroundings the means to compete with the world's capitals. Essentially there are no differences of opinion here. Everyone knows that Paris is ... suffocating within its limits. Everyone recognises that the long-acknowledged separation between Paris and its surrounding region with roughly 9 million inhabitants has prevented adequate solutions from being found for key problems like housing (insufficient), transportation (overburdened) and the crisis in the 'difficult' suburbs. ... But as soon as remedies are discussed, everyone starts seizing each other by the collar. ... One thing is certain: the result of decentralisation is that the state has neither the political means nor the financial resources to impose a 'solution' from above." (24/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Architecture / Cities, » France

The British reality TV star Jade Goody is making the headlines the world over because she wants to die on live TV in the Big Brother house. Celebrity news has broken the last taboo: death. Why do we feel so uncomfortable with this? asks Hilde van den Bulck, a lecturer in media culture, in the daily De Standaard: "Criticising attention-grabbing and money-seeking celebrities who are willing to shamelessly market their own death is no doubt the easiest thing to do. But they are just one of the parties in this moral story. … Not only the gossip magazines but also hardcore news media like newspapers have long since realised that celebrity news brings in the money, above all when it's about the private lives of celebrities. And what could be more private than illness and death? … After all, we ourselves are the increasingly greedy consumers of such news. The uneasiness we feel about these stories is our shame at our own boundless voyeurism." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Audiovisual Media, » United Kingdom, » Global
All available articles from » Hilde van den Bulck

The village of Marginea in Romania's Suceava district lost a bridge during the floods last summer that the government has still not reconstructed. After the residents of the village inhabitants built their own bridge the national road authorities brought charges against this private initiative. Romania Libera newspaper comments: "The inhabitants of Marginea and also their children are learning that taking the initiative is a punishable offence; that you have to wait until a district official takes pity on you and perhaps pay a bribe for a bridge to be built. … The judges must dismiss the court inquiry otherwise it will set the precedent that the Romanian state punishes private initiatives that serve public interests while it is incapable of sanctioning those who abuse public interests to fill their own pockets." (25/02/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Romania
All available articles from » Cristian Ghinea