The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung discusses the attitude of the G8 summit participants to Iran: "That the Kremlin, until now almost Iran's protector, now complains not only in diplomatic circles about Iran's obstinacy and refrains from watering down a sharply critical summit declaration is a clear signal to Tehran. Nevertheless Obama is running a high risk. ... Tehran has long been using resistance to the West over nuclear issues to close the ranks domestically. Obama may in addition be happy about having Medvedev's support, but without China there will be no decisive new sanctions. ... If the course of reconciliation misses its target, Obama will have to opt for a strict isolation policy at the very least. Iran will then unleash its destabilising powers not only in Lebanon, but in Iraq and the Palestinian Territories as well. If the world fails to stand up to Iran as one, Obama's entire Middle East policy runs the risk of failure." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Russia, » Europe, » U.S., » Global, » Iran
All available articles from » Paul-Anton Krüger

"Hardly anyone expected miracles from the G8 summit of the world's richest countries in the Italian city of L'Aquila, but the results are even poorer than expected," writes the daily Helsingin Sanomat. "That's a pity, because the global economic crisis demands concrete solutions if we're to finally start moving ahead. The G8 group of rich industrial nations is starting to become an outdated model because it lacks the group of emerging economies like China, India and Brazil as members. Their representatives were there but the Chinese leader Hu Jintao left the meeting early owing to the unrest in his country. … The industrial states failed in their attempt to involve the growing economies of India and China in the emissions agreements. The latter want guarantees that the rich will make genuine efforts. It's not just up to the rich industrial nations to combat climate change. Everyone must be involved." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Environmental Policy, » Global

The daily La Repubblica assesses the G8 summit with an eye to the role of the five emerging nations participating, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. "The world view of the emerging countries is far removed from our own. They have other priorities, and phenomenal ... economic and political clout. ... The coalition of outsiders at the G8 summit are no longer on 'the periphery'. On the contrary, China and India potentially represent the locomotive of global economic growth. They are the only giants that have managed to disengage themselves from the cycle of recession. But enlarging the representative body of the world's leading politicians with these new members runs the risk of crippling the summit, so large is the gap in interests. ... The demise of the old world order is a fact. But what is emerging as the post-G8 world order is a far more complex, if not necessarily more stable world." (10/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Federico Rampini

The G8 summit is a disappointment, writes Matthias Matthijs, professor of politics and economics at Washington's John Hopkins University, in the daily De Standaard: "Even if we acknowledge that the G8 has diminished in importance it's worrying to watch the G8 leaders push the true cause of the financial crisis aside for the sake of 'quick fixes'. They can't do much, but they can do more than they are doing now. … The problem is that the money is flowing from poor to rich and not the other way round. The Chinese are subsidising the Americans' almost inexorable need to consume. … Given these [growing global macro-economic imbalances] the G8 - expanded to the G10 by adding China and India - can play an important role by constructing a system that automatically corrects imbalances when they get out of control - just as the EU Commission does with budgetary deficits in Europe." (10/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Matthias Matthijs

In the opinion of the left-liberal daily Der Standard the G8 summit has achieved some minimal progress: "It definitely wasn't the recognition-craving host of the summit Silvio Berlusconi but Barack Obama who got things moving. He injected a lot of political and diplomatic capital which the US had lacked for a long time into the process, facilitated compromises and brought to Italy some of the change he preached during his lengthy US election campaign. It will also require the US president's full commitment in the future to ensure that the upcoming summit meeting is a success. For even minimal progress there would be a great achievement." (10/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Christoph Pranter

In mid-June EU foreign ministers confirmed their intention to lift visa requirements for the citizens of several Balkan states. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that for Serbia this would only be possible following indirect recognition of Kosovo's independence: "In the states of the Balkans a generation has grown up that only knows Europe by hearsay. For them the introduction of freedom of travel would mean that 'Europe' could finally emerge from the fog of a faraway and rather implausible promise. It would also be a great success for the reform politicians of the states that were born of Yugoslavia's collapse. … Particularly in the case of Serbia, however, an awkward question must be resolved before this can happen: If the citizens of Serbia are to be allowed to travel freely to EU states will this also apply for Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs? According to Serbia's official version Kosovo is still part of Serbia under international law." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » EU Policy, » Europe, » Serbia, » Kosovo
All available articles from » Michael Martens

After the recent success of the Romanian and Hungarian far right parties in the European elections the left-liberal weekly 168 óra compares the two: "What do the Romanian and Hungarian right-wing extremists have in common? Probably the way they exploit the media. Both in Romania and in Hungary the two parties are constantly in the public limelight. … What is the difference between the Hungarian and Romanian right-wing extremists? Strangely enough, the politics of the far right in Romania is based to a much lesser extent on racism and the fanning of ethnic tensions than that of the far right in Hungary. True, [in Romania] anti-Semitic, anti-Roma and anti-Hungarian statements are inevitably made again and again. But they are arbitrary in the sense that they are not an integral part of the policies of the Romanian far right. The success of Romania's right-wing radicals in the European elections was due to the fact that they put social tensions and fears on the agenda." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Weltanschauung, » Hungary, » Romania
All available articles from » Boróka Parászka

The smooth reelection of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as president of Indonesia shows that the archipelago is on the way to democracy, comments the daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Nevertheless problems do remain, the paper writes: "Things are moving slowly with many aspects of the direly needed infrastructural improvements ... labour market regulation and financing for the armed forces. The government has still failed to deal adequately with poverty, unemployment and health care. But more important for many voters were the direct payments to the poor and needy reintroduced by Yudhuyono, as well as his success in fighting corruption. At least formally, Indonesia has established itself as a democracy with a large Islamic population. But the essence of democracy, peaceful political debate, open discussion and the free expression of opinion and counter-opinion, still has to be worked out in the country." (09/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Beat Wieser

Reflecting on the death of Michael Jackson, Sándor Németh looks in the weekly paper Hetek at the phenomenon of idolatry: "Apart from its religious forms, secular versions of idolatry are also offered by today's global culture. One could even say that profane idols now exert more influence on people than religious systems do. While idolatry in religions is based on a false image of God in material objects, in secular idolatry this very false representation of humans (in most cases as some sort of 'superman') is decisive. Masses love idols, they can enthuse over them and identify with them. They often subordinate themselves to them, admire them, follow them and imitate their actions. ... So it's hardly surprising that even in times of serious nervous and psychological crises, Michael Jackson clung to the illusory world he had built up for himself and his fans, behind which he could hide his real personality. He fled to this world to escape from the pains and conflicts of reality." (10/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Sándor Németh

The Slovak capital of Bratislava has shot up to the top of the list of the most expensive cities, ranking high above Prague, and even Berlin and Brussels. The conservative Czech daily Lidové Noviny comments: "From the point of view of the people in Bratislava who have to pay the prices, this is a road to hell. … And worse still, this week there were reports that the Slovak economy shrunk by almost 12 percent in the last quarter. That's more than in the Baltics, where there's talk of disaster and national bankruptcy. … The main reason for all this: Slovakia now has the euro, and as we now see, a euro that is far too expensive. While the devaluation of the Polish Złoty, the Hungarian forint and the Czech koruna gave the car industry on which these countries depend just as much as Slovakia does a breather, Slovakia is increasingly buckling under the weight of a high euro exchange rate." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Trade, » Consumers, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Luboš Palata

Internet giant Google - the market leader in the search engine sector - plans to launch its new computer operating system Chrome OS on the market next year. The liberal business paper Cinco Días sees this as more than just a product aimed at competing with Microsoft's market-dominant Windows operating system: "Google's move to penetrate the operating system business with its Chrome OS is more than just a challenge to Microsoft. It's about redefining the concept. Chrome OS is conceived to operate on the Internet. It transfers the computer's intelligence to the Internet. This means that Google is taking the path described by some as web centrism, where it no longer makes sense to have complex systems running on the user's computer." (10/07/2009)

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Summer in Denmark is traditionally marked by big music festivals, from rock in Roskilde to jazz in Copenhagen. However, as musician Tine Bacher states in the daily Information, only a meagre 5 percent of all performers are women: "This year the [jazz festival] poster bears the words 'Jazz has not yet been born', and the woman it shows is supposed to symbolise this birth. But what the poster doesn't show is that in fact men gave birth to jazz. ... Like all other cultural productions, music festivals are not neutral platforms. That's why the big ones like the Roskilde Festival and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival would do well to heed criticism of the extreme gender gap and actively start discussing how to get more women musicians performing on Danish stages. Anything else would be a disgrace, for music and for culture." (10/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Tine Bacher

The daily Dnevnik reviews Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film "Brüno", commenting: "Most sketches in this film are based on homosexual provocations in the style of a 'mockumentary'. With his at times extremely vulgar and idiotic jokes and shows, Cohen is in fact harassing real people, most of whom are unpleasantly affected and genuinely surprised. But the problem with his homosexual provocations is that some are so exaggerated that it's hard to write them off as a satire on US prejudices against homosexuals. For that reason Cohen's most successful scenes are those in which he uses drastic 'humanitarian' actions to lampoon peace missions in the Middle East and Africa, and in which he also deals with 'a real problem'." (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Film, » United Kingdom, » Slovenia, » U.S.
All available articles from » Zdenko Vrdlovec

According to a new study one in nine Dutch women have been raped at some point in their lives. The liberal daily NRC Handelsblad finds this appalling: "The most shocking thing is that these figures are hardly new. They were already frighteningly high, and they still are. So the question is: Why is Dutch society incapable of fighting violence against (mostly) women, men and children? … What can the authorities do? That they have a role to play, without penetrating the bedroom, is obvious. For example rape or sexual violence in marriage wasn't even a punishable offence until 1991 in the Netherlands. The law had to be changed. Punishing the perpetrators and helping the victims are obvious tasks. But a problem here is that the great majority of victims don't bring charges. Naturally, prevention must be given top priority. There has been no lack of initiatives in this area in recent years, but the question remains: Where are the results?" (10/07/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Netherlands

According to statistics of the US web service istrategylabs, the number of people aged over 55 using social networks like Facebook is booming: The Internet portal Marianne 2 writes that as the site becomes more democratic however, certain user groups are deserting it: "Still the domain of geeks just a few months ago, Facebooks is now a has-been. The elderly have appropriated it.The 35-54 age bracket has now supplanted those under 35, and in the last six months the number of users over 55 has skyrocketed by 513%! A veritable exodus, which can be explained by the saturation of the system and competition from other social networks like Twitter. ... Even more worrying: some commentators are observing a 'social migration' in the universe of social networks: white people, the educated and the wealthy are jumping ship as the site gets more democratic. ... Facebook, a simple mirror of society?" (08/07/2009)

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All available articles from » Régis Soubrouillard