The daily Diário de Notícias writes that in view of the attacks on Wednesday in Baghdad both the US and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will have to change their strategies: "Exactly six years ago another attack led to the withdrawal of the UN from Iraq. Yesterday's attacks however won't prompt Washington to pull out its troops any earlier. … But the Pentagon will have to rethink its strategy. Yesterday's attacks sent at least two clear messages: that the government was the target and that the green [international] zone is not so secure after all. Moreover the [Iraqi] prime minister will have to revise his security policy again: Nouri al-Maliki was convinced he had won the battle against the extremists and therefore dismantled a number of security barriers in the capital. If they had still been standing they could have prevented the trucks with the explosives from approaching the ministries. But all this is part of a bigger picture: the attacks bear the signature of the Islamic Sunnis who have ties with al-Qaida." (20/08/2009)

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

Writing in the liberal daily La Stampa Barbara Spinelli criticises the US-led anti-terrorism campaign: "Although they were launched to promote light and democracy the anti-terror wars have brought darkness and fog and created that monster they promised to defeat: the failed state which serves as a breeding ground for terrorism. This is the message the authors of yesterday's attacks sent in Baghdad: your wars are like the dead who have risen from the ashes. 9/11 is your eternal present in Iraq, which you have abandoned, and in Afghanistan where you think you are still strong because the elections take place tomorrow under your protection. … One of the mistakes that have ruined the operation in Afghanistan is above all the US's inconsistency: the vain fickleness with which [former US president George W.] Bush staggered from one battleground to another - on 7 October 2001 to Afghanistan and on 20 March 2003 to Iraq - without in the end stabilising any of them." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Iraq, » Afghanistan
All available articles from » Barbara Spinelli

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes about the security situation in Iraq following Wednesday's wave of attacks: "The seven obviously coordinated attacks on the capital Baghdad which claimed dozens of victims have rudely dashed any hopes that the Iraqi security forces would be able to ensure peace and security on their own. The country has not really become any safer since the Americans withdrew from the cities to their bases. … Some Iraqis are apparently acting as if the Americans had left the country entirely, as if the occupation had ended. But this won't be the case until next August at the earliest, and the withdrawal won't be completed until 2012. But as Wednesday's bloodbath in Baghdad proves, by then the Iraqis will have had to fall back on the skills of the Americans more than many want to, whether they like it or not." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Global, » Middle East, » Iraq
All available articles from » Wolfgang Günter Lerch

The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill is to announce today, Thursday, whether the terminally ill Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is serving time for the Lockerbie attack, will be released early. The conservative daily The Times speaks out resolutely against his release: "For Colonel Gaddafi, the return of al-Megrahi will be seen as a triumph. From his decision, in 2003, to give up his weapons programme, the Libyan leader has sought to throw off pariah status ... . The return of Libya to the table of nations has some important benefits to Britain and the US. Libya has helped to curb the flow of illegal migrants to Europe; it has taken a strong stand against Islamist extremism; and it has opened up its energy industries to Western investment. And thereby hangs a problem. Any future deals will now carry the suspicion that the way was cleared by a deal over Lockerbie. ... The international agreement that stipulates al-Megrahi should serve his term in Scotland ought to stand." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Libya

On the day of the presidential elections in Afghanistan the daily Delo criticises the country's rampant corruption: "These elections, like those in Iraq, are already doomed to failure. Above all because of the West's open support for President Hamid Karzai, whose closest staff are warlords and opium dealers. Karzai has dominated practically the entire election campaign ... and the international community has turned two blind eyes to his violating of the electoral regulations. All in the name of freedom and honesty. The price for Karzai's incompetent government and the strategic, military and political mistakes of the international community is being paid by the civilian population, who already have known only one thing for the last three decades: war. Regardless of their outcome, today's elections are an assurance that their lives will remain more or less the same." (20/08/2009)

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

Following a number of domestic policy scandals Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has deprived his right-wing nationalist coalition partner, the Slovak National Party (SNS), of one of its three ministries. The left-wing daily Pravda heartily welcomes the move: "Fico may not have broken up the coalition with SNS leader Ján Slota ... but he has given him to understand that the party is incapable of holding high office without thieving going on. … Fico's surprise attack is the right approach. The ministers of the SNS were just comedy figures and their constantly being replaced didn't solve anything. The real minister was always Slota, an arrogant politician who has lined his own pockets in a way that should interest not only the media but also the chief public prosecutor. Fico deserves support in the fight against Slota, but not applause. He was told back in 2006 that the coalition with Slota and [former autocratic prime minister Vladimir] Mečiar was suicide." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Dag Daniš

The Internet may have changed the world but it hasn't necessarily contributed to democracy, writes Mark Deuze, a professor in Journalism from Leiden in the Netherlands, in the left-liberal daily Trouw: "Everyone is voicing their opinion or at least has the feeling that their own opinion counts at the moment, but no one has taken on the responsibility of actually doing something with all these different views. We get annoyed (online) about all the things that are wrong with society, but this involvement appears to go hand in hand with less and less action. Who takes to the streets (never mind going on the barricades) for the sake of his or her ideals nowadays? Who founds parties or organisations or joins them as an active member? Who actively tries to bring about change? To what extent is the democratising debate online the expression of offline activity? In sum, it looks like all the interactivity online is making us more mature as consumers but at the same time more harmless as citizens. As I see it the connection between increasing online debate and dwindling offline participation must be seen in the context of an exaggerated individualisation within society. We happily take part with everyone else in everything - from voluntary work to Facebook campaigns for good causes - but all this [involvement] is of a highly personal and thus voluntary character." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Online media, » Global
All available articles from » Mark Deuze

French economist and author Jacques Attali comments in the weekly magazine L'Express on the conspiracy theories currently circulating as explanations for the global financial and economic crisis: "Every time a major, enigmatic event happens people start looking not only for who's responsible but also, when they're the ones who suffer, for a culprit. And in general they're not content to find a motive, what they need is a conspiracy. The idea never loses its appeal: a conspiracy roots the inexplicable in a secret, cowardly, covert, global and coherent action organised far in advance by a tiny group that pulls the strings from behind the scenes. Hence all you have to do is get rid of the group to solve the problem. Today conspiracy theories are in vogue to explain the economic and financial crisis. ... In fact if there is a plot it's this one: in order to survive, every form of power, every pressure group, even - or perhaps especially - the most moribund, needs to give meaning to what they can't explain." (19/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Public Culture, » Global
All available articles from » Jacques Attali

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Pan-European picnic, a peace demonstration on the border between Austria and Hungary, Jan Mainka reflects in the weekly newspaper Hírszerző on the significance of this and other events for Hungary's international standing today: "Through courage, determination and sovereignty Hungary gained widespread international recognition twice in the second half of the twentieth century: in 1956 and 1989. ... Even those unfamiliar with Hungarian history will in all probability remember the images of young revolutionaries clutching their rifles and looking proudly into the camera. And the same is true of the photos of Hungarian border guards resolutely dismantling the border facilities of the Soviet empire in the spring of 1989. ... These undisputedly positive images have etched themselves for all time in Europe's collective memory. ... For Hungary they represent an inestimable treasure which will stand our country in good stead for a long time to come when people choose where to invest, lend money or spend their holiday." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » History, » EU neighbourhood policy, » Remembrance culture, » Hungary, » Europe
All available articles from » Jan Mainka

The major Swiss bank UBS and the US authorities yesterday (Wednesday) reached an out-of-court settlement in their tax dispute. The bank will pass on the names of more than 4,400 US customers to US authorities. The liberal Swiss daily Corriere del Ticino writes: "It's difficult to predict the consequences of the changes that Switzerland has accepted to avoid landing on the tax haven blacklist. However it's obvious that this is a turning point in the concept of banking secrecy. The case of the UBS and its adoption of OECD standards will demand a change in the company mentality and culture of all our banks. Banking secrecy can no longer serve as a cover for concealing tax evasion and fraud: It must first reaffirm its role as a guardian of the customer's private sphere." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Tax Policy, » Banks, » Switzerland
All available articles from » Moreno Bernasconi

The German government has passed a "National Development Plan for Electric Mobility" according to which one million electric cars should be driving on German roads by 2020. The conservative daily Die Welt comments: "It would be sheer negligence on the part of the German government to just sit back and watch as the US and China pump billions into similar programmes. Hefty investments in education, research and the infrastructure are called for - areas which businesses cannot fully develop on their own. But it's not enough to just sign a check and wave it before the cameras. Despite the ambitious goals we must not lose sight of the efficiency of the plan, nor of the mistakes recently made in the area of renewable energies. Extrapolating from there you could soon have millions of electric cars travelling on Germany's roads at public expense - equipped with batteries produced for the most part in China." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Environmental Policy, » Energy, » Consumers, » Science / Research, » Economic Policy, » Germany, » Global
All available articles from » Jörg Eigendorf

In Austria calls for a redistribution of work are growing louder. The number of those who do not have fixed working times is already growing anyway, the daily Die Presse writes: "A proscribed reduction in working hours is … not desirable because the amount of work that needs to be done varies anyway. There are two ways of handling this: either the same people work sometimes more and sometimes less or you have a two-tier society: on the one hand the privileged who have strictly regular working times and who can, figuratively speaking, drop their pens at 5 p.m. And then those who work on call as temporary workers, freelancers or on a contract basis to cover for the peaks in work. Even the best working time laws won't help them because they often don't apply to this group. It would be fairer for as many people as possible to do overtime every now and then." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Economic Policy, » Austria
All available articles from » Beate Lammer

In a public competition, the municipal museum of the Polish city of Wrocław has awarded a prize to a six-year-old who made a small statue of King Frederick II of Prussia. The national Catholic newspaper Nasz Dziennik is not at all amused: "Historians never stop telling us that competitions such as this are meant to broaden people's knowledge. In this case however the truth is being blurred and played down. The museum's representatives don't see any problem in stressing that there are no clear-cut figures in history. The Lower Silesian board of trustees [the regional education authorities], however, have pointed out that teachers should make clear to pupils what a negative role this Prussian king played in the history of Poland." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » History, » Remembrance culture, » Poland
All available articles from » Zenon Baranowski

Now that the summer holidays have ended school has begun in Finland with the traditional declaration of school peace in which pupils and teachers pledge to oppose violence in schools. The daily Lapin Kansa takes the opportunity to address the problem of bullying. "The objective of the declaration is to guarantee a peaceful and safe learning environment for all children. Unfortunately the theory is not always followed in practice. Only recently have people started to speak openly about bullying in schools. Many people who are now adults have told publicly of the painful experiences they had at school. People who were bullied as children continue to suffer as adults. Bad memories are not forgotten so quickly. The declaration of school peace must be more than just a ceremony. ... This matter must be discussed openly, both in schools and at home." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Finland

Suggestions in an article published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians and extracted their organs have triggered a storm of indignant protest in Israel. The daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet voices concern about press freedom: "Freedom of opinion and the press are an integral part of democracy - as is diversity. Aftonbladet should be ashamed of itself, but that does not hold for all of Sweden's press. The comment made by the Swedish ambassador to Tel Aviv, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, seems even more odd. 'The article in Aftonbladet is as shocking and repulsive to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens', she wrote on the embassy's homepage. … But since when has it been the task of the government to speak in the name of all Swedes via an ambassador and to criticise an article published by the independent press? We must have the courage to believe in press freedom and open debate. Even when some editors make foolish decisions that are in bad taste." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Print media, » Press freedom, » Sweden, » Israel
All available articles from » Henrik Bredberg