The likely withdrawal of Dutch troops from Afghanistan is a blow for Nato's new Afghanistan strategy, writes the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant: "Nato already has to make a huge effort to get together a large number of soldiers. With the de facto rejection of the petition from Brussels [Nato headquarters] ... the Netherlands is moving in the opposite direction. This certainly won't encourage other member states [to provide more troops]. ... The tragic incident in the Uruzgan border area, in which Nato planes bombarded civilians they mistook for Taliban fighters, underlines once more the precarious nature of the military operations in Afghanistan. After a similar incident in Kunduz five months ago the last thing the allies need is another such mistake. In combination with the Netherlands' withdrawal this will strengthen the feeling in the United States that Obama's government does not have the Afghanistan dossier adequately under control." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Netherlands, » U.S., » Afghanistan

The Netherlands could be the first Nato country to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. Bad timing, writes The Guardian, because in addition to helping the Taliban the withdrawal will interrupt the good work being done by the Dutch: "The Dutch withdrawal comes at a delicate time in the implementation of the strategy of the international commander General Stanley McChrystal. ... In Uruzgan, the Dutch have a good reputation, perhaps the best of all the international allies ... . But in Tirin Kot, the Uruzgan capital, the Dutch run the provincial support and reconstruction team (PRT), which has a record on education outreach and schools, and training in sanitation and health second to none. ... To walk away raises, for many Dutch, the shadow of another retreat and failure - that at Srebrenica in Bosnia in July 1995." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Netherlands, » Afghanistan
All available articles from » Robert Fox

The time has come to reevaluate the West's strategy in Afghanistan, writes the daily Delo with an eye to the possible withdrawal of Dutch troops from the Hindu Kush: "The collapse of the Dutch coalition has done Europe a big favour. Because it's hard to shake the feeling that European politicians simply can't understand what kind of a mess they've got themselves into together with the US. They're involved in a bloody war and spend their whole time talking about peace. ... It's plain to see that the US's policy in Afghanistan is a complete washout. Mikhail Gorbachev, who withdrew the battered and humiliated Red Army from Afghanistan in 1989, also came out and said the same thing recently. ... By no means should the West send more soldiers to Afghanistan. With such an erroneous policy defeat would be inevitable." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Europe, » U.S., » Afghanistan
All available articles from » Branko Soban

Once again civilians have been hit by Nato bombs in Afghanistan. The daily Diario Sur sees this as a dangerous situation: "The death of 27 civilians in Uruzgan [province] as the result of a Nato air strike is bad news at a most delicate time in the Afghan conflict. This error is not the first to be committed by the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force], which has mistaken civilians for insurgents on other occasions, partly because of the rebels' use of human shields. Whatever the case actions like this damage the already fragile trust of the Afghans in the foreign forces stationed in their territory. The episode also comes at the beginning of an offensive that will decide the fate of this war. ... There are good reasons for the countries of the West to take part in this just cause, but they need to be well explained and it goes without saying that the civil population must be respected to the maximum." (23/02/2010)

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

The British oil company Desire Petroleum began drilling for oil in the waters off the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, on Monday. The Argentinian government considers this illegal. After the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 this could now prompt another conflict, writes the daily Corriere del Ticino: "It is true that the loss of popularity which both Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are suffering ahead of elections has made new waves of nationalism possible. But they would be too weak to start a war were it not for the addition ... of a classical component: the highly desirable energy source. For the seabed surrounding the island is said to contain around 60 billion barrels of crude oil. ... Even if no one can yet say that Port Stanley, the capital of the Falklands, will one day be the Dubai of the southern Atlantic ... both sides are defending with increasing fierceness their conflicting positions regarding the unresolved problem of state sovereignty over the islands." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Energy, » United Kingdom, » Argentina
All available articles from » Gerardo Morina

The EU Commission will meet on Wednesday in Brussels to discuss EU accession for Iceland. The Blog Der Nachbar argues that only two things could throw a wrench in the works: "The first is the angry Dutch and British who insist on getting back the 3.8 billion euros they lost when Landsbanki's online subsidiary Icesave collapsed. The problem is that the Icelanders see no reason why they should pay back the money, seeing as it wasn't them but a few bankers who incurred the losses. The second problem is more enduring. ... The Icelanders have a 200-nautical-mile fishing zone in the Atlantic totalling 760,000 square kilometres. ... According to EU law this would become part of the EU's territorial waters. ... The Norwegians stopped two fully-negotiated membership processes with referendums in 1972 and 1994. Here, too, fishing rights played a decisive role." (22/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » EU Policy, » Norway, » Europe, » Iceland

The Treaty of Lisbon has been in effect since December 1, 2009. Although it was meant to form the basis for discussion on new membership, no one today is talking about EU enlargement any more, writes the daily Postimees. "In fact the appeal of EU enlargement began to wane even earlier. In Western Europe the topic was already out of vogue in 2005. That was also one of the reasons behind the failure of the EU Constitution in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The EU's ensuing internal crisis didn't make matters any better, so that since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria people are really only talking about Croatia as a possible member. True, Iceland was also put on the list last year, but it's in an entirely different league. Meanwhile Turkey and the other candidates in the Balkans have been forgotten entirely, and that's not about to change in the decade to come." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » EU Policy, » EU Constitution, » Europe, » Croatia, » Iceland
All available articles from » Ahto Lobjakas

On Wednesday a general strike is planned in Greece, and also in other European countries the "dangerous working class" is once again rising in opposition, writes Roussos Vranas in the left-liberal daily Ta Nea: "A sociological phenomenon is slowly but surely making its mark: the return of the 'dangerous class'. This is the same class that scared the powerful at the beginning of the twentieth century, forcing them to grant it privileges and rights in exchange for social peace. Once the privileged had settled down and made themselves comfortable again, no longer fearing the poor and secure in the knowledge that the modern times belonged to them, they forgot that the less privileged could become dangerous again. ... Now that the victims of the economic crisis have reached the limits of the bearable, the less privileged are refusing to remain silent and are announcing their mobilisation. The dangerous class is making a comeback to reaffirm itself. It is reborn from the ashes. The lamb is turning into a lion to escape the slaughterhouse." (22/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Social movements, » Corporations, » Greece, » Europe, » Global
All available articles from » Roussos Vranas

Russian energy giant Gazprom has officially invited Romania to participate in the Russian-Italian South Stream natural gas pipeline. Writing in the Voxpublica blog, Laura Cernahoschi analyses why Gazprom is giving preference to Romania over Bulgaria, which up to now had been a top candidate: "The new [Bulgarian] government wants to renegotiate the conditions of the contract. And above all it wants a higher price for transiting the gas. ... There are two routes South Stream can take. Either through Ukraine and Romania towards the EU states or via Turkey and Bulgaria. If South Stream runs through Romania Bulgaria will be left out of the picture. I don't know whether there have already been talks between ... the Romanian and Bulgarian government on participation in South Stream. If not they should begin between the two EU member states, which belong to the same political family, so that Romania's participation in the project can't be used as a means of blackmail." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Domestic Policy, » Energy, » Economic Policy, » Italy, » Russia, » Europe, » Turkey, » Romania, » Bulgaria
All available articles from » Laura Cernahoschi

Austria plans to introduce a bank tax and put the 500 million euros in revenues toward balancing the budget. But the tax must not be used as a reason to put off necessary reforms, warns the daily Die Presse: "The bank tax puts a new fissure in the dam against additional expenditures, and we must be careful it doesn't break. Because of course those in power much prefer to turn various tax screws than to cut costs if it means taking on key people in the provinces or the public servants' unions. But that is exactly what we need right now. Because if this crisis isn't used to introduce the state reforms that are continually being postponed, the government can start drafting the bankruptcy petition any time it wants." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Austria
All available articles from » Josef Urschitz

The dispute over bullfighting has once again flared up in Portugal. The ministry of culture has set up a bullfighting department in the National Culture Council, despite the fact that bullfights - or at least those involving the death of the animal - have been banned since 2002. The daily Jornal de Notícias criticises the decision: "This is all we needed: a minister of culture that sees the suffering and death of animals as part of our culture. Take note of her name, for it will go down in the annals of 21st century Portuguese culture: Gabriela Canavilhas. This is the name at the foot of this disgraceful resolution ... . No one should be surprised if a department for cockfighting, or even one for female circumcision, is set up next. These are two more respect-worthy cultural traditions that deserve to be honoured."   (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Cultural Policy, » Portugal
All available articles from » Manuel António Pina

The Vatican has yet to offer a public apology to the victims of abuse at the hands of its priests and bishops. The daily The Irish Times is critical: "We have bishops refusing to resign on the basis that no one has asked them to. But, much, much worse, we had decent believing Catholics in despair and disgust about how the Church behaved towards them. To hear the clerical abuse survivor Michael O'Brien on the radio during the week was to realise what a sincere apology could still have accomplished. ... Sorry, but we are going to have to find other ways to recover." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Weltanschauung, » Ireland, » Global
All available articles from » Ann Marie Hourihane

Politicians in Prague are presumed to have taken bribes over the sale of Austrian tanks to the Czech army. The scandal was revealed by the daily Mladá fronta Dnes, while other papers hardly gave it a mention. Luboš Palata rouses his fellow journalists in his blog for the conservative daily Lidové Noviny: "It's wake-up time! While the colleagues of the Mladá fronta Dnes are doing fantastic journalism, we sit back as if the whole thing had nothing to do with us. ... There is far more at stake here: our journalistic profession, which in recent years has been very weak indeed. We must rekindle our readers' faith that we do more with our profession than earn our daily bread. Many people have lost all confidence in our free democratic system. Who, other than we journalists, whose work depends more on freedom and democracy than almost any other profession, could try to change that. So let's get to work! Let's ask questions and put pressure on the police, let's forge alliances in Austria and the EU and with our colleagues abroad. For our enemies are powerful." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Audiovisual Media, » Print media, » Online media, » Press freedom, » Czech Republic
All available articles from » Luboš Palata

The achievements of the three Swedish ski heroes Marcus Hellner, Johan Olsson and Anders Södergren in Vancouver prompt Swedish tabloid Expressen to write on Swedish society's recipe for success: "There are naturally limits to the extent to which you can compare politics with skiing and the national ski team with a nation, but solidarity and individualism or 'justice' and 'freedom' are factors that are still pitted against each other in politics. ... With these prerequisites, solidarity and room for individual virtuosity, the world is created such that it can stir something within people. And the political parties that can conceive of the existence of this world ... - these parties have good chances of gaining if not the love then at least the recognition of the people." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Sweden

The Finnish Olympic team travelled to Vancouver bent on winning twelve medals. But after eleven days of Games Finland can only boast a single silver medal. In the blog of the daily Turun Sanomat former chief editor Aimo Massinen does a cost-benefit analysis of the Finnish contingent: "The Finnish Olympic team consists of almost one hundred athletes and a couple of dozen managers. It is our second-largest contingent in the history of the Olympics. ... The president of the republic and several ministers have all travelled to Vancouver to cheer on our athletes, and the media are there in good numbers as well. At least some angry taxpayers are asking whether the whole circus is worth it." (23/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Sport, » Finland