The sacking of US General Stanley McChrystal following his derogatory comments about the US political leadership is an expression of an unclear Afghanistan strategy, writes the conservative daily Berlingske Tidende: "It is, to put it mildly, worrying that the upper rank of leadership in the US is so divided about the future strategy in Afghanistan that an open war broke out between the White House in Washington and the now former superior commander of the troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. ... Without doubt Obama must - after dismissing the general - come up with a new strategic initiative to restore calm to the Afghanistan mission. While the general did behave badly, this is unfortunately also a sign that the entire Afghanistan strategy is problematic. ... If further countries withdraw because of this open dispute on what course to take, a defeat could be the result." (24/06/2010)

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The dismissal of Afghanistan commander Stanley McChrystal was a necessary step but will have a negative impact, the liberal daily El Periódico de Catalunya fears: "Obama was forced to make this call for unity in the battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but the erosion caused by this move will have many repercussions, none of them good. It affects the president, now forced to make do without a person he himself had nominated and who failed to respond to the trust placed in him. It affects the US forces, who have watched one of their most brilliant strategists committing a grave error. And it affects the strategy developed for the area, because divisions and discrepancies always play directly into the hands of the enemy one is trying to combat." (24/06/2010)

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

US President Barack Obama was wrong to dismiss General Stanley McChrystal, the liberal daily Mladá fronta Dnes criticises: "This means the man who led the war in Afghanistan with a new vision full of hope now leaves the scene. He was able to dodge bullets and kill the enemy on the field without blinking. He listened to his subordinates and learned from what he heard. But above all he conceived a strategy based on the defence of the major cities and which is seen as the only possibility of winning the allies' war in Afghanistan, which has gone on for eight years now. ... McChrystal said nothing that could convey the impression that he doubts Obama's personal will to win the conflict. His statements were simply an expression of his frustration at the policies in Washington." (24/06/2010)

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All available articles from » Teodor Marjanovič

Despite everything US President Barack Obama was right to dismiss General Stanley McChrystal, the Financial Times believes: "Mr Obama would have been criticised whatever he did. The scandal is a bitter blow for his administration, whose Afghan strategy is called into question before it is fully in place and six vital months ahead of the review planned for December. Before he would have wished, and sooner than perhaps makes sense, Mr Obama must assess a policy that is faltering, with rising casualties, slow progress on the ground, widening rifts with the political leadership in Kabul, defections among allies, and a sense that the wheels are coming off the whole project. Gen McChrystal's insubordination was the last thing that Mr Obama needed. Unfortunately, it is by no means the worst of his difficulties in Afghanistan." (24/06/2010)

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

The liberal conservative politician Iveta Radičová who on Wednesday was officially charged with forming a government in Slovakia has presented the first points of a programme agreed on by the future conservative coalition. The liberal daily Sme criticizes the new coalition for being too vague about its policy towards the Hungarian minority. "Its vagueness is often at the level of similar statements by the Fico government [voted out of office]: preserving the identity of nationalities, the development of education and culture, improving relations with Hungary on the basis of bilateral agreements and membership of the EU and Nato and so on. The formulation stating that the maximum that can be achieved is to return to the state of affairs before the Fico government took office is particularly inadequate. ... This ought to be the minimum. ... No progress is visible towards solving the principal problems which have existed for a long time. That is both strange and sad, and not only because one of the coalition partners [the Most-Híd party, which is working towards a reconciliation between Slovaks and Hungarians] focused on nothing else in its election programme." (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Minorities, » Elections, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Peter Morvay

At the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting in Agadir 88 countries rejected a proposal to relax the whaling ban. But whaling will go on and the excuses will continue to be outrageous, writes the left-liberal daily La Repubblica: "The scientific justifications that Japan has given for whaling are nothing but a thin excuse the Japanese diplomats cling to at international conferences. They conceal a sense of a lost identity that has been pulverised in the course of a hundred years of trying to copy the West. The irony of fate has led the country of the rising sun to cling desperately to a symbol that isn't even its own. ... In fact it was General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the US occupation troops in Japan, who started off the whalemeat mania at the end of World War II. The land of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab, which today is leading the crusade in defence of the whales, is the true origin of this grotesque deception." (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Environmental Policy, » U.S., » Japan
All available articles from » Federico Rampini

The Bulgarian parliament has reduced the statutory fines for illegal work and lack of protection at the workplace, in some cases lowering them to a tenth of what they were. The measure is aimed at ensuring that employers are not overburdened or forced into bankruptcy during the crisis. The parliament is giving free reign to unscrupulous employers, the daily Novinar writes critically: "Instead of raising the fines to prevent violations we are reducing them so that companies don't go bankrupt. Can't employers simply obey the laws? Why should we assume that violations will occur anyway? Now of all times it's important to boost industrial supervision, especially since complaints from employees have risen dramatically since last year. ... The government's logic is faulty. The reduced fines will neither be easy to collect nor will the violations lessen in number. On the contrary, they will completely dispel any misgivings employers have about disregarding their obligations." (23/06/2010)

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All available articles from » Miglena Slavova

Poet and translator Olli Sinivaraa recently praised the Finnish authors of a collection of essays on Michel Houellebecq for upholding values in an era devoid of them. One of the authors who came in for praise, Riku Korhonen, takes issue with this in the daily Helsingin Sanomat: "Perhaps by comparison with the other authors of the collection I have a handicap when it comes to values. My own values feel as if they were at the most half values, short-lived values, the values of an existential renegade. It is quite possible that the morning news will throw me into despair, around midday I will live in the true and the beautiful and at dusk I will sigh: All is vanity. ... And I don't understand what an artist is supposed to do with consistent values anyway. A work of art is not a logical chain of inferences that prove the assertion of existence. In my opinion an author writes in order to find out if on a particular day he is a serious and categorical pessimist or a carefree, light-hearted optimist. Artists are often people who have difficulty remaining true to their values. If I had serious and strict values I really wouldn't be writing. I would have become a priest, a soldier or a marathon runner instead." (23/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Publishing houses, » Media policy, » Weltanschauung, » Finland, » Global

The growing unease about globalisation is only natural and human, writes columnist and former social democratic politician Marcel van Dam in the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant: "The development of technology and the ensuing globalisation is bringing prosperity to many. But the domain of globalisation is intellectual and leaves feelings out of the equation. Economists and therefore also politicians try to convince us that the world is not just a market where we all compete with each other, but also a village where we must all feel at home. The house which once offered us security and solidarity has been torn down. But there are no cosmopolitans, only people who seek security to give their children a future, and who want to mean something to their own environment. Globalisation can be a promise. ... But at the same time we must offer people a physical, mental and social environment in which their evolutionary need for security and solidarity is fulfilled." (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Trade, » Consumers, » Global
All available articles from » Marcel van Dam

China will have overtaken the US economically within five years, the US bank Goldman Sachs predicts.In addition the stock exchange in Shanghai is expected to have reached the level of the US financial centres in nine years. Currently the EU is still ranked top in economic terms. If it doesn't want to fall behind it needs to make major investments in research and development now, the conservative daily Rzeczpospolita writes: "There is only one thing we can do to avoid falling too far behind Asia: invest in education so that Europe is the most important university centre worldwide. Our trumpcard should be research, development and service centres. In industry and in the financial sector we must rely on innovation. If we fail to do so we will find ourselves facing not only China's financial and economic dominance but its political dominance as well - and much more quickly than we think." (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Economic Policy, » Asia
All available articles from » Kuba Kurasz

The workforce at the Fiat plant in Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples has approved with 62 percent of the vote extensive changes to their employment contracts. The alternative would have been to close down the plant and transfer production to Poland. The liberal daily Corriere del Ticino talks of a historical change in relations between employers, trade unions and employees: "For the first time employees have turned against strict conditions in a bid to protect their jobs - and indirectly against those who didn't want the vote to take place [a number of trade union members]. ... As the daughter of a Marxist-Leninist culture the trade union had up to now followed the practice of dictating relations with employers, including strikes, above the heads of the employees because the latter were not in a position to recognise their own interests. But with the vote the employees have shown that they are very much aware of their own interests: by defending their jobs above supposed guarantees that ... in the end would have forced the employers to take radical decisions. ... This is not a defeat for the trade union but a victory for democracy." (24/06/2010)

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All available articles from » Piero Ostellino

The documentary film The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu had its world premiere at the Cannes film festival in May. Now the film, directed by Andrei Ujica, is showing in Romania and has earned a glowing review from the weekly Revista 22: "Ujica's film is in danger of not being appreciated in the West, for its context goes way beyond that of a small country in Eastern Europe. In this film we watch leading politicians being taken in by Nicolae Ceauşescu's clever diplomatic ploys, and we see how this farmer's son with only a few years of schooling managed to become an important international political actor. The demonstrative power games that he learned from Mao to Kim Il-sung are certainly in keeping with the esteem in which he was held by Jimmy Carter, Nixon or Charles de Gaulle. ... The film is just as useful for a Western audience as for Romanian viewers, because it probes totalitarianism with all its peculiarities."  (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Film, » History, » Remembrance culture, » France, » Europe, » Global, » Romania
All available articles from » Angelo Mitchievici

Austria's bishops have approved a code of conduct against sexual abuse, but what about the state, asks the conservative daily Die Presse: "Where is the Republic's advocate for the protection of victims, and those of the federal states, which also run some of the institutions being charged with abuse? And what about a state fund for the victims? Where is the compensation for cases outside the Catholic Church that were committed too long ago to be brought to justice? Federal and state politics is playing dead. Just a single so-called round table held by the government in Vienna with paltry results, is that it? It is pathetic how people look at the Catholic Church with scarcely concealed malice and pretend that sexual abuse is exclusively its problem. Have we already forgotten? More than 99 percent of cases of sexual abuse are committed not by priests, chaplains, prefects or members of religious orders but by fathers, neighbours, uncles..." (24/06/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Religion, » Austria
All available articles from » Dietmar Neuwirth

In a nationwide school test the southern German states did better than the north. City-states like Berlin and Hamburg, whose school students showed a particularly large number of deficiencies, should learn from this the conservative daily Die Welt believes: "In southern Germany people still recognize that to attain a good level of education may not cost blood but can certainly require sweat and tears. ... Bavaria's victory shows that the early selection of students for Gymnasium, Realschule or Hauptschule [more academic or more vocationally oriented schools] is in no way to the detriment of weaker students. Bavaria scored the best results for all three types of schools.Those who propagate having everyone learn together for longer are gaining ground not only in Hamburg and Berlin but also in many federal states (now also in North-Rhine Westphalia). Their arguments have to do not with achievement but with 'social justice'. Working-class children should have a better chance of getting their Abitur [university entrance qualification]. With this goal in mind the Abitur is being ever more downgraded. Because you can't force weaker students to achieve excellence, educational differences are being ironed out by reducing standards. This is a crying shame for children who are now being cheated out of their chances for the future." (24/06/2010)

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All available articles from » Dorothea Siems