The conservatives at the major demonstration in Washington are under an illusion, writes the daily Público: "The disinherited have come together to dream of a return to the past: a dangerous illusion. This was the same place where Martin Luther King announced 47 years ago that he had a dream for the future. ... Back then he called on God to build an America of all races. Yesterday God was asked to restore a white, imperialist America which no longer exists. What was said yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial is worrying for the future of the US. It shows how the crisis has reinforced an identity-seeking and fundamentalist populism that challenges even the traditions of the Republicans. But the world of which they dream won't return. ... This is what makes the illusion that feeds the Tea Party movement so dangerous." (29/08/2010)

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The protests of the US Tea Party movement could lead to the return of protectionism and sealing off the country from the outside world, writes the business paper Il Sole 24 Ore: "With the Tea Party phenomenon ... the US Conservatives are taking on new, liberalist guerrilla dimensions. The phenomenon affects everyone, starting with Barack Obama. The president doesn't seem to have found the right approach or tone for uniting the country, boosting the economy and guaranteeing the citizens' social security. ... Obama is wedged in between Tea Party supporters who accuse him of having turned the US into a socialist country and the radical Left, which is beginning to ask itself whether the White House has sold itself off to Wall Street. ... A belligerent troop of senators and congressmen sponsored by the Tea Parties threatens to drive America back in the direction of economic protectionism and isolationism in foreign policy." (29/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Christian Rocca

The negative mood against US President Barack Obama will not hold out on the long term, writes the left-liberal Sunday paper The Observer with an eye to the manoeuvrings of the Tea Partyists: "Midterm, the prognosis does not look at all good for Obama and his party. In the longer term, the outlook is more encouraging. The Tea Partyists are destroying moderate Republicans or forcing Republicans previously considered to be centrists - John McCain is the best known example - to move to the right in order to save their skins. The Republicans will ultimately suffer from being dragged further away from the centre. The economy will not stay this way forever. All bets are off in the event of a double-dip, but if a reasonable level of prosperity has returned by the time the next presidential election is held, Americans will be feeling better about themselves. That will put them in more of a mood to appreciate a generally impressive president whom the world regards as a credit to their country." (30/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Andrew Rawnsley

During a visit to Priština on Friday German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called on those EU states that have not yet done so to recognise the independence of Kosovo. Romania should stop hesitating and take the step, writes the daily Adevărul: "The reconstruction of Kosovo with European aid is one of the goals [of EU foreign policy]. Romania is represented in the Eulex [European Union Rule of Law] Mission with one police unit. What are we doing there if not helping to consolidate Kosovo's independence? ... Can Romania oppose such a Europe-wide policy? One positive step would be to have our say in the negotiations and use the opportunity presented by Germany to affirm our goals - for example those concerning the Repuplic of Moldova. ... This call by Germany is no accident, and is certainly just the first in a long line of pressure tactics." (30/08/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Separatism, » Germany, » Romania, » Kosovo
All available articles from » Ovidiu Nahoi

Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin will present his controversial book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany abolishes itself) today. According to Sarrazin Germany is being dumbed down due to the higher birth rate among the lower classes and generally poorly qualified Muslim migrants than among academics. An important contribution to the debate on immigration, writes Richard Wagner in the blog Achse des Guten: "At stake here is whether we want Germany to continue participating in the West and the European idea as an ally of the United States and Israel, or whether we adopt 'multicultural democracy' and cultural relativism and toss in the constitutional state in favour of an Anatolian basar subject to religious rules of thumb all of which contradict Christian theology. ... At stake here is whether we view freedom as central to our way of life, from the freedom of opinion to free enterprise, the equality of the sexes and the personal responsibility of citizens, or whether we resign ourselves to the 'culturally sensitive' transformation of our society and the de-Europeanisation of our country. With his statements the social democrat Sarrazin has turned society's attention to a topic which we can no longer ignore." (29/08/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Migration, » Integration, » Demographics, » Germany, » Turkey, » Middle East
All available articles from » Richard Wagner

Moscow's mayor Yury Luzhkov has called for Latvia to become a bilingual state during a visit to Riga. The daily Latvijas Avīze accuses him of interfering with the Latvian election campaign: "The message that fortifying the role of Russians in Latvia is a recipe for economic recovery came as no great surprise because even Latvian politicians have been known to say this every now and then. Naturally Luzhkov is neither Putin nor Medvedev, but he is one of the leading personalities of the Kremlin's United Russia party, and such high-ranking politicians tend not to make statements without having carefully weighed up the consequences. At this point we should recall that United Russia has signed a cooperation agreement with the party Harmony Centre party [of the Russian minority] which leads the opinion polls at present. This is the context in which we should assess Luzhkov's words." (30/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Aija Cālīte-Dulevska

Many personalities and organisations all over the world have protested against the planned stoning of Iranian Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani. In the left-liberal daily Libération, the singer and First Lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy joins the protest and encourages the accused: "Everything inside me refuses to accept this. The Iranian people count among the most ancient and most remarkable on the planet. I fail to understand how the heirs of such a grand civilisation forged by tolerance and worldly wisdom could today betray this thousand-year heritage. ... May your judges understand that whatever the epoch, whatever the location, they will never be able to wash their hands of such a crime. ... I pray that the judiciary of your country will show clemency to you and others who risk suffering the same torment. ... In the depths of your cell, please take heart that my husband will not stop pleading your cause and that France will never abandon you." (30/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Those who pray should not expect God to automatically grant their requests because he knows better what is good for us, writes Andrzej Macura in the religious magazine Gość Niedzielny: "'Whìch prayer helps when you can't find a husband?' 'Is there a special prayer to give us a boost in science?' 'If I attend mass on the first Friday of every month and then fail to do so once, must I start from the beginning again? [referring to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque's nine First Friday Devotions] Questions like this regularly turn up in the 'You ask us' column of Internet portal wiara.pl. We can be happy that prayer and religious practices play an important role in the lives of the questioners - unless it's just about bagatelles. Therefore it's difficult to avoid the impression that many treat prayers … like a conspiracy: If I just follow his commands precisely [God] will have no alternative but to listen to my prayers and answer them … But nothing happens automatically. … God doesn't always give us what we ask of him. He knows better what is good for us." (30/08/2010)

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All available articles from » Andrzej Macura

The 500 biggest US listed companies recorded 38 percent higher net profits between April and June this year than they did in the same period last year. Nonetheless unemployment remains high, the liberal business paper Handelsblatt comments, noting that this is slowing the recovery: "On the one hand there's Wall Street with its growing wallet and on the other Main Street, whose residents are often forced to compete against 100 others whenever there's a job vacancy, with the worst-off literally battling for survival living on state rent allowances, in shelters for the homeless and using food stamps. … So far all attempts (including those of the US government) to convince companies to take on employees again have failed. There are several reasons for this. A key one is that America's company profits are gushing mains in the information technology sector, as well as in the financial and pharmaceuticals sector - in other words those sectors which are not so labour-intensive. … The mass unemployment is having a boomerang effect on private consumption, which the world's largest economy depends on like no other nation." (30/08/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Corporations, » Consumers, » Financial Markets, » Labour, » U.S., » Global
All available articles from » Matthias Eberle

A growing number of people use their mobile phones to download data from the Internet. This is overloading the mobile phone networks, writes the liberal daily La Vanguardia, calling on companies to take action: "The boom in smart phones and other devices with Internet access will sooner or later necessitate a change in the status quo of the telecommunications sector. … The telephone providers will have to invest great sums in expanding the transmission capacity of the networks to improve their efficiency. If they don't, the risk of collapse is obvious, and it would lead to a genuine economic and social disaster. Mobile communication has become indispensable for people and companies."  (30/08/2010)

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The mass grave found near Jihlava in the Czech Republic containing the remains of Germans who were presumably killed by Czechs after World War II has sparked a lively debate in the country. The conservative daily Lidové noviny speaks of "one of the blackest times of the Czech history. Six years of occupation, persecution and violence created a desire for revenge among much of the population. ... Merely listing the locations where Germans are known to have been killed in 1945 could fill several news sheets. ... One cannot expect the investigation into the murders committed 65 years ago to lead to the condemnation of the perpetrators. The crimes have long been statute-barred and charges of genocide [not subject to a limitations period] would not hold up in court. However we can expect the truth and moral purification. It seems that at least those who have erected a cross on the location of the crime by Jihlava are already moving in that direction." (28/08/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » History, » Remembrance culture, » Germany, » Czech Republic
All available articles from » Petr Zídek

In Estonia the number of road casualties in 2009 fell significantly in comparison to previous years. But the daily Postimees warns that it is too early to start celebrating: "Of course this is good news. But how did it happen, and will it last? In the long term the technological state of Estonia's vehicles has improved. Modern cars are safer than older ones, and there are more checks. But the decline in the number of traffic accidents is a global trend and it is a consequence of the economic crisis. The number of people who died in traffic accidents from 2008 to 2009 went down by around 25 percent because when the economy is booming people drive more, and vice versa. Moreover, lack of money forces people to cut down on trips for pleasure, and this means there are considerably fewer cars on the roads and also fewer risky overtaking manoeuvres. But once the economy gets going again people use their cars more often and the risk increases." (30/08/2010)

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Racism and xenophobia is spreading in Greek society. This fear of immigrants leads the leftist daily Eleftherotypia to call on Greeks to try and see the situation from the immigrants' point of view: "We certainly can't attribute the fact that the vocabulary of the extreme right in the US or the fascists of South Africa's Apartheid has been adopted by [the Greeks] to their thirst for knowledge or internationalism. … Everything that seems inconvenient or points in a different direction provokes fear in us. And stupidity is a fundamental defence mechanism. … To understand others we must put ourselves in their position. What would we do if we had been born in Africa? The answer is easy. We would move away and sell everything we own to pay refugee smugglers to bring us to Europe. And the gate to Europe is as dangerous as war." (28/08/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Migration, » Minorities, » Greece
All available articles from » Periklis Korovesi