The West's plan to put considerable sums into an opt-out programme for rebel Taliban fighters is sending the wrong signal, writes the daily Trouw: "True Taliban leaders have never responded to Karzai's invitations because, violent fundamentalists that they are, they haven't been the least bit interested. This paper's Afghanistan blogger Haroon Parvani once put it this way: 'Talk with the Taliban? Then they're not the Taliban any more.' Nevertheless the door must remain open for young Afghans who've had enough of working with the Taliban. For them various reintegration programmes already exist. But the international community would do well not to put large sums into an opt-out programme for Taliban fighters. That would also be sending the wrong signal to the tens of thousands of Afghans who have been risking their lives in the police force, army, administration and education system in the interests of a stable, peaceful society." (29/01/2010)

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Further concessions must follow on the Nato-financed opt-out programme for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, writes the daily Dzienik Gazeta Prawna: "Until now the West has financed the war and the aid programmes. But that is a dead end, and can only result in defeat. The conference in London is finally asking the decisive question: 'How can we persuade the Taliban to stop fighting us?' The Nato states and the Afghan government have resolved to buy them out. But that alone is insufficient, because more political concessions are needed. For this process to be believable the Taliban must be allowed to run in parliamentary elections, the office of governor (now filled by President Hamid Karzai) must be revamped, a government of reconciliation with the participation of the rebels must be formed and there must be a partial withdrawal of Western troops." (29/01/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Europe, » North America, » Afghanistan
All available articles from » Andrzej Talaga

The international community is following the wrong strategy in Afghanistan if it thinks it can convert the radical Islamist Taliban movement with financial aid, writes the daily Delo: "The London conference ... appears to be right in holding that Afghanistan will only have a stable future when the Afghans themselves have a hand in forming it. But the way to stability and peace in Afghanistan chosen by the international community is competely wrong. The Taliban's influence is growing from day to day, and they have always stressed that cooperation with the Kabul government will only be possible once all foreign troops have left the country. Hence it is illusory, even perilous, to expect that the Taliban will accept such an offer from the 'arrogant foreigners'. The rebels are fighters, not prostitutes, and the price of freedom, stability and peace in Afghanistan has never been given in euros or dollars, but in the number of victims, most of whom are civilians." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Bostjan Videmsek

Following the London conference on Afghanistan there is as yet little evidence of the announced change in the Afghanistan strategy, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: "In actual fact even the Americans and British never believed peace could be brought to Afghanistan through military means alone. ... The 'change in strategy' is far less momentous than above all the [German] government would have us believe. The West has always pursued a double strategy in Afghanistan, albeit with a shifting focus dictated by the circumstances. The Americans, however, didn't wait for another Afghanistan conference to learn from their mistakes, as their changed guidelines for engagement showed last year. But the Europeans are fond of their conferences. ... London was supposed to send the message to war-weary nations that everyone, including the Afghans, must redouble their efforts to bring this whole business to an end." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Berthold Kohler

US President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech is greeted with only modest applause from the daily Berlingske Tidende: "It would be wrong to say that Obama is a total disappointment. He's not. He has enacted a series of security policy decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan that were necessary and he has created a considerably broader basis for international understanding of US policy both in Europe and in the Middle East. And he has begun the fight for economic recovery, even if it will take a long time. But for many Americans Obama is still an unknown quantity. Therefore he must display a much stronger leadership than he has done so far, also as regards domestic policy. Otherwise the next elections could turn out to be a defeat for him." (29/01/2010)

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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced he will not run for the office of president in October. This means his party, the Civic Platform, cannot win the elections, writes the daily Lidové Noviny: "If Tusk had a twin brother like [President] Lech Kaczyński's twin and former prime minister Jarosław, he would run for the office at the drop of a hat. And in all probability he would have won triumphantly. But Tusk has no twin. In addition he's only half-way through his term as prime minister and doesn't want to leave his job half-done. ... Nevertheless his unexpected decision complicates things considerably. For one thing it substantially improves Kaczyński's chances of winning another mandate. ... One big problem will certainly be the search for another Civic Platform candidate. A defeat of the Civic Platform, which dominates opinion polls with 40 percent of voter support, would deal a hard blow to the party's confidence. But who apart from Tusk could win the election for the Civic Platform? No one." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Luboš Palata

A majority of members in the EU Parliament are coming out against the Swift Agreement allowing US authorities access to data on European bank customers. The daily Die Presse is glad that a political countermovement to hyper-surveillance is finally forming: "We must not let the very genuine fear of terror attacks destroy such basic liberal rights as data protection. The argument 'if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear' is just a metaphor for widespread naiveté that is being encouraged in the name of ever-increasing surveillance. By the same logic we could allow priests to breach the confessional secret and absolve doctors of their oath to privacy. Then we shoudn't be surprised when the police and insurance companies start setting up reliability profiles on us or when our coloscopies are published on YouTube." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Wolfgang Böhm

A group of Catalan members of parliament is drawing up a plan for Spain as a "federal state" which also foresees the possibility of certain parts of the country seceding. Professor of law Mariano Bacigalupo points to a confusion of terms here in the Spanish daily El País: "I ask myself why some people insist on demanding a federal state (which we basically already have) when what they really want is a confederation. Do they perhaps believe that simply by giving the proposals a sweeter-sounding name - the euphemistic use of the label 'federal' - they will be able to reach those who really do have a federal vision of the state of autonomous regions (in particular the Spanish Socialists) and convince them of what they want, which is nothing more and nothing less than its transformation into a purely confederate structure? Let's stop here. By all means let us discuss openly and respectfully all the different options without dismissing any of them, but let's start by calling things by their real name." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Mariano Bacigalupo

The former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin has been acquitted of slandering President Nicolas Sarkozy in connection with the Clearstream affair. This is Sarkozy's worst defeat since he took office, the left-liberal daily La Repubblica writes: "Sarkozy allowed himself to get carried away by his eagerness to get even with an opponent and rival within his own party. ... The very judiciary for which he himself is the guarantor as state president handed him this unwanted gift for his 55th birthday. Because he presides over the Supreme Council of the Judiciary ... and because he is entitled to civil and penal immunity during his time in office, in the past 50 years none of his predecessors allowed themselves to be involved in a trial. They didn't want to abuse their privileges or run the risk of offending the dignity of the presidential office. Nicolas Sarkozy has broken with this tradition." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Bernardo Valli

João Miguel Tavares agrees in the daily Correio da Manhã with the French parliamentary committee's decision to recommend that Muslim full-body veils be banned: "As expected, voices have been raised against this ... . The ban is described as an attack on civil rights, an insult to Muslims and a measure that creates problems where there are none, for in France there are only an estimated 2,000 Muslim women who wear the burqa or niqab. In my opinion that's 2,000 too many. It's probable that less than 2,000 women are circumcised there too - but that doesn't make circumcision any more acceptable. The Swiss minaret ban is an unjustified and senseless attack on religion. Protecting women from public humiliation, on the other hand, is a democratic obligation ... .  This is not about numbers, but about principles. The burqa is not the latest trend in winter fashion but a symbol of female subjugation. In a country where freedom and equality are two fundamental values it cannot be tolerated. ... [France's President Nicolas] Sarkozy is - for once - right." (29/01/2010)

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All available articles from » João Miguel Tavares

It's a misconception that feminists always act in women's best interests, writes Magnus Klaue in German weekly Der Freitag, noting that this becomes particularly clear in their criticism of Islam: "It is mostly 'feminists' who in their function as researchers into gender and post-colonialism have been doing publicity for the reduction of women's rights for years now. The conflict with Islam is just one of their fields of action here. … But what makes postcolonial feminism so unpleasant is not just its tendency to subject everything to psychological analysis but above all the fact that Muslim women don't even play a role in it. They are simply used to provide a catchword, whether it's as self-declared 'victims' or the misguided 'dupes' of Western thinking. Unlike traditional feminism, whose veterans knew exactly on whose side they were, post-modern feminism moves in the same circles it accuses its critics of moving in: it is a reflection of Western female academics in the 'mirror' of the 'others', for whom 'foreign cultures' must play the role of bogeyman." (28/01/2010)

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All available articles from » Magnus Klaue

The daily Le Monde sees striking parallels between speeches given this week by US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy: "The first was talking to Congress for the traditional State of the Union Address. The second was opening the World Economic Forum at Davos in the Swiss Alps. If their words were not identical, their messages expressed the same need for urgent reform of financial capitalism and stricter regulation of the unique merchandise that is still insufficiently controlled in the globalised world: financial products. ... Both men are right. The experts will say they flirted with populism in their speeches, but the experts are wrong. Without wanting to make the banks and speculative funds scapegoats for all of the planet's economic woes, it must be recognised that the absence of adequate regulation is partially responsible for provoking the financial crisis of 2008." (28/01/2010)

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The Greek government has refuted media reports according to which it is negotiating the sale of government bonds worth 25 billion euros with China. The daily Eleftherotypia criticises the reports: "These statements have been accumulating recently, and scenarios [of Greece's national bankruptcy] are also being spread. Greece is paying a high price for this. The EU is obliged to show solidarity with an EU member. … Greece has now fallen victim to these wild speculations. The real goal of such speculation could be an attack on the Eurozone. The European heads of state and government shouldn't close their eyes to this." (28/01/2010)

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Irishman Edwin Curry has been sentenced to four years in jail after being convicted of 189 cases of indecent assault on children. This mild sentence illustrates the ambiguous attitude of Irish society towards such crimes, writes the daily Irish Examiner: "Church authorities covered up clerical paedophile abuse. In some instances members of the Garda Síochána and the criminal justice system were complicit in the cover up, along with society as a whole for essentially turning a blind eye. This kind of crime was also covered up within families, because the abusers were often close family relatives. As a society we need to face up to the problem and treat it with the severity it deserves, not so much out of a sense of revenge but as means of protecting vulnerable children." (29/01/2010)

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Finnish society is aging rapidly, and in view of the cost of retirement homes in Finland a growing number of Finns are retiring to countries where the cost of living is cheaper. Finnish state secretary Antti Mykkänen argues in the daily Kaleva that those who chose to retire to such countries should also receive full retirement benefits: "If, let's say, ten percent of those over 65 made arrangements to retire to Thailand (or a comparable country), our society would save roughly 200 million euros a year in tax expenses. So it is in the interest of taxpayers to support those elderly people who decide to retire abroad. ... The law must be reformed, and there must be more flexibility regarding the locations where social security benefits are payable. It must also be possible to receive such benefits outside of the EU." (29/01/2010)

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