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TEMA DESTACADO

The risks of Franco-Libyan cooperation

The risks of Franco-Libyan cooperation

 

The day after the release of the Bulgarian medics imprisoned in Libya, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy went to Tripoli where he met Libyan leader, Mouammar Kadhafi. The two heads of state agreed on Wednesday, July 25th, that France will provide Libya a nuclear reactor to desalt sea water. How safe a bet is this? » más

Con artículos de las siguientes publicaciones:
La Tribune - Francia, Süddeutsche Zeitung - Alemania, Le Soir - Bélgica, Gândul - Rumania

La Tribune - Francia

Pascal Aubert is concerned about the risks with this agreement. "We would be quite happy if it weren't for the unease caused by the association of the name Kadhafi with the word nuclear. Granted, the Libyan leader has sworn to renounce the use of nuclear power for military ends. ... And Libya's exemplary collaboration with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2003 is a reassuring factor. It is however, on the other hand, difficult to forget that the Libyan head of state is a whimsical character who behaves unpredictably. His heavy past does justify refraining from turning him into an angel all of a sudden." (27/07/2007)

Süddeutsche Zeitung - Alemania

Jeanne Rubner criticizes the behaviour of the French president. "Sarkozy's appearance in Libya's show of blackmailing was hardly a diplomatic feat. The fact that he has now sealed an atomic energy deal with Kadhafi is in keeping with the French tradition of selling nuclear reactors all over the world. Libya is still a dictatorship, and that speaks against this deal – but at least the country has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. On the other hand, it is certainly legitimate for the head of a country – in accord with the rest of Europe – to continue nurturing Europe's traditionally close links to North Africa. But the way Sarkozy pushed to the front in the hostage affair shows little evidence of tact. Seeking attention, the Sarkozy presidential couple jumped into the fray, after other EU politicians had long and quietly worked out the terms for the opening of Libya's dungeon doors. It's just embarrassing." (27/07/2007)

Le Soir - Bélgica

"Development will beat the Kadhafi regime", considers Alain Lallemand, who thinks that the new economic relations engaged in with Tripoli are a riposte for the Libyan head of state's regime. "At the very least, we expect Libya to participate in maintaining common interests (Immigration, indeed, but also cocaine traffic between Tripoli and Zaventem) just as good neighbours agree to trim their hedge. But the Union cannot leave it at that ... Today's riposte is our strongest weapon, a sort of deep penetrating cluster bomb , the letting loose of the hounds of liberalism, enforcing generalized comfort, notably medical, that is currently reserved for the privileged cast of the 'Guide'. In the long run this will amount to turning the Libyan people against their dictator, basically doing away with his 'Jamahiriya', dissolving it at last in a globalized European policy." (27/07/2007)

Gândul - Rumania

Andreea Bratosin is surprised about Sarkozy's trip. "Warm handshakes on Wednesday in Tripoli between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Libyan leader Kadhafi, the greatest ally of Nicolae Ceausescu in the 'Fight against Imperalism'. Grandiose speeches about the return of Libya to the midst of the international community, approval of cooperation with the EU, possible entrance into the Mediterranean Union. Kadhafi, former 'Chief of the Terrorists,' 'member of the axis of evil,' as the Americans and Europeans officially called him for years, the Bin Laden of the 1970s, gave a broad smile and crowed over his victory. And it did not even cost him much. It was his profit from the sale of the Bulgarian nurses." (27/07/2007)

REFLEXIONES

Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Suiza

Dubravka Ugresić on the Age of New Ignorance

Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresić laments that the "entire eastern European culture of the communist era" has been forgotten. "The best part of this vibrant culture resulted from the rejection of communism, from critical thinking, from subversion. ... Sadly, all that has disappeared, because it is mercilessly stamped as 'communist' culture. This forgetting can be blamed to a great extent on the global market. Global culture is first and foremost the global market. And it's the survival of the fittest, in both global and other markets. Add to that a reflex hidden within each of us – fear of being excluded. That pro-consumption reflex keeps the market going. … And even if I rebel against it, the market will use my protest-orientation to its own benefit. ... We live in the Age of Information and the Global Market, but at the same time in the Age of New Ignorance and Barbarity." (27/07/2007)

Frankfurter Rundschau - Alemania

Tanja Dueckers on the false freedom of the Internet

Author Tanja Dückers questions the value of interactive offerings such as online voting and ratings on the Internet. "The craze over rating and voting is an auto-suggestion that we have personal influence on world affairs, whereas that is not at all the case. We let loose in all possible forums, while we are watched by more video cameras than ever, with our biometric data being collected, and with a Tornado jet flying over a demonstration. Meanwhile, working-class children in Germany have the worst chances of anyone in Europe to climb the ladder to success – so much for our individual freedoms. We consider ourselves free because we can evaluate a seller on eBay, and we even get pleasure from watching the lives of starlets. We are busy with ourselves, while others determine the fate of our country." (27/07/2007)

POLÍTICA

Kathimerini - Grecia

Dealing with fires in Greece

Nikos Konstandaras deplores the reaction of both the government and the opposition to the fires that recently devastated parts of the country. "Standing on ashes that were once forests, under the heavy cloud of the seven people who died battling blazes, the government and opposition resorted to their habitual cockfighting. The conservatives hasten to remind voters of PASOK's [the Panhellenic Socialist Movement] past sins, as if this somehow compensates for current mistakes and omissions. For its part, PASOK, as if the result of some virgin birth, engages in grandstanding ... . The anxiety of the government and opposition shows they are beginning to realize that voters now view the environment as a central issue. But their behaviour indicates that they remain slaves to conflict, which obstructs problem solving. On all key issues, each side aims to smash the other instead of pursuing what is good for the people." (25/07/2007)

Woxx - Luxemburgo

Should the state finance cults?

The Luxemburg state is going to sign a convention with representatives of the Muslim cult, which will allow the state financing of the salary of a mufti, five imams and a secretary. "Of course, if Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis can benefit from the manna of tax payers, why shouldn't imams? But the equal treatment of religions could be seen from a different angle: the state could give nothing and religious communities could finance themselves. After all, why artificially keep a religion alive if it hasn't got enough followers to pay alms? This solution would certainly not aggravate community tensions and would be far more economical and respectful of the atheist inhabitants of Luxemburg, some of whom are surely tired of financing all sorts of cults." (26/07/2007)

Népszabadság - Hungría

Cold War logic

US politician Tom Lantos, of Hungarian background, has told the Congress' foreign affairs committee that the USA has neglected Eastern-Central Europeans, leaving them to the influence of Russia. That has promoted populism, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in the region, he concludes. Endre Aczél comments. "The Americans are not interested in whether there has been a successful political change in Eastern and Central Europe. They only care about the political leanings in the region. Basically, the Eastern Central Europeans should give the nod to a US missile defence system and just say no to Gazprom – that's what it's all about. We are still being forced into the old pattern from the days when we were Soviet satellite states." (27/07/2007)

Le Monde - Francia

Tommorrow's Europe will be a meeting of national governments

"In Brussels, on Monday, July 23rd, the 27 member states launched the ultimate phase of negotiations before adopting a treaty intended to substitute the defunct European Constitution. ... What shape will tomorrow's Europe be once the institutional reforms have been completed?" wonders Thomas Ferenczi. For him, "the most realistic" scenario will involve "the continuation of the so-called functional Europe, which progresses through 'concrete achievements', in Robert Schuman's terms. Energy, research and the fight against global warming are tomorrow's priorities. All the same, these new policies, contrary to the former ones are more an intergovernmental effort than a federal one." (27/07/2007)

MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN

Le Temps - Suiza

The financial press should keep its independence

In his editorial Jean-Claude Péclet considers Rupert Murdoch's bid for the Wall Street Journal, a daily which, according to the journalist, "is capable of defending merchant banks in its editorial whilst publishing a devastating inquiry into insider trading in another section of the paper. It would be a mistake to turn this agility to marketing ends. With Rupert Murdoch the risk is low. His brutality and his reverence for the powerful are well known, but he is a man of the trade whose perspicacity tempers his ego. The same cannot be said of the French bosses who for weeks have been doing a have been doing a scalp dance around the financial papers Les Echos and La Tribune. Here, egos and French hobnobbing are triumphing over long-term vision. The predictable result will be that the French speaking press will be even more colonised in the future than it is now in the strategic domain of economics and financial information." (27/07/2007)

CULTURA

Rzeczpospolita - Polonia

Germany and Poland in dispute over looted cultural assets

Germany and Poland have been in discussions since 1992 about the mutual handover of numerous cultural assets that were either confiscated or destroyed during World War II. Former Polish Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski says he is outraged about yesterday's article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung under the headline, "The last German prisoners of war": "That is a particularly irritating matter. I myself have been dealing with it. If the talks fell apart, it wasn't Poland's fault. The blame can be placed on Germany's former Red-Green coalition government. In fact, we rescued a lot of German cultural assets from being destroyed or stolen by the Red Army. And then for many years we worked on restoration, and preserved documents and books. This article is even worse when you realize that the Germans themselves have never returned the cultural assets they stole from Poland." (27/07/2007)

The Independent - Gran Bretaña

Are movie remakes a genre in themselves?

Film critic Geoffery Macnab ponders a curent crop of movie remakes. "Sidney Lumet's classic courtroom drama '12 Angry Men' (1957), Joseph L Mankiewicz's 'Sleuth' (1972), Delmer Daves' '3.10 To Yuma' (1957) and John Waters' 'Hairspray' (1988) are just some of the films that have been recently retooled for contemporary audiences. '12 Angry Men' has now been given the Russian treatment. The film, about a dozen sweaty New York jurors on the hottest day of the year trying to work out whether a defendant is guilty as charged, seems like quintessential American fare. ... Nonetheless, the maverick auteur Nikita Mikhalkov has remade the movie with Russian actors and a Chechen defendant. ... What is refreshing ... is that film-makers now don't simply see them as exercises in moneymaking plagiarism and pastiche but – sometimes – as opportunities for fresh and original work." (27/07/2007)

Der Standard - Austria

Katharina Wagner's trial by fire in Bayreuth

Katharina Wagner, great-granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner, has directed her first production at the Bayreuth festival. The premiere was watched carefully, since the director is seen as a possible successor to the festival director, her father, Wolfgang Wagner. Ljubiša Tošic was quite impressed by her staging of the 'Mastersingers of Nuremberg'. "Katharina, condemned to run for the position of successor, could well have squeezed a Meistersinger concept out of the opera-oriented relations of the Wagner clan. Fortunately, she preferred to take the artist's opera seriously as a discourse about tradition and modernity, and to deal with the historically negative reception of the opera, which was Hitler's favourite, and the way its evocation of German-ness has been used. In the long term, this seems like a good investment for the battle of succession." (27/07/2007)

COLORES LOCALES

Evenimentul Zilei - Rumania

What are the seven wonders of Romania?

Why shouldn't Romania have its own seven wonders of the world, asks the newspaper. It recommends 25 Romanian wonders for people to vote on. Included in the selection are buildings such as the Black Church in Brasov, built by German settlers, or 'Dracula's castle', Schloss Bran. "The French have the Eiffel Tower, the USA has its Statue of Liberty, the Chinese have their wall and the Russians the Kremlin. A country's degree of recognition is expressed through such famous symbols. But what represents Romania? Each of us has our favourite place here, something we're proud of. Like the bewitching Moldau Cloister, with its outdoor wall paintings, in the north of Bukhovina. One simply has to visit the Royal Palace of Peles, as well as Sibiu or the Unesco city centre of Sighisoara. There's probably not a single Romanian who doesn't have a photo of him or herself and the casino in the port city of Constanza. Let's choose the seven wonders of Romania." (27/07/2007)

La Repubblica - Italia

Catholic missionarys in Second Life?

Gabriele Romagnoli considers the proposition of the Jesuit magazine 'Civita Cattolica' to send missionaries into the virtual universe Second Life. "At the end of the day, it is a form of preaching, adapted to modern times. ... If God is omnipresent, why shouldn't those who act in his name down here be omnipresent too? ...  And yet, for those of us who are not men and women of the church, something is amiss. What? That the new can be combined with the old, web with the 'verbum', is a sign of open-mindedness. It may be blasphemy, but the avatar is what most resembles the soul. ... What bothers us is the term 'missionary'. It brings to mind someone like Mother Teresa. ... It may not be necessary to cross a continent to meet someone, but at least a road. One click is hardly a sacrifice." (27/07/2007)

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