"We have passed the point of no return, the line that separates a democratic state from a state where the rule of law is gradually being eroded," the newspaper's chief editor Adam Michnik concludes following Kaczmarek's arrest. Michnik calls for the immediate removal of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczyński from office. The Kaczynski brothers and their team will use all the tricks at their disposal to conceal their dark secrets and remain in power until the new elections. The whole dirty scenario of bugging operations, arrests, intrigues and provocations must be exposed... Jaroslaw Kaczyński is very well acquainted with the saying that it doesn't matter who votes for what, what matters is who counts the votes and how. Fair elections require the immediate removal of Jaroslaw Kaczynski as head of government and Zbigniew Ziobro as Justice Minister. Yesterday's events prove that they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Adam Michnik

Christian Ultsch was left aghast by the latest episode in Poland's "paranoid circus": the arrest of former Minister of the Interior Janusz Kaczmarek. "Under the Kazynski brothers Poland is losing itself in a labyrinth of confused intrigues and slanderous witch hunts. Everyone suspects everyone and now the fuses are blowing... Ex-President Lech Walesa's warning that the Kaczynskis' actions could lead to the reintroduction of martial law fits in perfectly with the other symptoms. Is it possible for the entire political class of a country to fall victim to paranoia?" (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Christian Ultsch

"There's no doubt about it, Poland's legal system is out of control," notes Thomas Urban. He points out that in Poland, the Justice Minister is also the State Prosecutor. "At present there are many indications that the Polish government is using its prosecutors to persecute its political opponents on the pretext of battling corruption. It was recently revealed that a number of spectacular arrests had been planned in detail with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The government has used top officials for the political provocation of troublesome politicians and some of the latter have apparently been the victims of illegal bugging operations. Worse still, the government has now managed to push through a law giving it the power to appoint and dismiss judges. The judge associations are appealing against the new law before the constitutional court. The head of government and his young justice minister had previously hit the headlines for criticising individual court rulings, including decisions made by the constitutional court." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Thomas Urban

The Spanish daily condemns the Kaczynskis' attitude "The policies of the Kaczynskis do however have one advantage. The discriminatory actions committed by the Polish government have been a wake-up call for the EU, urging them to act effectively; so much so, that some are thinking of activating the mechanism prescribed in the Treaty in case of grave violation of the founding values of the Union, which means the suspension of the right to vote. The EU does not, for the time being, envisage the expulsion of a member state. But this possibility should be taken into account, as in any club. Polish citizens can resolve the problem through the ballot box. But even if the populists are democratically expulsed from power, the example of the last few months should be a warning for those who defend values such as freedom, democracy and tolerance in the EU." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Polonia

Author Richard Wagner explains why Central Eastern Europeans find it so difficult to confront their own past: "It's fate, but also a way of life for the so-called smaller nations to put up with occupiers and make the best of the situation. Small nations have a code of conduct for dealing with occupation. For them, the border between collaboration and patriotism sometimes gets blurred. After all, what matters is the survival of the nation, of the country as a whole. The silence which characterised the way anti-communists and ex-communists treated each other in Slovenia during the 1990s is very telling. However, this has made things too easy from a moral point of view. They have few qualms about talking their way out of their share of the blame even when it comes to the extermination of the Jews. Yet without Slovenian collaborators, the Nazis wouldn't have had the manpower to carry out the extermination of the Jews. The Nazis put the Holocaust into operation, but they didn't invent anti-Semitism." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Historia, » Ideología, » Centroeuropa, » Europa del Este
Todos los textos disponible de » Richard Wagner

The French philosopher Pascal Bruckner considers that "facing fanaticism, democracies do of course benefit from military and police force. But their main weapon remains the gentleness of their mores and their intellectual rigour: by opposing the ardour of the immoderate with irony, incredulity and refutation, waging the war of ideas everywhere, encouraging moderates by isolating the core of kamikazes, advocating a rational management of dangers without minimizing or overestimating them, offering idle youths alternatively thrilling and ennobling prospects of individual success, of enrichment and of solidarity. ... The refusal of violent obscurantism is an on-going victory over our selves, over our cowardice and our fundamental ferocity. Fanatics set us a double mortal trap: to surrender to them or to resemble them." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Pascal Bruckner

Austria's Defence Minister Norbert Darabos has repeatedly criticised plans for a US military base in the Czech Republic as part of the US's missile defence shield. Luboš Palata loses his patience with the minister: "Since the Cold War, the Austrians have had different views on Russia from the rest of the West. Vienna did good business with Brezhnev, and if anyone regretted the collapse of communism it was the [Austrian] businessmen who as 'neutrals' profited substantially from our totalitarianism. Today Austria does good business with Iran, so it's no wonder that Mr Darabos has cast himself in the role of Teheran's advocate... The Austrians, or at least some of them, are like this, too. We could put up with it; after all that's their business. But it's our business whether we have a US military base or not. Since October 28, 1918 the Austrians have had no right to interfere. We are no longer one of Vienna's satellite states." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Relaciones internacionales, » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » La República Checa, » Austria
Todos los textos disponible de » Luboš Palata

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble's calls for secret hacking and cyber spying of computers belonging to terrorist suspects in the fight against terrorism has triggered much discussion in Germany. Reinhard Müller comments: "This is certainly no miracle cure in the fight against terrorism; if that was the case, it would be a scandal if these means weren't employed. This is about an attempt to keep up with dangerous criminals and terrorists from a technological point of view while safeguarding the principles of the rule of law... No one in this political discussion is calling for the violation of citizens' fundamental rights without having carefully weighed the implications. But on the other hand it's wrong to accuse someone of promoting terrorist activities just because he doesn't immediately agree with each and every proposal put forward by the security services." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Reinhard Müller

The daily comments on MEP Rosa Diez's departure from the PSOE, the Spanish socialist party, because of her disagreement with the policies of the Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The daily doubts that she will manage to form a new left-wing party as she wishes to. "If an imperfect two-party system has imposed itself on Spain, it is because that is what the citizens wanted. They are asking political parties to be solid enough to be entrusted with the institutions of democracy. However, one of the arguments in favour of the creation of new parties is that inside movements have difficulty getting themselves heard within big parties. Thus the contestation or concern that Zapatero's governance has generated among socialists has by no means diminished his keen commitment to introducing regional autonomy reforms and leading the peace process with the ETA." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » España

Following talks on the future status of Kosovo held on Thursday August 30th in Vienna, the Lisbon daily notes that the "The tragedy of the EU, according to the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, is that this time bomb [Kosovo's near future] is buried in its own back yard. The EU - and particularly the Portuguese presidency - has the delicate mission of deactivating a bomb that could explode at any moment, with a lot of collateral damage: the recrudescence of new migratory waves of refugees, the opening up of borders to Balkan networks of organised crime and the return of nationalism. In its attempt to referee a game that no one accepts to loose, it is likely that the majority of countries in the EU will align themselves with Washington's position. By running the risk of not managing to conciliate the irreconcilable, it is Europe that will be left with the chaos in its own back yard ." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Europa

French military aircraft hitherto based in Tadjikstan are to be redeployed in Afghanistan. According to the daily's editorial, this decision "signifies a greater implication of the French in a military operation which the credibility of the Atlantic Alliance [in Afghanistan] depends on . ... France is de facto responding positively to the United States pressing its European allies to become more involved in the 'Afghan theatre'. ... If Mr. Sarkozy wants to illustrate his desire for France to become closer to the United States, returning to the military structure of NATO is quite appropriate. But such a concession cannot be gratuitous. ... Paris will have to obtain further responsibilities within the Alliance and choose the right moment, at the conclusion of negotiations with the next American administration." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Relaciones internacionales, » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Francia, » Ásia, » EE.UU.

Theodore Dalrymple is a retired prison doctor. He defends UK prison officers who recently went on a 24 hour strike. "The prison officers still have the esprit de corps that the Government has made it its business to destroy in the NHS [National Health Service], the police, the schools and the universities. ... The overcrowded conditions to which our gallant prison officers have drawn our attention are the consequence of two factors [inappropriate number of prisons and sentences that are too short] ... The solution to our prison crisis is to double the number of prisons at least, and to pass much longer sentences on those sent to prison. Without this, Britain will continue to be for millions of its citizens what it is now: a failed state. And, as usual, the prison officers have a far better grasp of all this than their supposed superiors." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Movimientos sociales, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Theodore Dalrymple

The Italian director Marco Bellochio intervenes in the debate around the nature of the crisis affecting Italian cinema. "Today's cinema was born in a society very different from the one I grew up in as a citizen and film-maker. All of a sudden everyone is a director, because the new technology has democratised 'making movies' all around the world. On the Internet, we can already see thousands of films made without any budget. ... Those who were trained with tracking shots and celluloid will continue to use these until they become extinct, but new identities and images will come from this new culture, quite different from the dominant, cynical and coked-up one. ... These novelties do not guarantee beauty, but the beautiful and the new will be born, they are already being born, from the thousands of mobile phones with which each individual can make his or her own film." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Película, » Medios de comunicación online, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Marco Bellocchio

In an interview with Gyula Varsányi, Czech theatre and film director Jiri Menzel talks about the problems with making films during the communist era and those of today. "The powerful wave of energy that the Czech Nouvelle Vague unleashed was suppressed by Russian tanks in 1968. But I'm not sure we wouldn't have run out of energy anyway, even if the tanks hadn't come. We tried to free ourselves from the straitjacket, but there were also writers, actors and film makers among us who came to terms with making a career under the regime. The Barrandov film studios - not Brezhnev, Husak or Bilak - had such a group of people under its control. As far as the present is concerned, I agree with [director] Věra Chytilová who said you could play clever games with the Bolsheviks if you knew how to outsmart them. You can't do anything about today's financing problems. This is a much tougher regime than back then." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Película, » La República Checa
Todos los textos disponible de » Jiří Menzel

Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, comments on the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana's death. "The media is filled with tributes and retrospectives, and all over the world the public seems to be avidly soaking it up. Has Diana become a new kind of saint ... ? ... From a rational perspective, this idolisation of Diana is as absurd as any cult. Granted, she used her prominence to promote worthwhile causes. She championed the sick and marginalised, and her work for a ban on landmines, while sometimes ridiculed as politically naive, drew worldwide attention to the issue. ... After her death, tens of millions grieved and many sent money to her memorial fund, which has a website called Theworkcontinues.org. But if the work does continue, it is on a more modest scale that has settled into the background of public charitable work. ... perhaps those who identified so strongly with Diana imagined that they shared in her good deeds, and that they need not do anything more." (31/08/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Peter Singer