Rachel Sylvester, a columnist for the right-wing daily, writes that Britain is not a secular state and has a deeply Christian history. "This weekend, Dr Rowan Williams discovered the true implications of his observation. Marx once described religion as the opium of the people; the archbishop has found that it has the potential to be a form of intellectual cocaine, which will keep the nation up and arguing all night. Dr Williams's suggestion that the introduction of sharia law in some parts of Britain was 'unavoidable' did not just challenge the legal system; it also raised questions about the relationship between Church and State. ... This is not just about the rules governing mortgages and divorce. It is about the nature of British identity. ... Britain is not a secular state like France or Turkey. Its history and culture are based on the link between Church and State. It is odd for the archbishop to deny that." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Integración, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Rachel Sylvester

Commenting on the British debate over the comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the newspaper says one cannot accuse Rowan Williams of not distancing himself clearly enough from archaic traditions like stoning or so-called honour killings that are associated with Islam. "This is not where the Archbishop's error lies. ... For even peaceful, favourable or sensible legal practices of other religions have no place in Europe's modern, secular and democratic states based on the rule of law. Religion is religion and politics is politics. And that is how it must remain. In a legal system courts must function [the same way] for everyone. ... It is depressing that even in a multi-cultural state like Britain the current discussion about Islam is so tension-ridden that the only response to Williams' mistakes is hysteria." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Religión, » Migración, » Ideología, » Dinamarca

Cyrille Vanlerberghe, the daily's London correspondent, writes that the Archbishop's statement "wasn't a simple provocation. ... After his first declarations on BBC 4 in the early afternoon, the spiritual leader of 77 million Anglicans worldwide elaborately defined his ideas during a conference on civil and religious rights at the Royal Court of Justice in London. ... The Archbishop's statement is not a polemic in favour of the indiscriminate application of all aspects of Koranic law, but rather a complete and complex argument for a judicial system that recognises the religious particularities of a minority. ... The theological positions taken by Rowan Williams were not understood and, more often than not, we retain only the provocative part of what he said." (08/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Cyrille Vanlerberghe

The Archbishop of Canterbury's attempt to defend his position is not convincing, in the opinion of London correspondent Ulrich Meister. "Ultimately he has retreated into the defensive position of a man of faith, who claims that the law of the state, which also covers European human rights, does not always adequately protect the faith and conscience of all religious believers. ... At the same time he has repeated opportunistic arguments, like the one that in England Sharia courts have been regulating civil disputes like divorce (easy for men, protracted for women) and inheritance for a long time now and that the Jews likewise use the Beth Din to settle civil and commercial differences. Apart from criminal offences, British law does indeed allow such third-party tribunals. ... The pressure exerted by religious or clan communities is completely underestimated in such cases." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Integración, » Ideología, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Ulrich Meister

"When 'tolerance' becomes a term of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong", writes Ian Buruma in a column for Project Syndicate. "There is a sense among many Europeans, not just in the Netherlands, that they have been abandoned in a fast-changing world, that multinational corporations are more powerful than nation states, that the urban rich and highly educated do fine and ordinary folks in the provinces languish, while democratically elected politicians are not only powerless, but have abjectly surrendered to these larger forces that threaten the common man. Tolerance is seen as not just weak, but as a betrayal." (11/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Relaciones internacionales, » Política interior, » Holanda, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Ian Buruma

Writer Rolf Schneider recalls how East Germans experienced the year 1968 quite differently from the West Germans. For GDR citizens it was above all the year of the Prague Spring: "Instead of squabbling with members of the [West Berlin] Otto-Suhr Institute of the Free University and drinking Adlershof vodka, we preferred to travel to Bohemia to meet people who thought as we did and to buy censored literature in the bookshops. All this came to an abrupt end on 21 August 1968. In response to an alleged appeal for help ... Warsaw Pact troops marched into the CSSR to put an end to the supposed counter-revolution. ... In view of these events the West German demonstrations we saw on television where people ran through the streets waving red flags calling for a democracy of soviets seemed irrelevant, childish and very far away." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Alemania, » La República Checa
Todos los textos disponible de » Rolf Schneider

"Every nation seeks its independence and no one can blame the Kosovo Albanians for the persistence with which they have pursued theirs," writes the columnist Nikos Konstandaras in anticipation of Kosovo's impending declaration of independence. "What is less understandable is how Europe has acted in such a frivolous and thoughtless way as to stoke division in Serbia and send this important country into isolation. ... Unfortunately, in their demand that the Serbs accept the loss of Kosovo, with the promise of EU accession sometime in the distant future, European leaders do not appear to care much about what will happen [to] the Serbs ... If the Europeans truly wanted to solve the Balkans' most complicated problem (and win the steadfast cooperation of Serbia) they would put Serbia on a fast track to EU accession and make it crystal clear to the Albanians of Kosovo that they would get their independence on the day that they and the Serbs both become members of the European Union." (11/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Ampliación de la UE, » Política de la UE, » Serbia
Todos los textos disponible de » Nikos Konstandaras

On Sunday, February 10th, Walter Veltroni, leader of the Democratic Party (PD, centre-left), launched his campaign for Prime Minister in the lead-up to legislative elections expected on April 13-14. For Marc Lazar, "the 2008 elections will not resemble previous ones, and may be the signal of the start of normalisation in Italy, after a decade of rather chaotic transition. The promised change is due to the birth of the Democratic Party. ... [Veltroni's] victorious election as leader of the Democratic Party on October 14 bought him popular legitimacy. Walter Veltroni took advantage of this situation to build up the stature of a responsible leader, new, relatively young (even though he's been involved in politics for a long time) and hungry to speak directly with the people. ... Veltroni has clearly confirmed his desire to avoid centring the identity of the new party on anti-Berlusconism." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Marc Lazar

Romanian Defence Minister Teodor Melescanu, a member of the country's Liberal Party, is to be moved to the Ministry of Justice. Sabina Fati is unhappy with the appointment. "Melescanu can successfully perform the duties of any minister. He is from the old Ceausescu school of diplomacy, where people learned how to be smooth talkers, how to manipulate information and above all how to fall on their feet. ... His appointment as minister of justice shows not only that the Liberals (PNL) have run out of personnel but also that they have given up trying to be professional. Melescanu is being removed as defence minister with only about six weeks to go before the largest NATO summit in history is held in Bucharest. And in four and a half months the Justice Ministry will be faced with an EU progress report that may impose an escape clause because Romania has failed to stick to its reform path." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Sabina Fati

Turkish Prime Minister ReçepTayyip Erdogan visited Germany at the end of last week. In a major speech to a large audience Erdogan condemned assimilation as "a crime against humanity." Christian Ultsch comments: "The emergence of parallel societies in Germany and Austria in recent decades is certainly not due to Turkish immigrant families having been too eager to assimilate. The problem is rather that many of them have cut themselves off - and this has not been countered by pressure to integrate from their host countries. No-one asks Turks to give up their identity when they arrive in Germany. But why should it be a crime if over time Turks adapt themselves to such an extent that their roots fade and they become Germans or Austrians, as tens of thousands of other immigrant families from Bohemia, Croatia or Hungary did before them?" (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Integración, » Minorías, » Alemania, » Austria
Todos los textos disponible de » Christian Ultsch

Former socialist President of Portugal, Mario Soares, comments on the sliding popularity ratings of the French President. "Six months were enough for the French, with their Cartesian reason, to understand that the erratic, worrying and unpredictable Nicolas Sarkozy is very likely to be a disaster for France. In six months, the man and the style have not resonated with the French. ... On one hand the exhibitionism that he displays with his train of successive women is unprecedented for a head of state, and on the other, his inability to fufil his election promises, particularly with reference to purchasing power, explains why he has lost the confidence of the French so quickly. The growing unease of the right, who feel that they've made a mistake, and the coming municipal elections will do the rest... But, you have to admit that Sarkozy's loss of prestige has not been good for the European Union, despite the little sympathy that we have for this character." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política interior, » Francia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Mário Soares

Journalist Amparo Estrada decries the protectionist behaviour that certain European countries display when a national company is threatened by a foreign buy-out. "We have come to ask ourselves if foreigners aren't enemies. ... Only the European Commission has shown itself to be coherent by refusing all barriers to free circulation of goods and free competition (and here it suffices to highlight the work done these last months by the commissioner Neelie Kroes, responsable for competition). ... What is troubling with all these battles between companies is that the nationality of each player carries all the importance, even when they are European. ... Have we forgotten the European Union's project that consecrates the free circulation of capital and people ?" (11/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Economía política, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Amparo Estrada

The government of Flanders recently reiterated its desire to gain regional control of scientific and political policy, currently run by the federal government. Jean-Claude Vantroyen considers that "the great federal cultural institutions of the country work well. ... The Flemish want to transfer [the management of] these institutions to the Communities [Flemish, French, and German], for co-management. They say that it will work better this way. ... To work together, you must be able to listen to each other, to develop a common understanding, what we call a cooperative contract. But here we are, and since the Communities were established, since 1980, they've never been able to come to agreement. ... Let's admit that even if a miracle allows us to forge a deal, who will own the buildings, the collections, the monuments ? Here we can clearly see the friction, incessant, and in proportion with the issues: collosal. And then, there is the Flemish theory of 'he who pays, decides'." (12/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Exposiciones / Museos, » Política Cultural, » Bélgica
Todos los textos disponible de » Jean-Claude Vantroyen

Polish-American historian Jan Tomasz Gross will not face trial in Poland for his book "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz" about anti-Semitism in Poland after World War II. Grzegorz Pawelczyk welcomes the decision of the public prosecutor's office in Cracow to drop the charges of slandering the Polish nation and incitement of the people. "We will thus avoid a trial that - regardless of the outcome - would have compromised Poland in the eyes of the world. Bringing charges against [the authors of ] books or press articles is anyway absurd. All cases of this kind, other than those concerned with false information, violate a fundamental principle of democracy, namely, freedom of speech. A further problem in Poland is that many judges either do not understand what freedom of speech means or have no idea how a publishing house works." (11/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Literatura, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Grzegorz Pawelczyk

Many Bulgarian women are now going abroad to work as private nurses to old people, mainly in Italy and Spain. Diana Iwanowa writes about what they find when they get there: "I am often in the small town of Warschez, where I see parallel worlds: the men stay at home with the children, the women go to Italy. A legitimate arrangement in economic terms. But the women don't realize before they leave what it means to be a geriatric nurse, or 'badante' as they are called in Italian. They know what it is like do to hard physical labour in Cyprus or Greece and they know how wretchedly low wages are in Bulgaria. But they underestimate the psychological burden that nursing an old person entails, the suffering and death they will encounter. Being a 'badante' means caring for a stranger in the last years of his or her life. ... Experiencing this person's suffering has an emotional dimension that no one anticipates." (11/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Migración, » Bulgaria
Todos los textos disponible de » Diana Iwanowa