The Iraqi crisis, after the capture of the hostages and the killing of an Italian hostage, monopolises the attention of the international press at the present time. “Bush in response to the Iraqi crisis: same policy and more troops”, is the lapidary headline in Le Monde (15/4). The editorial inside the same paper speaks of “checkmate” in Iraq, declaring that “over the past year the USA has proved itself unable to stabilise Iraq. It has multiplied its political and military errors. It has squandered a real capital of affection in a population that now oscillates between two sentiments: hostility to America, and fear lest she pulls out… A part of the country is at war: insecurity reigns elsewhere. The rebellions are chasing investors and humanitarian aid away. The whole situation is arousing a resurgence of nationalism and Islamism in the region. Within the country, as without it, the hardships are enormous for the whole world”. “The war of the hostages”, is the banner headline on the front page of La Croix (13/4), in which the paper reflects on what is called the “new weapon of pressure against the coalition”. “Hard times for the Americans”, is the comment of Jean-Luc Macia, who points out that in Iraq “the record in terms of human lives is clearly disastrous: at least 70 coalition troops and a number of Iraqi civilians ten times higher have been killed since 1st April. But quite apart from the figures, the Americans must at any rate admit that their twelve months’ presence in the country, while it has permitted the regime of Saddam Hussein to be toppled and given real freedom to the inhabitants, has also given rise to the emergence of an armed resistance that is posing more problems to them than did the army of the dictator a year ago”. The “most worrying” factor, according to the author of the article, is that of “having facilitated the alliance between Sunni Moslems and Shiites, religious communities that detest each other but that the siege of Falluja (with the attack on a mosque) has brought together in a show of indignant reproof”. He’s a “President without doubts” as far as the war in Iraq is concerned: the portrait of Bush painted by the Herald Tribune (15/4) notes that at his latest press conference George W. Bush “unfortunately failed to reply to the most important question: how to extricate Iraq from its present chaos (…). Bush seemed to have no doubts about the correctness of his own conduct”. “They mustn’t win twice”: that’s the title of the editorial by Domenico Delle Foglie ( Avvenire, 15/4), dedicated to the killing in cold blood of one of the Italian hostages in Iraq, as announced on the Arab TV channel “Al Jazira” (which also transmitted the video of his execution), and claimed by the self-styled “Brigades of Mahomet”. “If they think they have won by finding in their irrational ferocity the strength to take the life from a defenceless human being comments the journalist they must not win in our hearts and in our minds. We can be certain that no stone will be left unturned in the attempt to get the hostages restored to their families. But we must also be united in grief and firm in rejecting any cause for division. Let’s not let the terrorists win twice over”. The increase in drug consumption in Europe is commented on by the Madrid daily ABC ( 15/4), on the occasion of the first world conference on drugs which is being held in Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, with the presence of over 1,500 experts. Concern has been voiced about “the increase in the consumption of cannabis throughout Europe, linked to the trivialization of its use”. “The production of cannabis notes the paper – is still concentrated in Morocco, while that of opium is increasing in Afghanistan and that of heroin in Colombia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and the USA”. The terrorist attacks in Madrid still occupy the pages of the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia ( 14/4), where it is reported that “the terrorists who committed the attacks of 11 March have recorded a videocassette in which they expressed their disappointment after the first reactions of Rodríguez Zapatero” and declared: “We’ll bring the war to your homes and you won’t be able to sleep at night unless the troops are withdrawn from Iraq and from Afghanistan”.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1288 N.ro relativo : 28 Data pubblicazione : 17/04/04
