Various comments in the German press are dedicated to the kidnapping in Iraq of the German aid worker Susanne Osthoff. Writing in Die Welt (30/11), Jacques Schuster comments: “ And now, the war in Iraq has reached even the Germans. For a long time they believed that nothing would happen to those countries that did not have troops there. The capture of Susanne Osthoff demonstrates the contrary. Neither neutrality nor nationality prevented the terrorists from striking. Not even the Islamic faith of Susanne Osthoff protected her“, Schuster observes. “ The Islamic terrorists draw no distinctions. They know only one object of hate: the West. […] Iraq is no exception, even for the few German volunteers who work there. They are now among the targets of terrorists: Germany must be placed under pressure, so that she interrupt any contact with the Iraqi government and the training of security forces in the United Arab Emirates. The new government of Angela Merkel is being tested. The terrorist Al-Zarkawi… will seek to impose a policy of appeasement on the grand coalition. This kidnapping, however, demonstrates that passivity provides no protection against terrorism. Giving in to terrorists means to reinforce them“. And in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Christoph Albrecht– Heider points out: “ In recent days, violence in Iraq is the means being used to impose interests, whether they be of political, religious or even criminal type. In Iraq terrorism is unpredictable. Awareness of this is not new but is being bitterly brought home to us again, now that the German Susanne Osthoff and her driver have been kidnapped. With everything that is known of her and her commitment to the country, no one can consider her in any way an enemy of the Iraqi people or a representative of the invaders. To her kidnappers Susanne Osthoff is of no interest at all. Whatever aim they have, whether they really ask for the breaking off of diplomatic relations with Germany or whether they simply want to extort ransom money, it is in any case of no matter to them at all that persons like her should help to mitigate the misery of the Iraqi people“. The Euromed summit held in Barcelona has filled the front pages of the Spanish press in recent days. Some headlines of the papers on 29/11: “Fiasco at the Barcelona summit, in spite of Zapatero’s intention to ‘reach a deal no matter what'” ( Abc); “Zapatero faced by the fiasco of the summit: ‘We need to arrive at any kind of document” ( El Mundo); “The Barcelona summit fixes a code against terrorism” ( El Paìs); “At the Euromediterranean summit in Barcelona Zapatero tells his aides: We need to reach a conclusion no matter how!” ( La Razòn); “The Euromed summit is salvaged with a minimum agreement” ( La Vanguardia); “The Barcelona summit ends below the minimum level” ( El Periodico). In its editorial with the title “ Code of conduct” El Paìs says that the “clearest” result of the Barcelona summit is “the approval of an anti-terrorist Code of Conduct” by the 35 European and Arab countries, plus Israel and the Palestinian Authority, even though the code is voluntary: “ a voluntary collaboration for the exchange of information”. The Spanish paper also notes the lack of presence of heads of state of Arab countries at the summit. According to La Vanguardia “the reality, beyond the declarations, is that a fundamental divergence of view is ascertained: the states of the South ask for more aid while those of the North want to subordinate aid to progress in democratisation and good government”. In its editorial under the title “Summit of the lowest common denominator” El Periodico says that the summit “ended with a minimum declaration by the presidency, and not with a text that enjoys the consensus of all the participants”. “ An indulgence is, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven’… so it is not the same as a pardon, which is granted through the sacrament of reconciliation. It is the reduction of the temporal punishment requested, which is undergone in Purgatory according to Catholic theology, in reparation for sins“, point out Isabelle de Gaulmyn and Nicolas Seneze in La Croix (29/11), commenting on the decision of the Pope to grant a plenary indulgence for the 40th anniversary of Vatican Council II. “ These theological explanations continues the comment will not prevent controversy, especially among Protestants, who are very sensitive to these questions”. ‘ The Catholic Church continues to propose theological formulae of the Middle Ages’, said Jean Arnold de Clermont, president of the Protestant Federation in France“. According to the French Catholic paper, “ apart from the controversies, these indulgences emphasize once again the extreme importance attached to the Council by Benedict XVI“. The English paper The Guardian (28/11) warns of a worrying social phenomenon of our time: “ Sense of failure: a veil drawn over the self-mutilation of teenagers“. In the report, full of data and charts, it is emphasized that “ one girl out of every five has voluntarily inflicted injury on herself” and “many suffer from the culture of ‘you should’ which leads to feelings of inadequacy“. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1435 N.ro relativo : 84 Data pubblicazione : 02/12/05
