“One may reasonably doubt whether the relation between costs and benefits of the meetings called G8 still makes any sense”, writes the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG (6/6). “But these assemblies are among the year’s most important events, and not only for the ‘black block’. Statesmen too, who ought finally to have a chance to converse quietly together… gladly use this stage to impress the public. Two participants, the American President and the Russian President, have tried to do so, even before meeting each other”… “The Russian President must demonstrate” that “the Kremlin agrees with the West at least on strategic questions. Putin’s spectre of an atomic war in Europe speaks a different language. But in Germany people prefer to wonder whether the police has once again provoked well-intentioned demonstrators”. Writing in the FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU , Stephan Hebel comments: “Can one hope in a continuation of the protest after the terrible scenes of Rostock? We need to do so, if we don’t want to leave the world to the fenced-off leaders at Heiligendamm. It’s no longer a question of the aspirations of many who want a fairer form of globalization. Now it’s a question whether this or other aspirations can in future be heard… To the perpetrators of the violence nothing matters… But to the serious critics of globalization the devastating effect of these violent protests cannot be a matter of indifference. They will have to struggle against the ‘black block’ with the same fierceness with which they combat iniquities. They have to, because otherwise they will lose any chance of being heard”. “Don’t listen to what the world’s leaders say – look at what they do” is the title of the comment by George Monblot in the British daily THE GUARDIAN (05/06). It is time once again – Monblot says – “for that touching annual ritual, in which the world’s most powerful people move themselves to tears”. Yet the action of their governments is at odds “with almost everything the G8 now claims to stand for: the millennium health and education goals, the eradication of poverty, fair terms of trade. The G8 nations will pursue their stated objectives only to the point at which they collide with their own interests”. “The G8 demands action on climate change: the World Bank, controlled by the G8 nations, funds coal burning power stations and deforestation projects. The G8 requests better trade terms for Africa: Europe and the USA use the world trade talks to make sure this doesn’t happen. The G8 leaders call for the debt to be reduced; the IMF demands that poor nations remove barriers to the capital flows that leave them in hock. The G8 leaders simultaneously wring their hands and wash their hands: we have done what we can; if we have failed, it is only because of the corruption of third world elites”. “The question – concludes Monblot – is no longer whether the undemocratic power the G8 nations exert over the rest of the world can be used for good or ill. The question is whether it will cease to be used”. The web pages of the Polish weekly POLITYKA in recent days contain a comment by Adam Szostkiewicz on the meeting between Presidents Bush and Putin, who both “have problems about how to exit from the political scene” making their fate look like a “bad western”. “We are astonished to see the ever more violent skirmishes between Bush and Putin, while for both of them the end of their presidential term approaches. Neither of the two has succeeded in a finding a tone suited to that period in their political career. The tensions increase as if each wanted to be remembered as a duellist and not as a statesman. (…) However we ought to remember that Bush and Putin” can act in this way “since both the White House and the Kremlin will soon have new tenants. What seems today like a new cold war will in a year or two will be judged marginal. There is no return to the cold war”. According to Szostkiewicz “it’s only rivalry to ensure the best starting blocks in the race for the new division of spheres of influence in the world”. “For invalids in a vegetable state” “the principle of precaution” holds good, writes Giacomo Samek Lodovici in the Italian Catholic daily AVVENIRE (07/06), commenting on the re-awakening (after 19 years) of the Polish Jan Grzebski from a state of total unconsciousness. The doctors had given him at the most three years of life, whereas his wife conducted with love and devotion the work of a team of intensive therapy. Lodovici observes that it “would be better to avoid both the notion of vegetable state and speaking of permanent privation of consciousness, because there exists no absolute certainty that a patient can never recover from his coma. In short, we cannot be certain that these patients are deprived of consciousness, or that they shall remain unconscious for good. Therefore, – underlines the editorialist – we must apply the principle of precaution: admitting that the intangible dignity of man resides in his consciousness, we must not risk killing people who could be conscious and who could recover. It’s not euthanasia, but love, that these invalids need: the love that persists, that never gives in and that never loses heart. Like that of Jan’s wife”.
