From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 6/25/2006 12:02 AM
Monday, 19 June 2006
BBC NEWS
European press review
Papers are divided over the outcome of Slovakia's first general election since joining the European Union in 2004.
The Russian press sees scant cause for celebration following the killing of Chechnya's rebel leader.
And there's little appetite among Swiss commentators for the UN's new human rights body.
Slovakia swings left
Slovakia's left-wing Smer party won the largest share of the vote in Saturday's general election, but Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung doubts it will get the chance to roll back the liberal reforms of the past eight years.
The paper says it is "far from certain" that Smer will manage to cobble together a government.
Many are suffering as a result of social cutbacks
Frankfurter Rundschau
And that's just as well, it adds, since the reforms instituted by the centre-right government of Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda have led to "huge growth", "greater prosperity" and "international recognition".
Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau is rather less impressed with Mr Dzurinda's policies, noting they have given rise to widespread discontent.
"Few have benefited from the reforms", it says, "and many are suffering as a result of social cutbacks".
The Czech daily Pravo is just as pleased to see the back of Mr Dzurinda, and welcomes Slovakia's return to "a Europe of social solidarity".
Mr Dzurinda's government used "anti-social reforms to try to push the country into the league of economic tigers", the paper says.
That sort of approach, it argues, tends only to bring economic prosperity "at the cost of continuing poverty".
Chechnya killing
Russia's Kommersant sees little likelihood of change in Chechnya, despite the killing of rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev in a police operation on Saturday.
Mr Saydullayev was a "puppet figure rather than a real leader", so his passing will not make much of a difference, the paper says.
If anything, it adds, "the fighters will step up their activities".
The security services have been pretty quick off the mark with rebel leaders
Komsomolskaya Pravda
That's clearly something to be worried about, says fellow Russian daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta .
Under the headline "One bandit fewer", the paper suggests that Mr Saydullayev's reported replacement as separatist leader, Doku Umarov, will take a more radical approach.
"More likely than not", it warns, "Chechnya's in for a new and extremely bloody wave of unprecedented violence".
By contrast, Komsomolskaya Pravda publishes a photograph appearing to show Mr Saydullayev's dead body as its "picture of the day", and predicts Mr Umarov won't last long.
"Over the last few years", it points out, "the security services have been pretty quick off the mark with rebel leaders".
Novaya Gazeta , however, wants to know how those very same security services are so successful in hunting down "second-tier" rebels, while the mastermind of the Beslan school siege, Shamil Basayev, remains at large.
False dawn
The new United Nations Human Rights Council is scheduled to meet for the first time on Monday in Geneva, but the Swiss press isn't expecting much from the new body.
Le Temps argues that, just like its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the council will have to work within the constraints of its member states' interests.
Therefore, the paper says, it would be a "serious error to believe that 2006 marks a sort of year zero" in the field of human rights.
Tribune de Geneve agrees.
"You don't have to be able to see into the future to predict that many states will seek to make this council as powerless as possible," the paper warns.
The council's mission is not impossible, it says, but there's "very little room for manoeuvre".
The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/5093500.stm
Published: 2006/06/19 05:38:07 GMT
© BBC MMVI
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5093500.stm
