European press review

As the pressure mounts on Nato to answer questions about the use of depleted uranium weapons in former Yugoslavia, Europe's papers investigate further. They also cover mad cow disease, the Middle East peace process and Russian-American relations.

Nato under uranium arms fire

Le Figaro in Paris says that Nato and EU representatives are due to meet in Brussels today to "try to determine if the illnesses and deaths of soldiers who served in former Yugoslavia are linked to the use of depleted uranium by the allies".

The paper says that: "Suspicions have further increased with the announcement by a group of UN experts of the discovery of radioactive pollution in the Balkans."

It adds that on Monday "Portugal expressed its doubts about Nato's transparency, while German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder asked for unreserved clarification" from the alliance.

The paper says that in France the Green Party has demanded the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the matter while a Balkans veteran has been taken into hospital with "very rapidly developing" leukaemia.

Germany sees red-green on arms

Berlin's Die Tageszeitung says that Germany's ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Greens is particularly wary of the subject of depleted uranium munitions, as it could strain its relations with the USA.

"After all, the USA was the only Nato state to use depleted uranium munitions and it continues to insist on their use," the paper says.

It adds that German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping was reluctant to refer directly to the USA when asked by German state radio whether he favoured a ban on such weapons.

It "would be better if no state were to use these munitions", the paper quotes Scharping as having told the radio.

Germany's red-green coalition, the paper says, sees the issue as a pitfall that could add to its existing problems resulting from the BSE crisis.

While a ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court not to reinstate a judge is the main subject of the editorials in Madrid's leading dailies, Balkans syndrome nevertheless remains a front-page story.

"The head of the United Nations in Kosovo asks the World Health Organisation for help in measuring the effect of the uranium," says a headline in Madrid's El Pais.

The paper says that the United Nations' Kosovo mission chief Bernard Kouchner has sent an urgent request to the World Health Organisation for it to send personnel to help shore up the province's shaky health institutions in the face of the crisis over depleted uranium munitions.

Kouchner, it says, "wants help to investigate the possible consequences to the civilian population arising from depleted uranium munitions used during the war in 1999".

Above the article is a photograph of Spanish soldiers who served in the Balkans waiting to undergo medical examinations.

Arafat no peace 'hero'

Hamburg's Die Welt believes most media observers are not thinking through the issues when siding with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his demand that all Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their homes in what is now Israel.

There are about four million Palestinian refugees around the world, it says. "Should they all be allowed to return, then Israel, with its five million Jewish inhabitants, would be finished."

It describes such a demand as "unrealistic" and says the Palestinians have not yet faced up to reality, unlike the Israelis, who have expressed their readiness to debate the issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem.

The peace process, the paper says, needs "Heroes of compromise".

"Yasser Arafat is not one of them," it adds.

Call for nuclear revolution

A commentary in Paris's Liberation says that when George W Bush said in May that Russia was no longer the United States' enemy and that the USA must reduce its nuclear arsenal and set up an antimissile defence system, it was a defence policy "revolution".

"If the new president of the United States implements the policy... a page could be turned and a new chapter could be started," it says.

However, it warns that if Russia and the US do not accompany reductions in their nuclear arsenals with reciprocal verification measures, "distrust will not take long to empoison relations between the two former adversaries".

It adds that if Bush goes ahead with the antimissile defence system and breaks with the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty, defence policy in the world could also be shaken up with Russia threatening to pull out of arms control agreements.

The paper says that all states which signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty promised not to procure nuclear weapons.

"It must be made sure that this commitment is respected, by developing new techniques for detecting illicit activities, by improving the controls on exports of sensitive equipment and by strengthening the determination of the international community to prevent the spreading of the arms," it adds.

While also extensively covering the so-called Balkans Syndrome, Austria's dailies nevertheless find space to comment, in words and pictures, on some other topical affairs.

Belgian's BSE alert

La Libre Belgique in Brussels reveals on its front page that five times more Belgian cattle aged over 30 months than originally thought may be suffering from mad cow disease.

The paper says that that means that one cow in 200 aged over 30 months may be contaminated, according to the results of tests supplied by the Belgian food safety agency.

Laughing cow

Vienna's Der Standard uses a cartoon as a tongue-in-cheek reminder that the BSE crisis has not simply gone away.

A drawing labelled "Carnival 2000" shows a farmer dressed as a jester and blowing a paper whistle leading a dour-looking cow by its tether.

A second drawing, labelled "Carnival 2001", shows a dour-looking farmer leading a dancing, laughing cow wearing a pointy paper hat and a ribbon on its tail - quite mad, in other words.

No dot-bomb for dot.com

Another Viennese daily, Die Presse, believes that for Internet companies, the so-called "dot.coms", the future still lies ahead, despite continuing falls in the share prices of many such companies.

"We are speaking of a branch of business that could not be more alive," the paper says, "and it is by no means as though the dot.coms have already left their greatest future behind them."

"For several months, there have been signs that for the first time it is actually possible to earn money on the world wide web," it says.

It gives as its reasons booming Christmas online sales, maturing payment systems for web services and the fact that the next generation of consumers will be those who have grown up with the Internet and take it for granted.

"The plunge of the Internet shares is distorting the picture," it says. "The web branch is as alive as never before."

Schroeder's Russian mystery tour

The Hungarian paper Mgyar Hirlap is trying to find an explanation for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's private visit to Moscow for the Orthodox Christmas.

"It is hardly likely that Schroeder wanted to attend Mrs Putin's birthday party", the paper says.

The commentary finds a more likely explanation in Putin's foreign policy.

"Over the past year, Moscow's political efforts have demonstrated that the Kremlin has kept the biggest distance from Washington, while it has been preparing for a big opening up towards, Brussels... London and Berlin", the paper says, adding that it is now time to settle "the German question".

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.