European press review

The fear created by the anthrax attacks in the United States comes under the spotlight in several papers.

A French paper wonders whether the air strikes on Afghanistan are really hitting the target and a German paper calls for a Marshall plan-style solution for Central Asia.

Spreading fear

"The fear which is spreading in the United States following several cases of anthrax contamination is very damaging as it meets with the objectives of the terrorists who struck on 11 September", says the Brussels-based La Libre Belgique.

It adds that this is the case even if the same people are not involved and that the scares that have followed in Europe are not surprising as the current atmosphere encourages hoaxers and makes certain people feel more uneasy.

The editorial says this must be taken into account when looking at the debate in several European countries about the appropriateness of the American response.

It says that if the strikes continue and start to move away from strictly military targets support will wane.

"Several governments will be subjected to pressure from their oppositions, even from members of their coalitions, to dissociate themselves from Washington and London" it adds.

Copenhagen's Information says the the 11 September attacks were staged in such a way that they were soon intensified in the echo chamber of the global media.

"The counter-attack has moved the focus to a war without very many pictures on the other side of the world. But the three envelopes of anthrax spores have moved the focus back again. No more was needed," Information concludes.

Marshalling public opinion

Germany's Handelsblatt warns that wars are won not only on the battlefield but increasingly by winning over world public opinion, while television pictures of civilian losses and bombed villages in Afghanistan have scored the US minus points in the propaganda war.

US President Bush is reacting "with the old reflexes of a superpower", whereas the military response to the terrorist outrage of 11 September should be "appropriate and targeted", it says.

"Wildly hitting out is counterproductive", the paper says, and warns that "destruction alone will not bring Washington long-term stability in the Middle East".

Apart from locally contained military action, the US should come up with an aid package for the region, a kind of Marshall Plan for Asia under UN auspices, the paper says.

Politics and strikes

Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung calls for diplomatic pressure to be stepped up on the Taleban.

"Parallel to the air strikes, it is now high time to bring a second, political strategy to bear, whose foundations were laid immediately after the terrorist attacks: building a coalition against Afghanistan and isolating the Taleban", it says.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell will want to promote this strategy during his trip to the region, the paper says.

"A strong political signal from Powell will strengthen the firmness of the worldwide antiterrorism coalition," it says.

The paper, nevertheless, insists the air strikes should continue in the meantime. "Hesitancy will be understood by the Bin Laden gang as an invitation to more terrorism," it says.

British dilemma

Geneva's Le Temps looks at what it sees as Britain's dilemma, which was highlighted by Foreign Minister Jack Straw's recent visit to Cairo when President Hosni Mubarak complained that the UK was still playing host to several terrorists.

It adds that Paris was also urging London to hand over a suspected Algerian terrorist who had been detained for five years.

"The 11 September attacks are certainly going to speed up the handling of these cases, which suggest that Britain is a haven for Islamist terrorists", it says.

However, while new antiterrorism measures were presented in parliament on Monday, "the debate flared up around the possible limitation of individual freedoms", it adds.

Highlighting the paradox that British cities are full of video cameras observing people and that neighbourhood watch schemes are growing, the paper concludes that Britain has still not managed to choose between security, informing on people and individual freedoms.

Neither right nor wrong

An editorial in Paris's Le Monde compares Gaullist President Jacques Chirac's speech at the opening of the UNESCO conference on Monday and a book published by Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's principle private secretary, Olivier Schrameck, criticizing aspects of the "cohabitation" between Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin.

Some people, it says, "will be surprised by the president's conversion to a point of view which could just as easily be that of the humanist left-wing, concerned about the North-South divide".

Others "will be surprised by this public trial, which has come about all of a sudden, of the cohabitation by one of its main architects".

"Each side will suspect the other of campaigning," it says, referring to next year's presidential elections at which Jospin and Chirac are likely to face each other.

Welcoming these opinions in light of current events and saying both men are right, it adds "it is important that those who lead us endeavour to think freely".

Captain's prerogative

Stockholm's Svenska Dagbladet upholds an aeroplane captain's right to refuse to carry individual passengers following an incident at the weekend when three Arabic men were refused passage on a flight from Sweden to Spain.

This is not to say that the captain acted correctly, the paper says - that will be decided by the discrimination ombudsman.

"If it turns out that it was wrong then compensation will of course have to be paid. But to even consider limiting captains' responsibility for safety as a result would be to play roulette with all our lives as the stake," the paper concludes.

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