European press review

At a time when many of Europe's papers are mulling the possibility of a US-led intervention in Iraq, several focus on Moscow's involvement in the breakaway Russian region of Chechnya.

The German Sueddeutsche Zeitung considers the fact that Russian state media have accused Georgia of complicity in last weekend's incursion by Chechen rebel fighters into southern Chechnya.

Georgia in turn has accused Moscow of ordering air strikes in the country's northern Pankisi Gorge.

Rebel pursuit

The paper wonders if Russia "has the right" to violate Georgia's sovereignty in pursuit of rebels.

"Politically this question is easy to answer," the paper says. "The United States has provided the Russians with the argument of its example in Afghanistan." So if Russia chooses to attack, Moscow can always point to the war in Afghanistan to justify its actions, it says.

The Berliner Zeitung thinks the current situation could work to Moscow's advantage.

It points out that the Kremlin's adviser for Chechen affairs, Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, has demanded joint Russian-Georgian military action against the Chechen rebels. At the same time, the paper notes that there are 200 American advisers in the Georgian army.

It seems double standards are popular in Saudi Arabia

Trud

This would make the campaign something of a "Russo-American operation". Thus, with American support, Russia could strengthen its influence in the Caucasus, the paper says.

Double standards

In Russia itself, papers are unanimously indignant at the jail sentences of six and four years handed down by a court in Saudi Arabia to two Chechen brothers who hijacked a Russian airliner to Medina.

"Against all expectations," Komsomolskaya Pravda says, "the verdict against the hijackers was not as severe as Russia would have wanted." As the paper sees it, "few people would have thought that a Muslim country would not use capital punishment in the case of a hijacking that led to the deaths of two people".

"It seems double standards are popular in Saudi Arabia," Trud agrees, while other papers compare the sentence to what you would expect for stealing fruit from a market stall.

Aliens in Spain

Putting aside worries about global strife, a Spanish paper takes a charitable view of humanity closer to home.

In an editorial entitled Welcome, the El Pais says that the country owes a debt of gratitude to the immigrants who are helping it "maintain its demographic balance".

As the paper sees it, "a country's population is its greatest asset", but in Spain's case this asset was not only shrinking but ageing, to the extent that by 2050 there would only be 31 million Spaniards left and they would be the oldest population on Earth.

But thanks to immigration, it adds, the figure now stands at nearly 41 million, two million up on 10 years ago.

"This should be borne in mind," the paper stresses, "by some politicians committed to an apocalyptic view of migratory phenomena."

Darkness at noon

Journalists grab information from any source and aren't too worried if it's true

Vostochno-Sibirskaya Pravda

It has gone dark in Moscow, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports. A shift in the wind has brought smoke and dust from peat bogs which have been burning since late spring right into the capital.

"This summer has been setting records for the number of peat bogs set ablaze: a thick smog has reached the city, reminding Muscovites of the fires of 30 years ago when the whole of Moscow was smothered in dark blue smoke," the paper says.

Many papers point out, however, that the Moscow region has been let off lightly compared to other parts of the country. "The situation is worst of all in the far east," Rossiyskaya Gazeta says.

Or is it? The firemen whom local Siberian paper Vostochno-Sibirskaya Pravda spoke to thought media reports blew the fires out of all proportion.

"The situation is completely under control and gives no cause for alarm," the paper quoted an exasperated fire officer in Irkutsk as saying. "Journalists grab information from any source and aren't too worried about how true it is."

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