European press review

Much international news in the European papers today, which devote space to the Middle East, the Koreas and China. Closer to home, there's the small matter of the "nuclear bomb" Britain has planted in Gibraltar and a blunt UN report on Kosovo's future. Finally, there's news of the 'salsa craze' hitting Germany

Middle East needs new leaders

An editorial in the Portuguese Publico worries that the Middle East may be running out of leaders willing to talk.

The paper says that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in inviting the man it calls "the superhawk Ariel Sharon" into a government of national unity, "shows that his political ambition takes precedence over the fate of the people to whom he promised peace and security".

Having dropped Arafat as an interlocutor, Barak "can hardly expect to find flexible peace negotiators among the leaders of the present Intifada".

"If there's no sudden about-turn, peace is only likely when, from among Palestinians and Israelis, new leaders emerge who are capable of accepting that one side's right to nationhood does not entail the denial of the other side's right to exist," it concludes.

North Korea: diplomatic war ahead?

Luxembourg's Tageblatt says that "North Korea's bid to break out of its isolation risks turning it into a battlefield for the diplomats of the world's three main powers... as they vie among themselves to assert their influence".

President Vladimir Putin of Russia was first off the mark with his visit last July, the paper notes. And last Monday, just a few hours before the arrival in Pyongyang of American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Chinese defence minister, Chi Haotian, was "reminding his North Korean opposite number of the benefits of the military alliance between the two countries".

Chi Haotian's visit, the paper points out, was the first in seven years by a member of the Beijing government.

China: better in than out

France's Le Monde looks ahead to next month's talks to clear last-minute hurdles in China's 14-year effort to join the World Trade Organization, (WTO).

Of the hurdles themselves, the paper notes that "the chorus of praise which over the past year greeted a series of Chinese bilateral agreements" with the West, has given way to "anxiety and tension", with Beijing standing accused of "defaulting on its undertakings" and "plotting to preserve its Great Wall intact around the industries it seeks to protect".

"The West is probably under no illusion - at least we must so hope - about any intention on Beijing's part to combine an economic opening up with a political one," the paper says.

The past 20 years of "China's initiation into capitalism" were "frankly not conclusive", the paper says, but the West's leaders nevertheless "believe that it's better to have China inside than out".

"Left outside... China is uncontrollable, whereas inside it can be influenced," it concludes.

Chirac prods EU's Prodi out of limelight

The chances of the EU infuencing China would seem to be rather dimmer. A commentator in Turin's La Stampa accuses the president of France of practically sabotaging last Monday's Beijing summit between the European Union and China.

There had been a "clear intention" to make the summit a show of "the European Union's strength and unity," says La Stampa.

"But it didn't happen, and it was all the fault of the French," the paper charges. "The TV pictures clearly showed President Jacques Chirac pushing (European Commission President Romano) Prodi aside as he was about to shake hands with Chinese dignitaries."

Under Chirac's control, the summit turned into a round of bilateral talks between China and France, "as if the other 14 countries of the Union were no more than the mere French-fried potatoes garnishing the Parisian roast", says the commentator in La Stampa.

Ivory coast leader digs own grave

Berlin's Die Tageszeitung says that Ivory Coast's military ruler, General Robert Guei, is the latest ruler - after Peru's Alberto Fujimori and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic - to be defeated by his own attempt to rig elections.

"With his manipulation," the paper says, "Guei dug his own grave."

The paper says that by excluding all the serious opposition politicians from the elections, Guei ended up making voters to opt for Laurent Gbagbo, the sole remaining opposition candidate.

It says, however, that it is by no means certain whether General Guei will accept the results.

And even if he does, the paper says, Gbagbo's brand of nationalism may not be any better for Ivory Coast.

"His policies have consisted in an intolerant nationalism, which rejected the tradition of the Ivory Coast's openness to the world and multiculturalism."

Britain plants "nuclear bomb" in Spain

The British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless surfaces on the front-page of the Spanish daily La Razon. The vessel has been stuck in Gibraltar since May and the headline says the reason is that it "has a number of cracks in the nuclear reactor circuit".

The paper reports that the problem "is much more serious than was said initially" and consists of "materiel fatigue caused by a manufacturing defect". Last week's Britain's entire hunter-killer submarine fleet was withdrawn after experts examined the stricken Tireless.

La Razon says the options now being considered are "towing it to Britain as nuclear scrap or changing the reactor on the Rock". It says Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar will discuss the issue with Tony Blair when he visits Madrid on Friday.

In an editorial entitled "Take the Tireless away", the paper says the submarine "is now essentially a nuclear bomb containing nearly 220 kilos of enriched uranium anchored on Spanish soil under British colonial domination."

"Given the secrecy and lack of information from London, the government must demand clear and precise information which can clear up every last suspicion and ensure that the British take this mobile nuclear power plant away from our coast", the paper says.

UN "wake-up call" on Kosovo

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau says that a recommendation by a United Nations commission that Kosovo be granted what it called "conditional independence" is a wake-up call to the international community.

The paper says that the commission decided that the hatred and alienation between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo runs so deep as to rule out a joint community of the two nations.

"The UN, European Union and NATO would do well to take this verdict seriously," the paper says.

"It may raise serious questions regarding an increasing tendency towards small states in Bosnia and Montenegro," it says, "but it will make more sense to busy oneself with the implementation of realistic aims than to pursue the phantoms of one's own wishful thinking."

Germans go Salsa mad

The Hungarian Nepszabadsag reports that Germany is going Cuba crazy. It says trendy Berliners are strutting their stuff to the island's tropical rhythms, the popularity of Cuban sandy beaches is steadily rising among German tourists and business ties are also developing.

The paper suggests some connection with the screening of German film director Wim Wenders's documentary on the Buena Vista Social Club at the latest Berlin film festival, but goes further.

"It is not unusual for Germans to snatch business opportunities from behind the back of the big ally, by taking advantage of the US giant's slow reactions", the paper says in a reference to US sanctions.

It recalls a recent promise by German industry chief Hans-Olaf Henkel's that they will "modernize everything that has anything to do with transport - airports, railways, air cargo transport, telecommunication and the energy sector".

The paper says that the German development minister's recent Cuban visit showed that "Germany has had enough of Cuba's isolation and that it would start a dialogue".

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