European Press Review: Questioning Bush's African Safari

The French daily Le Monde wrote that the Bush administration has, until recently, been hesitant about or openly against providing aid to help build up these nations. "Only the realization that terrorist and criminal networks in Africa had found refuge in some of these 'failed states' did America's view of the region change," it noted. The paper concluded that this new point of view might represent a help for Africa.

That sentiment was echoed by the Russian daily, Kommersant. It said the president had understood that the world is too small to leave anywhere unsupervised. "The terrorist organization Al-Qaeda finances its operations through illegal trade in diamonds from Liberia and Sierra Leone. International terrorists go about their business in Kenya, Tanzania and other African countries because governments there are too weak," its editors wrote. They went on to say there was a second reason why Bush should not ignore Africa; oil. The paper pointed out that the strike in Nigeria this year pushed world prices up.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, agreed that oil is at the top of Bush's agenda in Africa, alongside U.S. military bases. It suggested that there's more to Bush's offer of help to HIV/AIDS sufferers and better access to U.S. markets than meets the eye. The paper said the benefits to African producers are cancelled out by government subsidies to U.S. farmers, which amount to more than the total product of some African economies, and three times the amount of aid given by the U.S. to African nations.

Other European newspapers looked at the failed attempt by doctors in Singapore to separate the conjoined Iranian twins. The Dutch daily, Algemeen Dagblad, took a philosophical view. It said the twins were faced with the question "Must we accept that our lives will never be as complete as those of normal people?" It said the young women answered "no" of their own free will, and that they had every right to do so. But it also wrote "What is most bitter is that they were inseparable in life, but have found their individuality in death."

The Spanish daily, El Mundo, said the doctors could not be blamed. It acknowledged that the twins' tragic death has triggered a debate about ethics. But it argued that there was broad agreement that the doctors' decision deserved respect, since it was the twins themselves who begged for the operation, and that not even the threat of death could persuade them not to risk it.