Reactions to Ahmadinedjad

In the FAZ Michael Jeismann comments on the recent statements by Iranian President, Ahmadinedjad. He criticises the "incredibly restrained reaction from the German government". Jeismann believes: "The Iranian President's statements can be read as a challenge or an incitement to war on an international level – and under these circumstances the European Union and the United Nations are expected to sanction these kinds of inflamatory remarks. Otherwise all commemoration days and memorials become worthless coins in the currency of self-righteousness."


In the taz, German EU politician for the Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, defends his suggestion to ban Iran from the World Cup and turn the Iranians against their president. "The best idea would be to make Iran play Israel in both a first leg and return match. This would force the Iranians to recognise the flag, the national anthem and with it the reality of Israeli existence in football terms and thus in real terms as well."


In die Welt Mariam Lau comments on the Iranian President's recent utterances: "The world is asking itself whether the Iranian President is planning a war against Israel and if he is, whether he is speaking for himself or on behalf of the regime? Whether after Arafat's death and Saddam Hussein's removal, he wants to position himself as a new Saladin of the Islamic world? Or has he lost it completely?"


Die Tageszeitung, 16.12.2005

Daniel Bax reports from the Jordanian capital Amman on "360 degrees", an independent radio programme initiated by two Germans, Klaas Glenewinkel and Anja Wollenberg, to promote a cultural exchange between Iraq and its neighbours. "Since Saddam's seizure of power in 1979 cultural life has stagnated in Iraq and this isolation was increased by the international embargo which followed the first Gulf War in 1991," writes Bax. According to Glenewinkel: "Film production suffered most under the embargo. You can talk to Iraqis for hours about certain films. And then at some stage you realise that they have never actually seen the film, they've only read about it."