AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: July 10, 2007

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SUBJECT: AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: July 10, 2007


New Dispute over Child Benefit Payments


1. A new quarrel among Austria's political parties has emerged, as
random checks revealed that up to forty percent of mothers in
Salzburg province were above the legally permitted additional annual
income limits while receiving child benefit payments. While Family
Minister Andrea Kdolsky and the People's Party are calling for the
law to be observed and payments to be returned by families exceeding
the income limit, all other parties are urging compliance in order
to prevent hardship cases, particularly among young parents.
Mass-circulation tabloid Kronen Zeitung, reporting like all Austrian
media on the controversy over child benefit payments, runs the
front-page headline "Kdolsky wants young mothers to pay up," and
suggests that thousands may be asked to return child benefit
payments because their additional income was too high. The daily
urges Minister Kdolsky to solve the dilemma, warning that the
problem "must not be taken out on young mothers." Independent
provincial daily Salzburger Nachrichten headlines "Child benefit
payments: Call for no limits on additional incomes." Salzburg's
provincial governor Gabi Burgstaller from the SPOe as well as the
Greens, the FPOe and the BZOe have all demanded that the limits on
additional income for child benefit recipients be axed. Likewise,
mass-circulation tabloid Oesterreich calls for an "amnesty for
mothers." In view of the botched-up job politicians had made of the
issue, Austrian women are urging Minister Kdolsky "not to punish the
mothers for it," the daily says.


Pakistani Army Storms Mosque


2. In the Pakistani capital Islamabad, troops have stormed the Red
Mosque, where armed Islamist militants have been under siege for
several months. The army said that up to 40 militants were killed in
the operation; three soldiers have also been killed and at least 15
injured. Earlier, 20 children managed to escape from the mosque,
where many women and children are still said to be held hostage and
used as human shields by the Islamists. Pakistan's Information
Minister emphasized that force was used only after all other means
had failed to end the standoff.
Reporting like all Austrian media on recent developments in
Pakistan, commentator Elisa Vass says on ORF radio early morning
news Morgenjournal that the "militant Islamists who have dug
themselves in with their leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the mosque
complex are putting up massive resistance." Pakistan's leader
Pervez Musharraf had "warned against a bloodbath shortly before the
military began storming the Red Mosque, stressing that everything
needed to be done to keep the number of civilian victims as low as
possible. It remains to be seen whether this can be achieved, and we
can only speculate what is really going on inside, behind the
mosque's walls. It has been rumored, though, that many more people
have lost their lives than the government admits." Eyewitnesses are
talking about a "bloodbath" at the mosque, Vass adds.


US Iraq Chief Warns Of Long War


3. The head of the US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has
said that fighting the insurgency there is a "long term endeavor,"
which could take decades. At the same time, speaking to British news
network BBC, Gen. Petraeus said there was evidence that a major
security operation, the recent so-called troop surge, was producing
results on the ground.
ORF radio early morning news Morgenjournal quotes General Petraeus
as explaining that as a result of the recent troop surge, in
"Baghdad, for example, June was the lowest month of sectarian deaths
in a year." Also, the number of "car bombs had come down for months
in a row. I don't know whether we can keep sustaining that specific
trend, but that is what we are working on doing."
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Democrat-controlled Senate has
begun debating amendments to the annual military budget designed to
put pressure on the White House to start withdrawing American troops
form Iraq. A number of high-profile Republicans have also broken
ranks with President Bush on his Iraq policy, ORF radio says.
According to liberal daily Der Standard, US media are reporting on
debates within the White House on a partial Iraq pullout. By
mid-July, the US government will have to present an interim report
on progress in Iraq. A first draft suggests that the government in
Baghdad has failed to implement every single goal President George
Bush had put on the agenda. Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
is meanwhile warning that an early US withdrawal would lead to
all-out civil war in Iraq. However, with more and more Republicans
in Congress distancing themselves from President Bush's Iraq policy,
and Democrats having launched their own offensive of debates and


votes on the issue, the US President is increasingly on the
defensive in this matter, the Standard says.


Al Qaeda Threatens Tehran


4. Iraqi Sunni extremists have warned Iran not to continue its
support of Shiite militants in Iraq. Should Tehran fail to terminate
its attempts at gaining control, a long war would be the
consequence, said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the so-called
"Islamic State in Iraq," an umbrella organization of radical Sunni
groups under al Qaeda leadership. The organization considers itself
to be the Islamic rival government of the Shiite-dominated
government in Baghdad.
Reporting on the Iraqi al Qaeda representatives' threat against
Iran, centrist daily Die Presse argues that the situation in Iraq is
becoming "increasingly confusing." Not only have the Sunni
extremists issued their threat against Tehran to stop trying to
influence Iraq, there are indications that Turkey is again
considering whether to invade the Kurdish-dominated northern part of
Iraq, the daily explains. Both the US and the Iraqi government have
meanwhile warned Turkey against launching a military operation in
northern Iraq, and the President of the Kurdish autonomous region,
Massoud Barzani, has said any invasion will be met with resistance,
according to the Presse. Likewise, liberal daily Der Standard
reports on the Iraqi threat against Iran, with Omar al-Baghdadi, the
leader of the so-called "Islamic State in Iraq" giving Iranian
leadership "two months to terminate their presence in Iraq." The
reason for this ultimatum is that al-Baghdadi's Sunni group wants to
end the support of predominantly Shiite Iran for the Iraqi Shiites,
the daily says.
McCaw