MEDIA REACTION: AFGHANISTAN, CLIMATE, GUANTANAMO,

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 001591 STATE FOR INR/R/MR, EUR/PAPD, EUR/PPA, EUR/CE, INR/EUC, INR/P, SECDEF FOR USDP/ISA/DSAA, DIA FOR DC-4A VIENNA FOR CSBM, CSCE, PAA "PERISHABLE INFORMATION -- DO NOT SERVICE" SIPDIS E.0. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KMDR AF GM KGHG US CU UK IS SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: AFGHANISTAN, CLIMATE, GUANTANAMO, BRITAIN-ISRAEL;BERLIN ¶1. Lead Stories Summary ¶2. Climate Change ¶3. Guantanamo ¶4. Afghanistan/Sep 4 airstrikes ¶5. British arrest warrant against Livni ¶1. Lead Stories Primetime TV newscasts and Frankfurter Allgemeine led with the Constitutional CourtQs review of the law requiring telecommunication companies to keep track of cell phone and email records for six months. Sueddeutsche led with a report on U.S. plans to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. Other papers led with reports on social benefits and financial topics. Editorials focused on data protection issues and the debate about the September 4 airstrikes in Afghanistan. ¶2. Climate Change German media expressed new skepticism about the chance to reach a binding agreement in Copenhagen. In particular German Environment Minister Roettgen is quoted with critical remarks on the U.S. Frankfurter Allgemeine headlined: QBerlin: China and America threaten the summitQ and Tagesspiegel fronted: QU.S. vs. China: Power struggle at climate summit. Frankfurter Allgemeine opined: QGiven the complexity of the project, the concerns of the Chancellor are justified. The interests of 193 countries must be taken into consideration. Not all of them are interested in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Some want to preserve prosperity, others want to achieve it. Both will work only if everybody makes concessions. The Europeans, and above all the German government, have made far-reaching promises. However, the two largest emitters, China and America, are hesitating. They want to get more out of it and do less for the world than they would be obliged to due to their historic and economic responsibility. The EU must not allow them to jump on the bandwagon. The EU has put its cards on the table in order to do more against climate change. This must be it. The Chancellor must keep her nerves and her wallet closed on Friday. Hessische/Niedersaechsische Allgemeine remarked: QState and government leaders will fly into Copenhagen today. The Europeans may increase their efforts to cut carbon dioxide by 2020 to drag others along, for instance, the U.S. and China. To reach a success at the summit and to save the world, there are other important things apart from the question of how quickly the worldQs biggest climate sinners leave the fatal path of Qmore growth by more carbon dioxide.Q However, without tough and verifiable reduction guarantees by China and the U.S., everything else will be worthless. ¶3. Guantanamo Frankfurter Allgemeine editorialized: QThe detention camp of Guantanamo will not be closed yet, despite ObamaQs announcement to transfer detainees to a prison in Illinois soon: the federal state does not yet own the prison, it is not big enough for all of them, and the Congress must approve the transfer of the detainees In addition, the government only wants to transfer some of the detainees to American soil. It still hopes that allied countries will accept others. The difficulties Guantanamo has are not insurmountable, but considerable. Would Obama have announced to close Guantanamo if he had known them during his inauguration? Maybe, maybe not, because Obama was interested in a symbolic gesture and the world had longed for it. Die Welt carried a front-page editorial: QObama has now decided to BERLIN 00001591 002 OF 003 go for a small and symbolic act. A number of the 210 Guantanamo detainees will be transferred to a prison in Illinois. This will not be today or tomorrow. However, it signals that the President takes action and continues to pursue his goal. Sueddeutsche Zeitung remarked: QNobody knows when President Obama will fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo. It is certain that the decision of the White House to acquire an old prison west of Chicago and to transfer some of the terror suspects from Cuba to that place is only a small step towards its closure. Nothing much will change after the planned renaming of the Thomson Correctional Center into a new counterterrorism center for most of the 200 men who are still in Guantanamo. The problem of Guantanamo, which Obama inherited from his predecessor and which is so difficult to resolve, has only little to do with its location. This applies particularly to those 60 detainees the U.S. government believes to be dangerous terrorists, but who cannot be charged in front of an orderly court because the evidence is not sufficient or they were tortured. They willQand thatQs where Obama is not much different from BushQremain in an American prison for an undefined period of time and without being charged. This prison will just be in the cold of Illinois and not on the warm island of Cuba. The situation of 100 Guantanamo detainees, who the Pentagon would like to release rather today than tomorrow because they are believed to be innocent, is similarly gloomy because no country wants to take them. They will also remain in prison for the time being. As long as Obama has not found a solution for those two groups, the problem of Guantanamo will still exist. Changing locations does not change anything. ¶4. Afghanistan/Sep 4 airstrikes In a front-page editorial, Tagesspiegel remarked: QChancellor Merkel has seriously contributed to the current malaise. For reasons of proportion and stability, she allowed the obviously incapable former Defense Minister Jung to serve an entire parliamentary period. Fearing the sentiment of the people, she avoided the topic of Afghanistan This reflects her personal style of governmentQand it is now coming back like a boomerang and Merkel is now paying dearly for her own system. This is, however, the greatest challenge of her chancellery. From the other side of the Atlantic, Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama is urgently calling for new troops in this possibly decisive stage of the mission. It would be bitter if Merkel now rejects this because of the nervous sentiment in Germany. Sueddeutsche Zeitung editorialized: QOnly if the German government stops its secrecy will there be true transparency. The German government cannot change the fact that NATO wants the ISAF report to remain classified. However, nobody would stop the government from issuing its own comprehensive report. Under the headline Qmission impossible,Q Frankfurter Allgemeine noted in a front-page editorial: QEnough of the contradictions and little pieces of information. The investigation committee must not just shed light on the events that night in the Kunduz riverbed and the affair that followed, it must also draw its own conclusions. The Bundestag has the duty to check whether the mandate, the equipment and the moral support, with which it has already sent 73,000 German soldiers to Afghanistan, sufficiently match the situation. We can have our doubts about it. The nature of the mission in the north has fundamentally changed, almost unnoticed by the disinterested German public. The stabilization mission has turned into a war mission. ¶5. British arrest warrant against Livni Many German papers report on the British arrest warrant against former Israeli Foreign Minister Livni. Under the headline QBritish arrogance,Q Die Welt editorialized: QThe scandalous thing about BERLIN 00001591 003 OF 003 LondonQs decision is that no British judge would even think of arresting German, American or even former British ministers, although the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan is higher than those who died in Gaza. This is about de-legitimizing Israel. A British tragedy. MURPHY