ITALY

ITALY
La Repubblica, Rome, Aug. 20: If the attack on the U.N. building carries Saddam's signature it could be a calculated warning to the United Nations, a body that has now recognized the Anglo-American occupation and is becoming more involved in it.
But there's another possible explanation. Hitting the U.N. representatives was intended to show that the Americans are inept occupiers, that they can't guarantee security, water and electric power. They are not even able protect their guests. It was a bloody insult from an invisible Saddam to George W. Bush.
Alarming
The fact that a suicide bomber may have carried out the attack on the U.N. is alarming. It is not typical of the Iraqi regime, which never counted among its ranks religious fanatics ready to sacrifice themselves. The Baath was traditionally a lay party, rabidly anti-clerical.
Even if in the last few years Saddam was seen in mosques proclaiming jihad, he never became a fundamentalist.
But in recent weeks, Iraq has been a target for those who want to hit America. And among those are Islamic terrorists. For them this is a unique opportunity: America is no longer a remote object, it's now within their grasp.
CHINA
The Standard, Hong Kong, Aug. 19: The decision by mainland authorities to put civet cats officially back on dinner tables in China -- ending a ban imposed at the height of the SARS scare -- is an act of either staggering recklessness or great cunning.
It said mainland Chinese gourmets would certainly welcome the decision, but it warned SARS threat remains.
Winter is not far off, and among health authorities there is a real concern that the disease could make a deadly reappearance once the cold sets in.
Ongoing investigation
It mentioned an ongoing investigation by a team of 14 foreign and Chinese experts. The team is tracking SARS toward its source and learning more about the animals and their contacts with humans.
When it does so, and if the preliminary findings concerning civet cats and wild animals are confirmed as it suspected, the ban may then be "reluctantly" re-imposed as a demonstration of China's resolve to tackle the problem.
BRITAIN
The Guardian, London, Aug. 20: If there is any organization in Iraq about which it can be said unequivocally that it is there to help, it is the United Nations. The bombing of its Baghdad headquarters is thus doubly a tragedy, both for those who lost their lives -- including the U.N.'s most senior envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello -- and for the people of Iraq, whose future was as much a target in the attack as was the world body.
It is also further and startling evidence of the vulnerability of the occupation regime to what appear to be new tactics by the diverse saboteurs who have harassed it from the start and who may have more recently been joined by extremists coming from outside.
Iraqi solution
Sen. John McCain said in Baghdad yesterday even before the U.N. headquarters were hit that more American troops might be needed, an expansion that would be deeply unpalatable to the Bush administration. If more troops are needed, American or British, they will no doubt be found. The ultimate solution, however, has to be an Iraqi one. Real security can only be achieved by the coalition forces and the Iraqis working in tandem, in policing, in intelligence and, eventually, in military action. In its efforts to expand the Iraqi police and lay the basis for a new Iraqi army, the occupation regime has recognized this truth, but there is unhappily a long way to go.
Yet there is another side to these events. They are not likely to lead to a general repudiation of the occupation, and may even stiffen Iraqi support for the Americans and British, albeit in a despairing way. Whatever the imperfections of the project to bring stability and normality back into Iraqi life, it can be presumed to be still preferable to the chaos and bloodshed which is all that the spoilers have to offer.