LEBANON

LEBANON
Daily Star, Beirut, May 9: Two clear patterns have emerged in the post-Sept. 11 era: Arab countries have answered the call to help the United States track down genuine terrorists -- but the Americans have been anything but appreciative.
Explaining why this has been so requires more than an understanding of the familiar differences of opinion over what constitutes terror and what qualifies as legitimate resistance. The gap between the Arab world's actions and the Americans' responses demonstrates the former's inability to produce governments with the standing to make their case in the latter's terms.
Rotting regimes
The United States sees nothing but rot when it looks at Arab regimes, and with good reason: Many Arabs see precisely the same thing.
BRITAIN
Daily Telegraph, London, May 13: Most readers will have been horrified by the stories circulating at the weekend about "Stakeknife," who is said to have been a double-agent working for the British government while serving as one of the most powerful figures in the IRA.
Informers have always been an essential part of the state's armory against terrorism. For more than 30 years, the IRA has been in a continuous state of undeclared war against our democracy. During that time, informers have saved countless innocent lives and limited the damage that terrorists on both sides of the sectarian divide have been able to do.
You can be sure that many times during those years, the authorities have reluctantly sanctioned behaviour by their agents that no democratic country would willingly permit, if its citizens were not under attack.
Horrible calculation
It is a horrible calculation, but it is one that all world powers must make when they are challenged by terrorists.
Politics in Northern Ireland has always been beset by wild accusations -- and never more so than now.
GERMANY
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, May 13: The main problem of the European stability pact lies in that it was made by lawyers and politicians, not by economists. Legally and politically the issue is clear:
When the national deficit exceeds the 3 percent limit, then Brussels puts into motion warning mechanisms, rebukes and finally fines. Economically, there is everything to be said against this.
The three percent is set arbitrarily and the critical issue is not considered: whether a budget is chronically in deficit or only has a temporary problem. Some deficits, when they exist due to the combination of reform and tax cuts, are not a problem at all, just a part of the solution.
Strong euro
The debate about national deficit has nothing to do with the actual goal of the stability pact: limiting inflation and to protect the value of the euro. There is no sense of inflation on the horizon and the euro is bursting with strength. The tension between legal correctness and economic doubt takes its toll on the credibility of the stability pact.
Germany, and those others that will exceed this 3 percent limit, must consider this pact in its present form a necessary evil.