DENMARK

DENMARK

Politiken, Copenhagen, Nov. 19: Barack Obama, the United States’ next president, plans to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Good idea.

The prison has been a blot on American and international rule of law. Obama will also ensure that the United States doesn’t use torture neither in Guantanamo or elsewhere. High time.

The America of (President George) Bush tried to promote the democratic rule of law while people were detained without trial and tortured has been an affront to American values and a gross violation of prisoners’ human rights.

Moral leadership

The fact that Obama will use the shutting down of Guantanamo to try to regain the moral leadership is a very obvious and urgent step.

All detainees at Guantanamo have the right to return home to their own communities. They must receive a certificate stating that they have not been convicted of anything, just as we must assume that Barack Obama will arrange for compensation.

Their own governments should then welcome their citizens and protect them against more harm.

LATVIA

Diena, Riga, Nov. 19: Last week, the World Bank released a forecast that Russia’s economy will worsen due to lower crude oil prices and capital flight. ... A week ago Russia’s finance minister announced that the budget must be adjusted to reflect $50 per barrel oil. The “fat years” are gone.

On this backdrop political bustle has begun — one showing that confusion, perhaps even a silent panic, has descended on Russia’s ruling brigade. Two weeks ago in a speech to the Federation Council, President Dmitry Medvedev proposed amending the constitution so that State Duma (lower house of parliament) deputies’ term would be extended to five years, and the president’s to six.

The amendments, naturally, will not affect the current president — they are his gift to the next one.

Return to the throne

Work on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin throne began even before Medvedev’s election. It was not clear how this change would be carried out “in natural circumstances,” but the world financial crisis interfered.

The prime minister’s seat, which to Putin and his team seemed good enough in the spring, in times of crisis becomes a drag. The average Russian citizen sees the economy as a result of the government’s and, most of all, the premier’s work. But the presidency is a position beyond everyday worries, which is why Putin, in all probability, will soon return to the Kremlin.

BRITAIN

The Independent, London, Nov. 19: No supply chain is quite as lethal and destructive as that of cocaine. That was the message from the Colombian Vice-President, Francisco Santos Calderon, at a meeting of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Belfast (on) Nov. 18.

Mr. Calderon informed his audience that drug production is causing environmental disaster in Colombia, with illegal cultivators destroying 200,000 hectares of forest each year to produce the coca plant. But his purpose was not merely to draw our attention to this crime, but to ram home our own complicity in it. “If you snort a gram of cocaine,” he said, “you are destroying four square metres of pristine rainforest.”

Hypocrisy

Mr. Calderon is right to point to the hypocrisy of those who claim to be environmentally conscious, yet see nothing wrong in indulging in a few lines of “blow” at the weekend. He is also justified in emphasising that anyone who takes cocaine is indirectly helping to fund brutal drug trafficking groups and human rights-abusing rebel militias which have a stake in the trade, such as the Farc in Colombia.

This is one area in which there has actually been some good news of late.

But we need to recognise there is only so much that can be done at the supply end of the drugs trade. Poor countries will always struggle to control traffickers.

It is up to us in the rich world to take a lead by staunching the demand for drugs through rehabilitation programmes and other radical measures.

JAPAN

Japan Times, Tokyo, Nov. 14: If there were any doubts about the severity of the economic downturn and its impact on the “real economy,” they were put to rest last week by reports from U.S. automakers.

A bailout is almost certain to follow, but it should come with conditions: American automakers must retool and reorganize to build cars for the 21st century.

Not surprisingly, heads of the Big Three automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — are pushing the U.S. government for help. ...

Pressure to act

Will the government provide the aid? Most likely, yes. While the Bush administration has been reluctant to open the coffers, President-elect Barack Obama noted the plight of the auto industry in his press conference last week, highlighting the presence of Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm on his economic advisory team. But the most important factor guiding the thinking of lawmakers is jobs.

A GM bankruptcy would cost 2.5 million jobs from the automaker, its suppliers and related businesses. As many as 3 million jobs are tied to the industry nationwide. The pressure to act is mounting.

Auto manufacturing is a strategic industry: not only because of job creation, but because of the technology it spins off and the skills it requires. No government can afford to abandon this sector. The question then is whether automakers will abuse that bottom line and use it to avoid making adjustments that are required in a new economic environment. If so, automakers can remain masters of their own destinies. If not, they will continue to be overwhelmed by a rapidly changing world.