Cablegate: Austrian Media Highlights: October 4, 2007

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SUBJECT: AUSTRIAN MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS: October 4, 2007

Government Takes Tough Stance on Foreigners' Right to Stay

1. After the latest deportations of families to Kosovo, the
government rallied behind Minister of the Interior G|nther Platter
on Wednesday. The OeVP ministers reiterated Platter's position that
"laws have to enforced," while Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer backed
up Platter's proposal that the provincial governors will have more
of a say with regard to deportations. The recent cases which led to
a rekindling of the discussion about foreigners' right to stay may
just be the beginning of a deportation wave. The Ministry of the
Interior allegedly instructed the authorities in the regional
districts to speed up the processing of old cases. [ORF online]
According to independent daily "Salzburger Nachrichten," the
security authorities have been given orders to see to it that the
persons concerned are deported as soon as possible after a negative
asylum decision. The Ministry allegedly also encouraged the
authorities to plan monthly targeted actions to increase the number
of people that are brought out of the country. In the meantime, the
political pressure on Minister of the Interior is increasing - the
Greens demonstrated before the Ministry on Wednesday and have
threatened parliamentary action. Representatives from the Greens,
Caritas and other NGOs have criticized that the new criteria for a
humanitarian right to stay have not been put on the table. The
Ministry of the Interior, on the other hand, refers to the paper as
an "internal working draft" that must not be passed along. The daily
refers to the fact that it received a form which aid organizations
have judged as containing "nothing really new" and which certainly
did not represent a new catalogue of criteria.

Teachers Protest against Comprehensive School

2. The debate about comprehensive schools is heating up in Austria
with teachers pitted against Minister for Education Claudia Schmied.
The former rejects a uniform comprehensive school for all students
aged 10 to 14 - which stands in contrast to the present system where
students are divided up into different school types at age 10. The
Minister, on the other hand, wants to stick to her schedule and get
her school experiment law passed in the Ministerial Council end of
October. The teachers are proposing to hold information sessions on
Thursday and Friday. [Die Presse, p. 1; other Austrian media]
Meanwhile, support for the comprehensive schools has come from the
respective EU Commission for Education, which, in its latest yearly
report, presses for reforms of school education as well as research
and development, where it has established deficits which could lower
the competitiveness of the EU states, particularly in comparison
with the US. Centrist daily "Die Presse" reports that, with regard
to Austria, the EU Commission recommends the introduction of the
comprehensive school - here it refers to OECD reports according to
which countries with selective school systems produce on average
worse results than those with comprehensive systems. Likewise, the
Commission points out that those children with a migrant or
lower-class background would benefit from a comprehensive system
where the selection of a school type takes place at 14 years of age.
EU Commissioner for Education Jn Figel concludes in his report that
the EU member states ought to "double their efforts" to enable the
EU to cope with the challenges of he 21st century.

Mentally Deranged - or Bosnian Extremist

3. Aslan C., who was arrested on Monday after a failed attack on the
US Embassy in Vienna, could be judged certifiably insane - in which
case he would probably be institutionalized. He has been taken into
custody and his mental state will be examined by a psychiatrist,
announced the Vienna prosecutor's office. It has not yet been
determined whether he has indeed contacts to the radical-Islamic
scene. [Die Presse, p. 12] In the meantime, the second suspect in
the case, Mehmed D. has also been taken into custody. The prosecutor
has declared that there is "no evidence" of a "top-class terror
cell" of which the two suspects are members. [Kurier, p. 12] In a
statement to the press, US Ambassador Susan McCaw pointed out the
necessity for constant vigilance: "Terrorism knows no borders" and
that "even in a beautiful and peaceful city like Vienna one always
has to be vigilant."

Breakthrough in Seoul and Beijing

4. Talks between the two political leaders of South and North Korea
may result in an end to the state of war that still persists between
the two states 50 years after the end of military actions. Roh
Moo-Hyun and Kim Jong-Il have declared their readiness to engage in
talks together with China and the US with the goal of working out a
formal peace treaty. Meanwhile, decisive progress was also achieved
in the six-party-talks in Beijing, where North Korea, for the first
time, committed itself in writing to rendering its nuclear
facilities in Yongbyon "dysfunctional" until the end of the year.
[Oe 1 radio morning news, Der Standard, p. 4; other Austrian media]
According to independent daily "Der Standard," an expert commission
headed by the US and North Korea will be formed in October and
initiate preparations to render the North Korean nuclear facilities
dysfunctional. The plan is that the US will oversee the measures and
also finance them. Until the end of the year, North Korea must
reveal all its nuclear facilities and programs and commit itself to
not passing on nuclear material, technology or know-how. In
exchange, the US and Japan will prepare for the normalization of
their relations with North Korea.

The Cowboys of Baghdad

5. FBI investigations are now under way to shed light on the role of
the private US security firm Blackwater which caused the death of
eleven civilians in Iraq in September 2007. While the Iraq
government calls this a "crime," Blackwater refers to the necessity
for self-defense. This incident is only one among numerous others:
All in all, Blackwater is supposed to have been involved in 195
shootings since 2005 in the course of which 16 Iraqis have died -
not including the previously-mentioned eleven civilians in the
September incident. Now, a committee of the House of Representatives
is dealing with the issue. [Die Presse, p.8]
McCaw

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