Destroying Obama

Le Figaro reports on the possible threat of kamikaze dogs in the battle against al-Qaeda. There is heightened concern about airport security after two bomb packages were intercepted on Friday sent from Yemen and headed for Chicago. The paper says the corpses of two dogs were discovered in the freight area of Baghdad airport a couple of years ago. It says the animals were stuffed with explosives and placed in kennels so they could be transported.

The Catholic daily La Croix leads on the al-Qaeda attack on Christians at the Sayidat al Najat Cathedral in Baghdad on Sunday. Several dozen people were killed in a hostage drama. The front page editorial says the Christian community has once again suffered because because of lack of Iraqi security arrangements.

It’s election time in the US and Libération is headlining "They want to destory Obama". It says extreme right-wing Republicans furious at the President are expected to gain in the mid-terms. The main article says the new force on the right in the US, the Tea Party, is using emotive vocabulary that goes from “Hitler” to “Witch” to “Death Panel” while the word “taxes” makes them see red. Libération's editorial says don’t write Obama off. Entitled “Hope”, it argues denigrating Obama has become a popular pastime in the US.

Le Figaro looks at the military agreements being signed in London between France and the UK today. The paper says both countries are “condemned to cooperate” to remain global powers.

The editorial by Pierre Rousselin says that without France and Britain, Europe doesn’t count militarily. The agreements, he says, are “a question of survival”.

Also in Le Figaro, there is an interview with Chinese president Hu Jintao who says growth in China is an opportunity for France and that “China’s policies on managing its growth are coherent and responsible”.

Retirement has been a national obsession the last few weeks in France with strikes and street protests against the government’s move to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62. Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France taps in to that by giving readers the nitty gritty detail of how to work out how much the state will pay. And talking of time passing, the same paper has a look at the Walkman which is now virtually a museum piece. SONY invented it in 1979 and has announced it won’t make or sell anymore in Japan.