PRESS REVIEW – Friday, March 14: We look at reactions from the European papers as Vladimir Putin says he’s open to a ceasefire but says the conditions need to be reworked. For the press, the Russian President is dictating his terms. Also, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces sweeping changes to the National Health Service. And, a major breakthrough in research on Parkinson’s disease. Finally, Donatella Versace will step down from the Versace fashion house after thirty years.
Reactions from the European press over a proposed peace plan between Ukraine and Russia. President Vladimir Putin says he supports a US-brokered peace plan, in theory, without offering any guarantees. The feeling in the press is that he’s very much in control. French paper Liberation says a “cease-what” on its front page sarcastically. In its editorial, Libe notes that Putin was seen in military fatigues visiting Kursk earlier this week. He also appeared to make US envoy Steven Witkoff wait while he met with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Putin continues to play his “deadly game of poker against the West,” the daily says.
For Le Figaro, it’s the “yes, but” response of Putin that complicates Donald Trump’s hopes of brokering a ceasefire. The paper also picking up on Putin’s behaviour in Kursk, as one who believes he is close to victory. Le Soir, the Belgian paper notes Putin plays the ambiguity card and keeps the pressure on as he dictates his terms while der Taggespiegel sees it as an outright rejection by Putin of the ceasefire deal. Syrian cartoonist Fahd Bahady echoes those sentiments – portraying a Donald Trump dove of peace pooping all over Zelensky.
The Kyiv Independent chooses to focus on Volodymyr Zelensky’s evening address on Thursday in which he said Putin is afraid to admit to Donald Trump that he doesn’t want a ceasefire because he wants to keep killing Ukrainians. He also added that Moscow is demanding for impossible conditions to postpone ceasefire talks for as long as possible.
The Italian daily Corriere della Sera looks in detail at what Putin wants in exchange for a ceasefire: notably that Ukraine gives us four regions occupied by Russian soldiers, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well as provinces still in Ukraine’s hands. For the Italian daily, in Putin’s eyes, Europe should be relegated to a marginal role and his neo-imperial, 19th century vision corresponds to that of Trump.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made sweeping changes to the National Health Service, which is dominating front pages there. Starmer announced a restructuring plan to abolish the NHS England body to cut red tape and bring management of the health service under the health ministry. The move will lead to several thousand jobs lost but will save the government hundreds of millions of pounds a year. For the Daily Telegraph, Starmer’s taking on an £800-million gamble. The Guardian notes that the NHS England is financed by the government but runs independently. It was established just over a decade ago by the conservatives in what Wes Streeting, current health minister calls a disastrous reorganisation that needed to be scrapped. The tabloid Daily Mail rejoices in the decision, saying patients will be put before bureaucracy and care will be improved. The government has said the job losses will be because of the duplications of jobs within both the NHS and Health ministry.
Staying on the topic of health: Australian scientists are hailing what they hope could be a huge breakthrough in the fight against Parkinson’s disease. Twenty years ago, PINK 1 was identified as the protein linked to Parkinson’s disease, but for two decades, no one knew what the protein looked like or how it switched on with the onset of the disease. A hallmark of Parkinson’s disease is the death of brain cells. Researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research based in Victoria, Australia have determined how the mutation switches on. They can use this discovery to find a way to switch it off and notably slow down the progression of Parkinson’s, which is the fastest growing neurodegenerative condition in the world.
Finally: Donatella Versace, sister of Gianni Versace is stepping down as chief creative officer of her family fashion house after nearly 30 years. The Times of London reports that she stepped in to take over the company after her brother was murdered in 1997. She will stay on as chief brand ambassador. Dario Vitale, former image director of Miu Miu is the new designer. Donatella Versace oversaw a pivotal era in fashion and iconic dresses like Jennifer Lopez’s barely-there jungle dress in 2000 that was so researched it actually launched Google’s “image search” function! Her departure also coincides with an end to an era in fashion – high octane, glossy and molto sexy, the Times says.
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