The aftermath of the tsunami continues to dominate the commentary in German papers on Wednesday, though the main story has shifted away from the immediate situation in the affected areas and is focusing on international aid donations. An increasingly critical eye is increasingly being cast on the reasons why and the manner in which aid is given.

The Financial Times Deutschland describes the international aid being pledged to the affected areas as a kind of contest. "While some still swear to the new 'one world', a coldly calculated competition of mercy has already long since begun." In reality, the paper says, self-interest is the main force at work in the international community. The US hopes to improve its international image while the French are pitting the United Nations against Washington, and India has granted foreign aid to appear more powerful (and to boost its chances at a UN Security Council seat). Germany is following suit and thinking strategically. Still, the paper concludes, in the "competition of interests, the actual goal must not be forgotten: effective and quick relief for the victims."

When it comes to local aid, the daily Berliner Zeitung asks just what South Asia's billionaires have been doing in the aftermath of the tsunami. "It's good that we are donating," the paper writes. "But it's hard to understand why we aren't paying attention to what is being done in the countries themselves." Thailand's Chaleo Yoovidhya, for instance, is number 12 on the Forbes list of the richest men in Southeast Asia -- he owns 49 percent of a company that makes a little drink called Red Bull. "One would like to know what this multinational corporation is doing for the victims."

Seeing the aid donations in a less cynical light, the conservative paper Die Welt writes about the transformative effect the catastrophe has had on Germany and the rest of the world. Germans have been digging deep into their pockets to give privately. "Are these the same Germans one usually hears whining about poverty, social impoverishment, mass unemployment and Hartz IV?" the paper asks. This newfound generosity is the positive side of that oft-maligned coin, globalization. People are realizing they are bound together, and that's what is new about this catastrophe. The impulse to give is "not just following the reflex of impoverishment that says here affluence, there adversity, here the first world, there the third."

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, meanwhile, wants to avoid seeming like he's profiting from the disaster, writes the left of center daily Die Tageszeitung. That's why he's not going to a Friday election rally being held by his party in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which is set to vote in state elections in February. But he profits even more by this noble gesture, because no matter what he does, he wins. "What he does right in the situation will serve him, and even if he wilfully does the wrong thing, the opposition can't call him on it. Catastrophes are always the hour of those in power."

Iraq is the other main topic in the opinion pages, with yesterday's assassination of the governor of the Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, raising again the question of whether the country will be able to stick to the January 30 election date. Al-Haidari was the highest-ranking Iraqi official to be killed in six months, and his murder has led more Iraqi interim government officials to call for a postponement of the elections until the security situation has improved.

Among those in Germany who see the attack as a sign that elections should be postponed is the left-leaning daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Washington is shutting its eyes to the very real problems in the country, the paper writes, and is just sticking to the date to avoid losing face. "But maybe the deadly attack on the governor of Baghdad -- who is surely one of the country's most-secure politicians -- will at least further the idea that it is time for people to open their eyes and see reality." Despite the stubborn US attempts at forging democracy in Iraq, "democracy can neither be decreed nor executed by election dates. It must grow." But the US isn't so interested in democracy, anyway, the paper writes. Holding an election is just a way of saving their own tail, and they're pushing it because "the election is part of the only concept they have left in Iraq: to get out -- as fast as possible -- of the same country they wanted to get into as fast as possible two years ago."