The main story that all major German dailies lead with on Tuesday is something of a snoozer; the country's primary opposition party, the Christian Democrats (CDU) is having its 2004 party convention in the western German city of Duesseldorf. The party's leader, Angela Merkel, was reinstated as party boss with 88.4 percent of delegate votes. But because her result two years before was 93.7 percent and a full 95.9 percent in 2000, her position is seen as weakened. Nevertheless, most see her as a shoe-in as the party's chancellor candidate to run against German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the 2006 general elections.

Luckily, there is more interesting fare to be had elsewhere on Tuesday, and much of it centers around Monday's terror attack in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jiddah against the US consulate. The attack, which Al Qaida claimed responsibility for and resulted in 12 deaths, is seen by many German dailies as an indication that the war on terror, especially in the Middle East, still has a long way to go.

The left-leaning daily from Munich Sueddeutsche Zeitung takes the easiest road in its Jiddah editorial and prefers to rely on platitudes. "Western foreigners who live in Saudi Arabia are in permanent danger. Many have left the country; those who have stayed are carefully guarded. The security measures are enormous, but security is nowhere to be found. With the attack on the US consulate in Jiddah, the Islamist terrorists have proven that they can strike in the heart of their enemy." The paper also took the opportunity that Europeans are making more and more often: "The mantra of the Bush government -- that the world has become safer with the widening of the war on terror into Iraq -- has once more been proven false."

The financial daily Handelsblatt, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to look at attitudes across the Middle East, but especially in Saudi Arabia, to the United States and comes to the conclusion that the trend is not a positive one. "With the war against Iraq," the paper writes, "the lurking anti-American attitudes (in Saudi Arabia) have apparently reached those circles in society that used to have a positive view of the United States."

The paper Berliner Zeitung takes the same tack, and argues that the US war in Iraq has destabilized not only that country, but many of its neighbors as well. Further, the attack in Jiddah, "illustrates in Saudi Arabia to what extent the ongoing activity of the US-led coalition in Iraq has strengthened the resentment of the Muslim world against the West."

Finally, as it always does, the conservative daily Die Welt comes to America's rescue in this journalistic onslaught. The paper focuses specifically on Pakistani President Perves Musharraf's comments on Monday that the War on Terror isn't, in fact, addressing the root causes of terrorism. The world, he argued from his visit to Britain, should focus more on battling poverty and illiteracy. That, argues Die Welt is not true. "If terror were dependent on hunger and need, then Pakistan and Saudi Arabia wouldn't be the hotbeds of terror, but rather Bangladesh. It is not poverty that turns people toward extremism." In addition to taking Musharraf to task, the paper also comments on security in the Middle East, "Saudi Arabia is on the right path. Its goal is the victory over terrorism."

The second topic German papers turn their attention to on Tuesday is Chancellor Schroeder's trip to China. So far, the trip has netted one major diplomatic coup -- support from China for Germany's efforts to gain a permanent seat on a reformed United Nations Security Council -- and €1.5 billion worth of contracts. What has China received? Germany's backing for the removal of a 15-year-old European Union arms embargo against the country.

The Financial Times Deutschland looks at this high-stakes, geo-political bargaining and argues that it is Germany, despite the huge contracts, that has drawn the short straw and points out that, despite the friendship, the ease with which Germany has given in to Chinese demands on the arms embargo paradoxically means that the Chinese will likely take Germany less seriously in the future. That's because China realizes to what extent European countries have become addicted to the economic benefits China can offer them. And China's demands have thus become shriller; "At the most, China may still allow itself to be directed by the United States ... but lessons from Europe are deflected by the country's leadership. What one year ago was conveyed as a polite request -- the Chinese desire for an end to the EU arms embargo -- now sounds like a loud bark."