In Europe these days, dead birds make headline news. With cases of avian flu being reported almost every day in eastern Europe and, now, Sweden in western Europe, people here have one hand on the remote control -- so they can follow every bird cough or hiccup on TV -- and another on their keyboard as they search Ebay so they can " hamster  " supplies of Tamiflu.

The latest scare came this week. Officials in Germany discovered 25 dead migratory gray geese and mallards in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate on a lake near the city of Neuwied on Monday. Ten more were found on Tuesday. The birds are being tested for avian flu at a state laboratory in Koblenz, but even without verification of how the birds died -- two words are dominating the coverage: Bird Flu. Most of the stories are packaged with the obligatory flock of migratory birds, which in this context seem less like normal birds than an ominous scene out of the Alfred Hitchcock horror film.

Officials in Rhineland-Palatinate say they will be able to confirm whether or not the dreaded H5N1 virus was the birds' undoing by the end of the day. But so far, it looks like a false alarm: the spokeswoman for the Koblenz laboratory said Tuesday morning there were no visible signs that the birds died of avian flu. A day earlier, four dead grey geese were discovered in the college town of Göttingen. Together, as the Financial Times Deutschland points out in its headline, the developments are "Stirring up Fears about Bird Flu." But the biggest scaremongering of the day comes from the mass-circulation tabloid Bild, which presents the news against a photo backdrop of a dead mallard and a hazardous waste sign. "Is Bird Flu already in Germany?" the paper asks, noting that some of the birds literally died from cramps in front of health officials.

Not to confuse our readers with the light-heartedness. Bird flu is, in fact, deadly for humans. More than 60 people have died of H5N1 infections around the world since the outbreak was first reported in 2003. But it can't be transferred from human to human (at least not yet) and the feared horror flu that could develop still hasn't -- not even in Asia, where the disease has been wide spread among poultry for several years.

But don't let the facts stop the media from having a field day with this. It'll probably be just a matter of time before Bild starts calling this a "Chicken Genocide." The paper's already got the screaming headlines  to back it up, like a story in today's issue about how Albanian border officials stopped a truck with 3,600 Greek chickens (where bird flu has been confirmed) and buried them alive in a mass grave with a bulldozer.

Taking on Leni

Jodie Foster is once again the face behind a blockbuster with the hit film "Flight Plan." But even as her studio rakes in millions from the film, the American actress has her eyes set on her next project: a biopic of the life of German cinematographer Leni Riefenstahl. One of the world's best filmmakers, Riefenstahl's reputation was forever tarnished by her proximity to and sympathies for Adolf Hitler. Unsuprisingly, Foster's decision to tackle one of the most complicated characters in German history has been greeted with controversy. Riefenstahl, of course, was responsible for "Triumph of the Will," a documentary about a Nazi march in Nuremberg that celebrates Hitler and the political movement he birthed. Towards the end of her life Riefenstahl befriended Foster, and the rest, apparently, is the stuff of Hollywood magic.

But Rafeal Medoff, who directs the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies has condemned the 42-year-old actress, saying his organization fears she is developing a film that will celebrate the life of Hitler's most-famous muse. "She was the leading artist making propaganda for the most evil regime in human history," Medoff said. Foster recently defended Riefenstahl by saying the filmmaker had been "libeled so many times" by people who accused her of having membership in the Nazi Party or having an affair with Hitler. "Instead of defending Riefenstahl as an alleged victim of 'libel,'" he said, "Jodie Foster should frankly confront the reality that Riefenstahl is an example of how art can be perverted to promote fascism, racism and genocide."

In a recent interview with Der Spiegel to promote "Flight Plan," Foster also discussed the Riefenstahl project. Here are the excerpts:

SPIEGEL: You're planning to do a film on the life of German director Leni Riefenstahl. What attracts you to a woman whose film glorified a Nazi Party convention?

Foster: She's an amazing character. She always was. Fascinating because of her anachronisms, complexities and contradictions. In some ways she was the most revered female film director of all time and also the most reviled, you know, character of -- of Nazi Germany.

SPIEGEL: You met her during the latter part of her life.

Foster: It was 15 years before her death. She was trying to sell the rights for her autobiography. I first spoke to her on the phone and then we met.

SPIEGEL: Did you like her?

Foster: Yes, she was very charming. And she was just as sharp, pretty much, at the end as she was then. The film will have a lot to say, morally. It will be a very strong moral tale and people who leave the theater will be divided and they will go and talk about it for two hours and hate each other and be unable to find agreement over it.

SPIEGEL: Riefenstahl never accepted the role she played in supporting Nazi rule through propaganda films like "Triumph of the Will."