Angela Merkel's Luftwaffe Airbus is slated to touch down in Washington later this week for the new chancellor's first visit to the United States as head of the German government. She's taken a few unpopular steps with the Bush administration during her first weeks in office -- first claiming Condoleezza Rice said the erroneous kidnapping of a German citizen in the war against terror had been a mistake and now calling for the closure of the US prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But generally speaking, Merkel remains a popular figure among Washington conservatives, where she is remembered as a representative of the "other Germany" that disagreed with Gerhard Schröder's strong opposition to the Iraq war. She made a lot of friends in the White House with her 2003 Washington Post op/ed: "Schröder Doesn't Speak for all Germans." In the editorial, Merkel pledged her support for US action against Saddam Hussein, adding that German-American friendship is "just as much a fundamental element of Germany's national purpose as European integration."

Three years on, this friendship no longer seems as unconditional as it did in the days before the Iraq war, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. In an interview  with DER SPIEGEL published in English today, Merkel called for the closure of the Guantanamo prison facility, where terror suspects are being held indefinitely in legal limbo as "enemy combatants" without trial. Merkel said she will take the issue up directly with US President George Bush during their planned meeting. Most major German newspapers weigh in on Merkel's stand on Monday, with almost all describing the move by someone who has made repairing relations with the United States a priority as a "courageous" one.

In an editorial, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says "America and its president should be grateful for this criticism." The paper notes that Merkel's "criticism stems from her friendship and shared values (with the United States) and not from the kind of moral grandstanding that is often evident when Germans criticize American policies." The paper then expresses its hope that coming from a foreign friend, it will help activate the ability of the American public to "self-correct." The idea that Guantanamo is the "wrong path could soon be the majority opinion in the United States."

Noting that she has made the difficult statement before her trip, the Financial Times Deutschland says this will allow the chancellor to score points domestically and to still give a "friendly, 'no problem' smile" during her photo op with Bush later this week. The paper describes her criticism as a "small sentence with a major effect," but warns that she can't do much to change the situation in Guantanamo herself. Nor is any "trans-Atlantic debate, let alone consensus on the issue in sight." This would be too much to expect on a debut visit.

It's an opinion shared by the conservative Die Welt, which describes Merkel's visit as a sobering one, "free of illusion." She won't be able to do anything about Guantanamo -- "only the US Supreme Court can." Nor will her comments do much to impress Bush. "Still, the majority of Germans share this view and whoever ignores this is misleading Washington."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung praises Merkel for her statements, seeing it as yet another example of the fine stateswoman who is emerging. "As so often, Merkel has been underestimated in foreign policy," the paper writes. "Within a few weeks she has not just freed herself from the suspicion of being diplomatically naive," it says, "she has even managed to approach the US government with a self-confidence which Schröder could never have ventured after his election campaign escapades."

The tabloid Bild newspaper also contrasts Merkel with Schröder, who, it writes, had so many conflicts of interest on the human rights front that he could hardly point any fingers at Bush. It describes Merkel's statement as "courageous" and marking a turning point in German human rights history. "Ex-Chancellor Schröder called Putin a 'flawless democrat' and even wanted to lift the EU arms embargo against China," it writes, ticking off a laundry list of complaints against Schröder's seeming misdeeds opposed to the global spread of democracy. "No wonder he had inhibitions when it came to attacking the USA. If Merkel speaks frankly with our American friends, she can be all the more uninhibited in demanding human rights elsewhere." The paper also notes that Murat Kurnaz, a native of Bremen, is still being held at Guantanamo, denied of his right to legal due process.

-- Daryl Lindsey

1:15 p.m. CET

The Nuclear Debate

When Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the go ahead for Gazprom to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine a week ago, it sent a wake-up call to energy-dependent Germany and the rest of Europe. It became clear that Putin is not beyond using his country's vast natural resources as a tool for pressuring other countries politically. If Putin applied the same squeeze to Germany, the results could be disastrous. In the German energy mix, Moscow delivers 34.1 percent of its petroleum, 42.6 percent of its natural gas and 15.7 percent of the black coal it uses to produce electricity. Politicians from all political walks are calling for Berlin to become less dependent on Moscow for energy. One solution to have been proposed is for Germany to drop its plan to abandon nuclear energy.

Under the government of ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Germany passed a law in 2002 to phase out all the country's remaining nuclear power plants. The problem is that nuclear energy accounts for one-third of Germany's electricity and though the country is adopting wind power, solar and other renewable energies, it still doesn't have a plan to fill in the missing megawatts after its last nuclear power plants go out of commission. It certainly can't all come from the wind and compost piles as some Greens have whistfully suggested. As happened in a number of European countries last week, a debate has also broken out in Germany about whether existing plants should remain online for longer. The coalition contract between the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democratic Union specifically states that the phase-out must continue, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would honor that agreement. But she's falling under increasing pressure from within her own party. Germany's Economics Minister, Michael Glos of the Christian Social Union, the CDU's Bavarian sister party, wants to extend the operating life of the plants. He is supported by several Christian Democratic governors in the German states, including Hesse's Roland Koch, who has said that even the building of new plants should not be ruled out.

In an interview with the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper, Koch warns that a lack of nuclear energy in the future might force Germany to increase its exports of electricity from France (which would be the equivalent to outsourcing nuclear power production) or to increase its reliance on Eastern Europe.

But in a self-penned editorial in Monday's Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany's Social Democratic environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, argues that a nuclear renaissance is the wrong one. Extending the operating life of plants will increase safety risks. And by the time new plants could be built, the world's supply of uranium will already depleted, leaving far more dangerous plutonium as the only remaining option on the table for producing nuclear energy. "More important is the fact that nuclear power is only economical when it is consumed in masses." That, of course, contradicts the idea of intelligent energy use and greater efficiency that will be necessary in the future as natural resources become more scarce.

-- Daryl Lindsey

2:28 p.m. CET

Getting Feverish about Bird Flu

In Turkey, the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus is continuing its advance into Europe . Over the weekend, the government announced three new human infections in Ankara, prompting some to ask whether the illness has been spreading in the country for much longer than the government has let on.

In a radio interview on Sunday, Klaus Stöhr, a World Health Organization expert on the spread of flu viruses, said what many in Europe suspect. "Apparently, the contagion has been spreading in animals in Turkey much longer than people thought," he told a German radio station. The country first reported cases of avian flu in October. Turkish newspapers are blaming the government for not taking sufficient precautions and opposition leaders are calling for the resignation of Turkey's minister for health and agriculture. But is it okay to point the finger at this early stage? Two German newspapers square off on the issue on Monday.

The leftist Die Tageszeitung argues that the Turkish government has been just as ignorant as the three poor farm children who contracted the illness after playing ball with a dead chicken head. "The almost explosive way in which the virus is spreading now is a clear indication that it has been raging (across the country)," the paper writes, "but nobody bothered to take a closer look." When the first death was announced, it adds, Ankara tried to play it down as pneumonia. This contrasted starkly with Ankara's reaction after discovering the first cases of bird flu in animals in Turkey in October. At the time, it moved quickly to quarantine and cull birds before the disease could spread. This time around, however, it took a full week before Ankara began to implement such measures. The paper also blames poverty for the spread of bird flu in Turkey -- noting that in winter, some people in villages take their chickens into their homes with them at night because they can't afford to build stalls. The paper adds, a bit condescendingly, that people in Germany shouldn't be overly concerned with the disease's spread in Turkey. "The experiences in Turkey show that bird flu can be controlled in regions that are well organized and have good education. In that sense, it's not the virus that kills -- it's poverty."

But noting that nature knows no ideology or national pride, the Financial Times Deutschland says casting blame won't help anybody. Citing the WHO expert's suspicion, the paper writes there are many reasons Turkey might not have reacted quickly enough -- neglect, prestige or even economic considerations. It also points out that impoverished countries like Turkey have prime conditions for the spread of disease -- poor infrastructure and the inability to take on the prohibitive costs of the mass slaughter of animals. None of these reasons, however, are enough to justify "know-it-all" accusations or questions about Ankara's fitness for EU membership. "What Turkey needs right now is help."