Defence minister survives attack over Libya fiasco. Gaddafi should go – but how? ‘Superpower light’ may prove a problem. Pre-teen girl gives birth.

Libya fall out for Dutch ministers
For the ‘heavyweights’ - left-leaning de Volkskrant and Protestant Trouw – Libya is, in one way or the other – the main story. Today’s de Volkskrant examines last night’s parliamentary debate in which Defence Minister Hans Hillen and Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal came under fire for the recent botched military helicopter mission to rescue a Dutch national near Sirte on the Libyan coast.

Seems Mr Hillen can’t do much right – as far as the opposition is concerned, at least – these days. He expressed “enormous regret” that the helicopter crew were captured by Gaddafi forces – and as de Volkskrant tells us, colleague Rosenthal also “acknowledged that mistakes were made”. The paper says the ministers decided to launch the mission in the absence of information from the military’s own intelligence service. “Reckless” was the reaction to that from one opposition Labour Party MP.

It turns out the engineering firm Royal Haskoning – employers of the man the helicopter crew went to rescue - had better information than the government – including the fact that one of Mr Gaddafi’s palaces was close to the landing spot. “Who do we need in the government benches: you or the management of Haskoning?” was the scathing comment from another opposition MP, Socialist Party stalwart Harry van Bommel.

De Volkskrant tells us the cabinet’s been saying news of the rescue mission must have been leaked to the Libyans, but opposition Green Left party MP Arjen el Fassad commented: “If a helicopter takes three quarters of an hour in plain daylight to get to the coast, do you really think there’s any question of an element of surprise?”

Apology or not, it seems Mr Hillen’s star is not burning very bright right now. Opposition D66 democrat party leader Alexander Pechtold described him cuttingly during the debate as “the incarnation of arrogance”. While, prior today the debate last night, Labour MP Sharon Dijksma’s following tweet appeared in evening paper NRC Handelsblad: “Curious whether former spin doctor Hillen now understands his own ‘tone of voice’ is his worst enemy...”.

Libya bombing – until Gaddafi goes?
Today’s Trouw pushes the debate in The Hague inside and leads on its front page with yesterday’s ‘Libya meeting’ in London, attended by representatives from 36 countries, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said the bombing should continue until Gaddafi stops the violence against his own people. Actually, she wants the Libyan leader gone… but that’s a widely shared view if not actually a stated aim of the no-fly and protect-the-civilian-population mission.

As you’ll probably all know by now, Tuesday’s meeting resulted in that mission being set to continue and no end date set. And everyone seems fairly convinced that the Libyan dictator has to go, they just don’t agree on how.

As Trouw tells us, Turkey wants to talk him out of office, Italy wants him to slip out of office and be allowed to go into exile somewhere, while France, the UK and the US would appear to want him to leave office and go straight to the International Criminal Court here in The Hague.

New - improved? – Superpower Light
As you’ll also know, US President Barack Obama gave a speech on Monday clarifying his government’s stance on Libya and why the US does not want to play the lead role there. An editorial today in de Volkskrant says he was in fact presenting a “new, slimmed down version of an old product: America, the new Superpower Light”.

But the item goes on to question whether this new approach – whereby the US limits its role in sorting out all the world’s ‘problems’ – can really work. Mr Obama said it was ”not in our national interest” to allow Gaddafi’s bloodbath to continue because that would be a betrayal of what America stands for. The writer suggests this means the US can still take action when its interests and – more notably - its ‘values’ are at stake and that this leaves the intervention door slightly open; a door that others may want to knock on.

Arie Elshout (de Volkskrant’s US correspondent) provides an example: “If Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad starts slaughtering the opposition, eyes will turn to Obama. He may then say the circumstances are different to those in Libya, but others will say: a bloodbath is a bloodbath. Then he has a moral problem […] the ‘super power light’ concept will be difficult to stick to in practice”.

Not-quite-teenage mother
The birth of a child to a 12-year-old mother is the lead story for today’s AD and also a front-pager for De Telegraaf. I have a feeling it would probably not be so in some other of the world’s industrialised nations.

The girl in question apparently didn’t know she was pregnant when she went into labour whilst on as school trip. It’s massive news for AD, which devotes its first five pages to related items with expert advice, statistics, reactions from the girl’s own school and neighbourhood, etc.

Both papers tell us the identity of the father is unknown, and allude to the possibility that the pregnancy may have been the result of some kind of incest or other abuse. The girl and her baby will go a foster family initially once they come out of hospital, but the authorities are not saying whether this is connected with any possible criminal investigation.

The general tone of the newspapers regarding this girl’s case is one of surprise - as AD writes “this is an exceptional case” – and it certainly is here in the Netherlands. The astonishment and concern reflected in the papers all seem to underscore those statistics which show that Dutch teenage girls and boys generally start having sex later and are better able to avoid unwanted pregnancy than many of their European counterparts. A more positive aspect to an otherwise worrying story, I would venture to say.