If there were no termination fees within Europe then there could be a much better deal re data roaming and this would mean that images could be downloaded.

It's probably more to do with the rights to the images. While a lot of papers have staff photographers, which would be no issue as far as reproduction is concerned, a lot also rely on Associated Press or large stock libraries for images. In those cases, they'd have to negotiate for the rights to use such images. The same thing happens with some of the BBC podcasts, where music may be played in the live broadcast, but may not necessarily be included in the download version.

Much easier to just not publish images at all.

I would not think that it is that. My brother has had a number of photos published by various newspapers and they have also appeared on the website. He works through one of the big photo agencies so it is probably part of the deal that the agency negotiated.

Given that the papers in the States have the images... It isn't a rights issue, they are selling a subscription to the paper after all. It is the data roaming costs...

Even worse for non-English language countries, because all purchases are over the USA store at the moment...

That’s why “books” bought on a Kindle here cost more than those bought in the USA. Mind you, given the state of our 3G network, I’d rather they settled with an iTune like app instead.