A selection of op-eds and editorials from the U.S. and around the world. Sign up for the email alert or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Australian
Columnist Janet Albrechtsen says credit should be given to the U.S. where it is due. It is, she says, often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.
Christian Science Monitor
In an editorial, the paper criticises plans by Congress to renew the U.S. agriculture law this week, pointing out that most of the subsidies will go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients and that a majority of this largess will enrich commercial farmers with an average income of $200,000.
Daily Star (Lebanon)
In an editorial in anticipation of President Bush’s visit to the Middle East, the paper describes the president as is the delinquent foreign-policy maestro of an otherwise great country. He has failed to deal honestly and rationally with the realities of the region, it judges.
Daily Telegraph
Lance Price, a former adviser to Tony Blair, writes that unless the British prime minister Gordon Brown can break out from under the prism of failure through which his leadership is now viewed then the fear of defeat at the next election will turn into a sullen acceptance of its inevitability.
Dawn (Pakistan)
In an editorial, the paper says the recent tensions between the two parties in Pakistan’s governing coalition have done much more damage to business, and resultantly to the economy, than just blighting the investment climate.
Financial Times
Columnist Martin Wolf writes that it is tempting to blame the price of oil on speculators and big bad oil companies. The reality, he says, is different.
In an editorial on the dominance of Google, the FT says regulators must watch the company’s current practices. More importantly, the paper concludes, Google’s rivals had better start offering a credible alternative.
Devesh Kapur, Pratap Mehta and Arvind Subramanian are critical of previous FT columns by Larry Summers in which they say he draws the disturbing conclusion that the process of globalization should be attenuated, precisely because it poses potential threats to the U.S.
Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment writes in defense of the concept of a league of democracies and says the world’s democracies could make common cause to act in humanitarian crises when the UN Security Council cannot reach unanimity.
Guardian
In an editorial on the disaster in Myanmar, the Guardian says there are some unpalatable truths to be faced when this is over. The first, it says, is that any attempt to deliver aid forcibly would run the risk of armed confrontation. The second is that no consensus exists on how interventions should be organised and who should do it.
Columnist Jonathan Freedland writes that it would be better for Britain’s Labour Party to lose the next election than to end up exiled for a generation. A spell in opposition could allow the party to redefine its purpose, he says.
Columnist Jonathan Steele asks whether Barack Obama really wants to change U.S. foreign policy and whether he can if he does. His answer: in my kishkas I feel Obama is our best hope. In my mind I prepare for business as usual.
Columnist Simon Jenkins is critical of the lack of intervention in Myanmar and says the country validates any breach of the UN charter on national sovereignty. If ever so-called humanitarian intervention were justified, it is now, he says.
Hindu
In an editorial, the paper says the early appearance of cracks in Pakistan’s ruling coalition is a disappointment for those who rejoiced over the resounding victory of democracy in the February 2008 general election.
Independent (London)
In an editorial, the Independent says what is most striking in the parallel between the tragedies in China and Burma is that the things which are being said of the military tyranny in Rangoon are very similar to the verdicts that would have been pronounced three decades ago on Beijing at the end of the regime of Chairman Mao.
International Herald Tribune
In an editorial the paper says Pakistan needs its coalition government to hold together. Political leaders who have Pakistan's interests at heart should be able to find a compromise that restores the judges, promotes much-needed judicial reform and resolves the issue of Musharraf's future, it says.
Columnist James Carroll asks how many Americans know that the nation refusing to discuss a treaty aimed at preventing an arms race in outer space is their own?
Jerusalem Post
In an editorial, the paper says of all the U.S. presidents over the past 60 years, it's hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush. No president, it says, has been more committed to steering the Middle East toward the values of liberty and tolerance which Americans naturally cherish, and presuppose to be universal.
National (UAE)
Middle East affairs commentator Ayman Safadi writes that the conflict in Lebanon is part of the larger regional struggle between Arabs and Iran over influence in the region. Iran is winning, he concludes.
New Straits Times (Malaysia)
In an editorial on Myanmar’s refusal of international aid workers, the paper says international conventions have never conceived of a situation where a national administration would rather let its citizens perish than allow help to reach them from other than officially sanctioned quarters.
New York Times
In an editorial, the Times says we have clearly entered the post-Bush era of policy and politics on climate change. However this election turns out, the United States will have a president who supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases it says.
In a further editorial, the paper says China must use all its influence to press Myanmar’s generals to open up to relief efforts, before there are no more victims left to save.
Robert Kaplan of the Atlantic magazine writes that sending in marines and sailors is the easy part; but make no mistake, he says, the very act of our invasion could land us with the responsibility for fixing Myanmar afterward.
Op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman writes that the next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war - but this cold war is with Iran, he says.
Times of London
Dean Godson of Policy Exchange is criticial of the lack of reaction to what he calls Hezbollah’s recent outrages in Lebanon. After all, he says, Hezbollah is one of the world's most ruthless clerical fascist organisations - complete with ersatz Nazi salutes and Iranian-style Holocaust denial.
In an editorial, the Times calls on China to use its influence in Myanmar. Beijing has shown sense and leadership in rescuing its own victims. Tough talk to Burma might also help to rescue those suffering in that benighted country, it says.
Wall Street Journal
In an editorial the paper criticises the new farm bill in the U.S. At a time when Americans are squeezed at the grocery store, they will now see more of their taxes flow to the very farmers profiting from these high food prices, it says.
In a further editorial the paper praises the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, citing the extradition on Tuesday of 14 paramilitary leaders to the U.S. The extradition is further proof of his efforts to see that justice is done – and of his goodwill toward the U.S., the paper says.
The paper also praises the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, saying the battle for Basra and Baghdad against Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army looks to be both a military and political success.
Zachary Karabell of River Twice Research writes that there is something both startling and disturbing about the gloom that has settled over Wall Street and the U.S. in general. In fact, looking back over the past century, he says, it would be a stretch to rank the current problems as especially notable or dramatic.
Costas Synolakis of the University of Southern California describes the loss of life as a result of the earthquake in China as an unnecessary tragedy. Better building-code enforcement, he says, could have saved lives.
Washington Post
CFR senior fellow Michael Gerson criticises seven Republican senators who have signed a hold letter, preventing action on the reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic magazine reminds readers that the U.S. is one of 12 countries in the world to ban HIV-positive visitors from their territory, and says it seems unthinkable that the country that has been the most generous in helping people with HIV should legally ban all non-Americans who are HIV-positive.
In an editorial, the Post says the Bush administration and its allies must insist that the Security Council formally debate a resolution mandating that Myanmar immediately accept a UN-coordinated relief and rescue operation. China must understand that its refusal to cooperate with such an effort will make it complicit in the loss of Burmese lives, it adds.
Washington Times
In an editorial, the paper asks how many more African nations and children need be dragged into the conflict in Darfur before decisive action is taken?
Columnist Harlan Ullman writes that it is time for a sober assessment of Iran, and adds that in his opinion, without huge provocation, an attack against Iran's nascent nuclear facilities would be a strategic nightmare.
Email
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
This report outlines the nature of the challenges in Pakistan's tribal areas, formulates strategies for addressing those challenges, and distills the strategies into realistic policy proposals worthy of consideration by the incoming administration.
This report analyzes the debate over U.S. use of assurances against torture, explaining the contexts in which they are used, how they can be conveyed, and what they can contain, and recommends a number of ways to respond to criticism so that the United States can continue using assurances.
