JAPAN
JAPAN
Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, on six-party talks: For the first time since November 2005, the six-party talks over the North Korean nuclear issue will resume on Dec. 18 in Beijing.
It is good that the upcoming negotiations will at least defuse the deepening confrontation and render new developments possible. The six-way talks is the only framework that has the potential to resolve the North Korean problem through diplomacy.
However, the resumption of the six-party talks will not mean any immediate untangling of the complex web of tough problems.
A detailed roadmap for North's abandonment of its nuclear ambitions is indispensable, and creating one will likely become a focal task when the six-party talks resume.
But the utmost priority now is to get Pyongyang to shut down its nuclear facilities. The situation must not be allowed to deteriorate any further. The talks will be meaningful only if Pyongyang takes concrete steps to prove its good faith.
GREATBRITAIN
The Daily Telegraph, London, on the Holocaust conference: As if to declare its bravura defiance of what the West considers to be fundamental civilized values, Iran has convened a Holocaust denial conference. The title given to this assemblage, "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision," combines two essential elements. The word "review" suggests historical revision of the accepted version of events, and the phrase "global vision" implies that such a revisionist account is acceptable in many parts of the world that do not subscribe to the European historical orthodoxy.
The official Iranian justification for this gratuitous event is that it is an exercise in "free speech" that flouts European standards in the same way as the publication of cartoons that allegedly insulted the Prophet flouted Muslim sensibilities. In spite of the fact that attendees at this convention include Westerners who have been known to cast doubt on the truth of the Holocaust, Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has stated that the aim is neither to "confirm nor deny" but to "create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe" about the Jewish experience under Nazi occupation. The only people to whom that description applies are those who deny the Holocaust: a view that it is indeed illegal to express in many countries in western Europe.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has personally endorsed this two-day meeting, which is taking place at an Iranian foreign ministry institute with the full imprimatur of his government. He has made it a hallmark of his political regime not only to declare political opposition to Israel, but also to threaten its existence in the most lurid and bellicose terms.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is apparently so eager to justify his bloodthirsty threats against Israel, and to provoke outrage in Europe and the United States, that he blithely shifts his ground on the matter of historical truth.
ITALY
Corriere Della Sera, Milan, Italy, on Augusto Pinochet's death: Tyrants, when they die, leave behind nostalgia and even people's love: this is a moral scandal that is difficult to understand through concepts and reason, the scandal of grieving Chileans in the squares ... shading emotional tears at the funeral of the great "butcher."
But the dictators who symbolically represent the sensitivity of part of the people draw extreme feelings. Great hatred, but also great love. Their end coincides with a feeling of liberation for the victims of the dictatorship. But for another, substantial portion of the society, the buried dictator attracts feelings of regret for a past (which is) manipulated by nostalgia ... and which fails to remind of the suffering it has caused to the opponents.
It is hard to admit, but part of Chilean society, not wanting to see the prisons crowded with opponents, dissidents disappearing, the tortured and the dead, has felt that re-establishing order was a priority compared to any other consideration.
INDIA
The Hindu, Madras, India, on issues in Lebanon: Hezbollah appears to have pushed Lebanon to the brink of either a fundamental political change or chaos with its campaign to oust the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. The militant Shiite organization is pressing for the formation of a cabinet of national unity that will supervise fresh elections.
In a show of determination, Mr. Siniora and several Ministers have confined themselves to the government headquarters in Beirut for the past several days even as tens of thousands of opposition supporters laid siege to it. Hezbollah and its allies have warned that they might soon escalate their campaign by cutting roads and blocking airports and harbors. The opposition's short-term objective is to secure more than one-third share in an interim government so that it could have the power to veto decisions (in the Lebanese government system, two-thirds of the Ministers need to agree on any decision).
For the moment Hezbollah's powerful leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has not asked for a change in the constitutional scheme under which the President must be a Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite. His demand is that Shiites be given a decisive say in the choice of premier. The Sunni, Christian, and Druze parties, which form the core of Mr. Siniora's coalition, are not likely to concede. The chances of the two antagonistic camps working out a solution without external intervention do not look bright. The United States, France, and Israel are supporting the Siniora government while Syria and Iran back Hezbollah. It is to be hoped that the dreadful memories shared by all communities of the 15-year civil war will prevent Lebanon from going over the edge.