JAPAN

JAPAN
Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, March 23: The six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program have recessed without producing any results. Pyongyang insisted it would not continue to sit at the table until it confirmed the transfer of 25 million at Banco Delta Asia in Macao, which the United States promised to release.
It is not unusual to encounter astonishment and anger in negotiations with North Korea, yet the country is far too self-centered.
Given the situation, if North Korea unnecessarily tries to delay the process further, the much-hoped-for momentum of the six-way talks toward peaceful coexistence in the Korean Peninsula may be stopped.
Mutual trust
These times require taking a broad overview and remaining calm. North Korea should make no mistake in understanding that it is necessary to build up mutual trust for peace in the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea often talks about "actions versus actions," meaning that countries should take necessary action at the same time to move things forward. If money is transferred from the account in Macao, the six-party talks will likely resume soon after. It will then be North Korea's turn to have its actions placed under severe scrutiny.
SWEDEN
Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, March 26: Yesterday there were major celebrations in Berlin, and the EU definitely has reasons to celebrate. The union is largely a success. It even has a common foreign and security policy.
So what does the union's foreign policy look like, 50 years after the Treaty of Rome was signed? Well, even if a lot remains to be done, a remarkable development has taken place. The EU is taking on large responsibilities, the rapid deployment forces are coming into place, foreign policy even has its own "spokesman" and the EU is not afraid to protect the peace with weapon in hand.
Single voice
Sure, you could wish that there was more unity (among countries), but the union manages quite often to speak with a single voice. More and more countries are also realizing that their own foreign policy is more effective if channeled through the EU.
The EU has also been far more successful at spreading peace, welfare and democracy than the United States ever has. The expansion eastward has contributed to giving millions of people a freedom that people in other parts of the world unfortunately can only dream about. And the entire process has taken place without a single shot or a single bomb. The expansion is a peace project in the true meaning of the word.
BRITAIN
The Observer, London, March 25: This weekend marks the culmination of events commemorating the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. Unfortunately, the rights and wrongs of apologizing for Britain's involvement in this wicked trade have dominated debate, a sideshow that is overshadowing an otherwise rewarding national conversation. There is no doubt that much of the modern fabric of British commercial and civic life owes some debt to the Atlantic slave trade. Manufacturers of the west Midlands, great landed estates, the Church of England, Oxbridge colleges, the royal family, City banks -- all are stained with blood.
Institutional guilt
Yet the bicentenary should not be about relative levels of institutional guilt, but ... active engagement with this history and its meaning. Up and down Britain, local authorities, theaters, museums and galleries have sought to do just that. Exhibitions have shown just how ingrained slavery was within the contours of our national past.
Schoolchildren and the public alike are being offered a new history, one that stresses our global heritage and complex, frequently brutal multicultural past. Few other European nations are approaching their heritage with anything like the same degree of public sophistication. For that, the government, led by (Deputy Prime Minister) John Prescott, deserves recognition.
This, surely, is far healthier than a sterile debate over apology which, in the case of Ken Livingstone, has more to do with pandering to political constituencies than understanding our past. This weekend, rather than apologizing for our past, we should absorb it.