JAPAN

JAPAN
Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo, Feb. 14: Will the agreement at the six-party talks pave the way for the scrapping of North Korea's nuclear programs? A big question mark hangs over the agreement.
The most important thing to bear in mind is that the latest agreement does not mean that Pyongyang's nuclear development has stopped. Neither has North Korea promised to halt nuclear tests.
Nuclear warheads
If North Korea succeeds in downscaling nuclear weapons and developing a ballistic missile with nuclear warheads, Japan, which is within the reach of a Rodong missile, would face an even more serious threat.
The United Nations and Japan on its own have imposed sanctions on North Korea as it carried out a nuclear test despite international warnings not to do so. As long as the process for the scrapping of nuclear programs remains vague, the continuation of such sanctions is natural.
SOUTH AFRICA
The Star, Johannesburg, Feb. 13: This week's devastating explosions in Baghdad in which up to 100 people were killed are a grim reminder that the war in Iraq is a historic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions. It is undermining America's global legitimacy and its collateral civilian casualties, as well as some abuses, are tarnishing America's moral credentials around the world.
Yet major strategic decisions in the Bush administration continue to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals -- perhaps not more than the fingers of one hand. With the exception of the new defence secretary, Robert Gates, these are the same individuals who have been involved from the start of this misadventure, who made the original decision to go to war in Iraq and who used the original false justifications for going to war. It is human nature to be reluctant to undertake actions that would imply a significant reversal of policy.
Downhill track
From the standpoint of U.S. national interest, this is particularly ominous. If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and much of the Islamic world.
A public declaration that the U.S. intends to leave is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as the primary reason for the U.S. intervention in a region only recently free of colonial domination.
BRITAIN
Daily Telegraph, London, Feb. 14: Yesterday's six-power agreement signed in Beijing commits North Korea to the halting and ultimately the abandonment of its nuclear programme. In exchange, this impoverished communist throwback will receive an initial tranche of 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, to be followed by a further 950,000 tonnes when it disables its reactor. At the same time, its international isolation will end.
Its leader, Kim Jong-il, may sometimes give the impression of being from another planet, but it is now clear he wants his country to become a fully paid-up member of this one.
Obvious question
It prompts the obvious question -- can this success for patient yet firm diplomacy provide a template for that other putative nuclear power, Iran?
North Korea is the clapped-out remnant of a failed ideology, while Iran is the standard-bearer of an Islamic revolution that has been carrying all before it. The ayatollahs in Teheran see nuclear weaponry as the means of completing that revolution.
With a defeatist shrug, the European Commission warned yesterday that nothing can now stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon within two years. It is up the West to prove otherwise, by launching the most intense and co-ordinated diplomatic offensive. All diplomatic options must be pursued to exhaustion before further, fateful steps are contemplated.