The following are editorial opinions from newspapers from around the world which may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers.

Star, Toronto,

on US nuclear policy

By breaking with George W. Bush and downgrading the role the vast US nuclear arsenal plays in the nation's defence, US President Barack Obama has surrendered nothing of America's superpower status. His policy, unveiled at the Pentagon, is far more likely to strengthen US security by reinforcing global efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

Those who fretted that Obama's Nuclear Posture Review would leave the US weaker than before ought to be reassured. It flatly reaffirms that nuclear forces will "continue to play an essential role" in deterring foes for a long time to come.

However, the NPR does nudge the US a welcome few steps closer to the long-term vision Obama outlined in Prague last year of "a world without nuclear weapons." It is a decisive and healthy break with the Bush era's excessive reliance on the bomb as an instrument of foreign policy in the anxious years after the 9/11 attacks. ...

In the Obama administration's view, as codified in the NPR, Russia and China are no longer the enemy. America's "top priority" is now to prevent al Qaeda or other terror groups from obtaining nuclear materials and to stop rogue states such as Iran and North Korea from building bombs and the means to deliver them."

Chicago Tribune

on airline passenger screening policies

The attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day was a catastrophe that was only narrowly averted. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, allegedly boarded the Detroit-bound plane from Amsterdam with a bomb hidden in his pants. But when he reportedly tried to set it off, it failed to detonate.

In the scary aftermath, the Department of Homeland Security imposed broad new security rules requiring extra screening of incoming travellers from 14 countries, most of them largely Muslim, including Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. This was a frantic attempt to head off another possible attack.

Three months later, the administration has replaced the emergency plan with a more targeted approach. Recently, DHS announced that it will implement new measures on all international flights coming to the United States.

Instead of scrutinising everyone from certain countries, security personnel will focus on travellers who match intelligence information about potential threats. Even if authorities lack the name of an alleged plotter, they hope to be able to catch him through information such as physical features, age or past travels. By including all countries, DHS intends to prevent extremist groups from circumventing detection by avoiding those 14 nations. ...

Relying more on intelligence is a sound idea. But it requires sound use of information as well as the good investigative work needed to supply it. In the Christmas Day episode, it was not the policy that fell short so much as the people charged with carrying it out.

This looks like a better system. To improve our safety, though, it will need better execution.

Providence (R.I.) Journal

on record-setting floods

No one knows yet with any precision the full scale of property damage from the floods in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut. It's probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and, we suppose, could even top $1 billion.

But far more important, of course, is the question of saving lives. And on that, we can be grateful that calm, well-informed and prompt leadership by the three states' governors — Donald Carcieri, Deval Patrick and Jodi Rell — and valiant and fast work by law enforcement, fire, rescue and other personnel, in the public and private sectors, including the National Weather Service and private forecasters, and the news media, kept the threat of loss of life to a minimum.

Indeed, while reports are still coming in, as of this writing there were no deaths directly attributed to the storm in the flood's epicentre — Rhode Island. The accuracy and timeliness of warnings (aided by the electronic communications revolution of the past few years) were at the core of this achievement.

It could have been much, much worse, as awful as it was. It would be good to remember that as we continue to try to clean up the mess.