Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers around the world which may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers:

The Times, London, on talking to the Taliban:

On the campaign trail Barack Obama repeatedly said that Afghanistan was a top foreign policy priority. He called for more US troops to be sent there, but also insisted that the present strategy would need to be reassessed comprehensively. In office, he has already begun that reassessment. In an interview ... he declared that the United States was not winning the war and suggested there were opportunities to reach out to moderates in the Taliban.

President Obama appeared to be confirming what a growing number of American and British commanders have been saying for months: that a straight military victory is now beyond reach. With General Petraeus commanding the overall strategy, Washington is looking to see whether the tactics he used in Iraq to such effect can be replicated in Afghanistan. A surge in troops numbers, adding 17,000 US soldiers to bolster the record 38,000 already there, is the prelude to splitting moderate Taliban sympathizers from the hard-core leadership that is aligned with al-Qaeda. The aim is to offer military protection against intimidation to villages weary of the fighting while encouraging a political settlement with the Karzai Government. This would break the Taliban's growing hold over the south, isolate the Islamist extremists and allow the NATO force to concentrate on its original mission, protecting the rebuilding of Afghanistan's infrastructure. ...

Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden, on the situation in Guinea-Bissau:

Yesterday, the small west-African country Guinea-Bissau's president, Joao Bernardo "Nino" Viera, was buried. Security analysts say that army chief Batista Tagme Na Waie saw his own destiny as tied together with that of his longtime foe, the president. Their power struggle had been going on for many years and after some time assumed nearly biblical — or at least mythological — proportions.

Last week both men were murdered within a few hours. First the general, then the president.

The surrounding world dreaded the chaos that appeared inevitable. But correspondents report that the coup d'etat seems to have stopped short. The official explanation for the murders is that the president was killed by army soldiers as revenge for the murder of Tagme Na Waie. The fact that the chain of events is characterized by a kind of poetic justice, where the two brutal antagonists are consumed by hatred and finally put each other down, seems to have effectively killed the interest for more detailed analysis.

... (S)ome even have the courage to claim that the murders have started a necessary and long-awaited renewal process, where Guinea-Bissau for the first time in many years can allow itself to look ahead. Within two months there will be new elections. ...