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

Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle,– on Mukasey and waterboarding:

If the Bush administration harbours any hope that Attorney General Michael Mukasey will restore the good name of a Justice Department reeling from the tenure of Alberto Gonzales, it had better help him on the question of torture and permissible interrogation.

Right now, following withering examination this week by Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee, Mukasey looks as confused and compromised on the issue of torture as Gonzales was.

He should have a clear directive from the president to condemn torture, to declare that waterboarding is not and will not be used in the questioning of detainees and prisoners, and in general to uphold the standards of humane interrogation.

It's apparent from his remarks that Mukasey abhors waterboarding and, as an individual, considers it out of bounds.

But it's also apparent that the White House is holding him back, requiring him to keep the military's options open. ...

Mukasey, like his predecessor, will continue to look like the micromanaged tool of the political White House until he takes a hard and unequivocal stand on torture and the treatment of prisoners. ...

The Denver Post,–on challenges for Bush's successor:

... It has been widely reported that the Bush administration has been negotiating a long-term pact with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that maps how the US would be involved in Iraq, including keeping its government safe from internal and external threats.

Some in Congress and academia believe this meets the textbook definition of a treaty, and if it were one, Congress would have to approve such a pact.

The Bush administration has been forceful in its opinion that the agreement it is forging with Iraq is not a treaty, and therefore does not need to go to Congress.

Whether it technically is a treaty is an important issue, but not the only one. Bush has had nearly five years in pursuing his policies in Iraq. It has been a disaster. It's time he stops creating messes that the next president, and ultimately the American people, will be responsible for cleaning up.

Beyond that injustice there also is the president's continuing abuse of presidential signing statements. President Bush has used them prolifically to say he doesn't intend to comply with certain sections of bills that he believed to be unconstitutional.

The president justifies his actions by saying Congress cannot pass laws that infringe on the powers the Constitution gives to the executive branch. The trouble is, this administration has a rather expansive interpretation of executive power. ... The last thing this country needs is for the decisions of this administration to become an even heavier millstone around the neck of the next president.