Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers from overseas:<$>Aftenposten, Oslo, Norway, on the earthquake in Indonesia:<$>

Even nature is unfair. At least, it must feel that way in Indonesia.

The country’s authorities asked for international help after ... the earthquake on Java.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Indonesia’s president that Norway wants to help. Many other countries have promised aid.

That is encouraging, although the amounts are not always as impressive, since the aid that reaches disaster areas is always less than promised.

Speed is important. To reach tens, perhaps hundred, of thousand injured is decisive. ...

Indonesia bore the brunt of losses when the tsunami crashed over the many Asian countries during Christmas 2004. Some 130,000 died in the Aceh province of Sumatra, compared, for example, to 8,000 dead or missing in Thailand. ...

Indonesia, unlike among others Norway, is one of the countries where fear of earthquakes is almost constant.

The problem is that poverty, including poorly made buildings, can amplify the consequences. It can barely get worse than a big earthquake hitting a poor, densely populated area, as in this case. ...

When nature’s blind rage is linked with unfairness created by humanity, the earthquake victims don’t just deserve sympathy and compassion, but generous health.

Financial Times, London, on the departure of US Treasury Secretary John Snow:

It is hard not to feel sympathy for John Snow, whose departure from the Bush administration has been common knowledge in Washington for months. A competent and respected Treasury secretary, Mr. Snow has been undermined by the culture of leaks that often accompanies high office. And now, unsurprisingly, it is proving hard to find a replacement.

When George W. Bush came to office in January 2001, it became clear the role of Treasury secretary would be sharply downgraded from the prominence it enjoyed under Bill Clinton. In contrast to finance ministers in parliamentary democracies, US Treasury secretaries already have to share their fiscal and policymaking duties with other officials — particularly the head of the office of management and budget.

Since 2001, however, even these have been whittled away by a White House that has repeatedly treated economic policymaking — as opposed to politically-driven economics — as a low priority. Paul O’Neill, Mr. Bush’s first Treasury secretary, left office under a cloud in 2002 having tried and failed to integrate the president’s tax-cutting agenda into a responsible fiscal plan. Mr. Bush presided over one of the most rapid shifts from budgetary surplus to deficit in modern American history.

Some of this was necessitated by the security and military costs of the global war on terror and the more questionable and increasingly expensive war in Iraq. Much red ink was spilled last year when Congress passed the badly drafted $600 billion Medicare prescription bill for seniors, the largest single spending increase since Lyndon B. Johnson launched the Great Society in the 1960s. Most of the remaining fiscal deterioration derived from the series of tax cuts that Mr. Bush pushed through Congress in 2001 and 2002.

Given the scant regard Mr. Bush has paid to his Treasury secretaries and the fiscally conservative elements of his Republican base, it is no surprise that the hunt for Mr. Snow’s successor has been so drawn out.

Editor’s note:<$> Mr. Snow was replaced this week by Henry Paulson.