These are excerpts from editorials in newspapers from around the world:

The Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, on Hamas in power (March 7):

Despite glaring bids to ostracise and demonise Hamas, the Palestinian group, which swept legislative elections in January, has achieved political success of late. This week, its leaders made a high-profile visit to Moscow. Russia deserves praise for taking the lead in reaching out to Hamas, despite vociferous Israeli objections. Other countries seem willing to follow suit. Now in power, the movement is experiencing political transformation, which should be promoted, not demoted.

The fact that Hamas is at the Palestinian helm is the result of democratic voting. This fact should be borne in mind while this hubbub continues over the group’s manifesto. The Palestinians voted it to power and their choice must be respected. They should not be punished for practising democracy.

Hamas is under mounting pressure to recognise the Jewish state. Logic dictates that this recognition should be mutual. Both sides should be prodded to exchange reconciliatory gestures, which would clear the way for breaking the protracted peace impasse.

Toronto Star, on President Bush’s India deal (March 7):

United States President George Bush has not handed India “The Bomb” by agreeing to sell that country nuclear technology. That’s because India has had atomic weapons for decades. But the new pact between Washington and New Delhi undermines 35 years of nuclear arms control, and that stark reality poses a real risk to global security.

By treating India as an acceptable nuclear partner, Bush has signalled the US is prepared to do business with “strategic partners” such as India or Israel, even as it continues to treat Pakistan like a nuclear pariah and blasts North Korea and Iran as threats to world peace. Bush is not alone in this selectivity. Canada, Britain and France agreed last year to resume civilian nuclear cooperation with India, despite the risks for arms control.

Why shouldn’t Pakistan or Israel now seek similar bilateral deals outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)? And what incentive have North Korea and Iran to comply?

This is clearly a slippery slope. Yesterday the International Atomic Energy Agency busily debated just how much “face-saving” bomb-grade material Iran should be allowed to build up, before triggering some action by the United Nations Security Council. The thinking by some at the agency is that Iran will be seeking concessions now that India has its deal.

Rather than cut one-off deals that destroy the NPT in stages, the “Big Five” the US, Russia, Britain, France and China plus nuclear-capable countries like Canada would serve the world better by being firm with nuclear mavericks. They should sell nuclear technology only to nations agreeing not to develop weapons. That’s been the NPT bargain since 1970 and has served as a brake on the spread of nuclear weaponry, dissuading places like South Korea and Saudi Arabia from building a bomb.

Yet Bush has agreed to sell civilian nuclear technology to India, subject to US Congress approval, even though just 14 of its 22 reactors will be under international scrutiny. The rest stay closeted in military hands.

The US administration has tried to rationalise this “exception” with several arguments: India is a democracy; India is a potential ally of 1.1 billion people with a 300-million-strong middle class and a fast-growing economy that needs nuclear power to replace coal and oil which generate greenhouse gases; India has a good record on not selling nuclear technology to unstable regimes; India has agreed to partial inspections. All true.

In contrast, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran fail the democracy test. Pakistan, while a US ally in the war on terror, has sold nuclear technology on the black market. North Korea has cheated on the NPT and says it has a bomb, while Iran is trying to get one. Both threaten their neighbours.

But all this proves is that India is the least problematic of this group. That still does not make the deal right. The world has had real success, under the NPT, persuading South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Libya to give up their bomb-making programmes. That will be a harder sell in the future, given that the US has now winked at India’s bomb, after winking at Israel’s bomb.