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

Kingston, New York Daily Freeman, on Virginia's Confederate History Month

To anyone who doubts some elements of the South are still fighting the Civil War — War of Northern Aggression, more than a few fervid recalcitrants continue to insist — a recent kerfuffle in Virginia was a wake-up call.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, using the awesome majesty of his high office, declared April to be Confederate History Month.

Upon further reflection, he was forced to concede what he understatedly called a "major omission" from that declaration — to wit, the failure to mention slavery ...

This was no simple omission. It was part of a concerted and continuing sleight of historical hand, 145 years after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at the tiny Virginia crossroads of Appomattox Court House.

To many Americans today, the Civil War remains part of a glorious, gauzy and meticulously maintained fiction about a bucolic, pastoral society of impeccably mannered white people minding their own business until insane Northern abolitionists made it necessary for them to defend themselves and the principle of self-government.

Absent from that mythology is the centrality of slavery, an institution of unspeakable brutality without which there would have been no secession, no war. ...

San Francisco Chronicle –on Poland's tragedy

The nation of Poland suffered a grievous loss ... when President Lech Kaczynski and scores of top politicians died in a plane crash in western Russia. Kaczynski and the nation's political elite had been on their way to the Katyn forest, which was the site of the 1940 Soviet massacre of about 20,000 Polish officers.

It was especially terrible to lose them on such a sombre mission.

There is the possibility that this tragedy could give rise to good things for Poland, however bitter those victories may be. The crash is showing ordinary Poles that their young democracy is strong. It's opening up the possibility of new relations between Poland and Russia. ...

After the crash, Russia was more open and transparent about what had happened than Russia usually is about its own national tragedies. Perhaps Russia will feel inspired to finally come clean about what happened at Katyn — which is full of the unmarked graves of not just those 20,000 Polish officers but also Russian victims of Stalin's purges. Poland has never felt as though Russia acknowledged its brutal behaviour toward Poland during the 20th century. Katyn would be a great place to start.