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

The Japan (Toyko), –on the Realistic view on war and peace

In the October announcement of its decision to bestow the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on US President Barack Obama, the Norwegian Nobel Committee attached special importance to his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons".

The committee also praised the US president by stating: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

But the prevailing political circumstances seem to have forced Mr. Obama to put more stress on realism in international politics than on ideals and hope. In his acceptance speech, entitled "A Just and Lasting Peace," given in Oslo December 10, he acknowledged that occasions arise when use of military force becomes necessary to realise peace.

Clearly aware of criticism, especially in the United States, that he cannot claim any concrete achievements of a global scale, Mr. Obama was humble in the opening part of his speech.

He said, "I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labours on the world stage."

A Gallup poll taken a week after the Norwegian committee's announcement found that 34 percent thought that Mr. Obama deserved the prize, while 61 percent did not.

The results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released December 9 showed that only 19 percent of respondents thought Mr. Obama deserved the prize now, with 35 percent regarding it likely that he will eventually accomplish enough to deserve it, and more than 40 percent believing that he will never deserve the prize.

Mr. Obama also admitted that "my accomplishments are slight" when compared with people like Albert Schweitzer (the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner), Martin Luther King Jr. (the 1964 winner of the prize), George Marshall (former US Secretary of State known for the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after the Second World War) and Nelson Mandela (the 1993 recipient of the prize).

The acceptance ceremony came nine days after Mr. Obama announced that he will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and the fact that his administration is waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly weighed on his mind.

He acknowledged that "perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars".