Sep 20, 2013 4 min read

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad as compiled by the Associated Press:

Another day in America and another mass shooting. This time, one gunman killed 12 people and wounded others at the Washington Navy Yard. The gunman also was killed.

Now comes the ritual with which Americans are too familiar: an explosion of media coverage exploring what happened and telling the story of the alleged shooter – identified as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old Navy veteran – and what might have motivated him. Then comes another round in the debate over gun control in a nation armed to the teeth, a nation seemingly incapable of keeping a few of those weapons from people who are mentally unstable and bent on a bizarre crusade of vengeance against innocent people.

This time, though, the pattern of mass shootings has taken a symbolic turn. The shots on Monday erupted just blocks from the Capitol where the National Rifle Association has managed to block bills proposing significant changes in the nation’s gun laws.

The resistance to gun control is driven by a combination of money from U.S. gun manufacturers and a fervent belief among some gun owners that assault-style rifles and easily obtained handguns increase the safety of American citizens. But two of the recent mass shootings, one at Fort Hood in Texas and Monday’s event, took place within military facilities where there was no shortage of guns.

But there is little reason to hope that the proximity of America’s latest mass murder will change the minds of enough lawmakers to make a difference. If the carnage at Sandy Hook with its toll of six adults and 20 first-graders was not enough, this won’t be, either.

Monday was a terrifying day in a corner of the nation’s capital, but it was also just another day in America.

While all eyes are focused on a proposal to strip Syria of its chemical weapons, that war-battered nation remains the site of one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world.

Millions of Syrian refugees have fled the civil war yet the world has been slow to help the United Nations pay for food, shelter, medical care and other necessities. The world can do better.

At stake are the lives and well-being of two million Syrians, half of them children under 17, who are stranded in refugee camps or hunkered down in private homes in nations such as Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq that are overwhelmed by the numbers and can barely care for them.

The United States, despite its past generosity, needs to ante more. Even more important, people in the rest of the world, including businesses and individuals have to open their wallets.

The International Olympic Committee has chosen Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. It is hoped that Tokyo’s hosting of the once-in-four-year global games will help dispel the “locked in” feeling prevalent in Japanese society – which has been primarily attributed to difficult economic conditions – and help to enhance the level of sports in Japan.

Madrid, Istanbul and Tokyo, the candidate cities to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, all had strong and weak points. Madrid, which sought to hold the games in a less extravagant way, is suffering from Spain’s serious economic problems. Istanbul, which could have become the first city in the Islamic world to host the games, had its image tarnished by clashes between government forces and demonstrators earlier this year. Tokyo, whose marketing campaign stressed, “You’re in safe hands with Tokyo,” had the festering radiation problem from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Japan’s campaign to win the right to host the games had a very regrettable aspect to it. Princess Takamado gave a speech at the outset of Tokyo’s presentation in Buenos Aires, in which she thanked the international community for the help it extended to Japan in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and subsequent Fukushima disaster. This smacks of the use of an Imperial Family member for a political purpose, and even the Imperial Household Agency expressed its discomfort.