What the world is reading

Two-and-a-half years after he lost his presidential bid fair and square to Barack Obama,John McCain is back in form.

Newsweek
Back on the battlefield

Two-and-a-half years after he lost his presidential bid fair and square to Barack Obama,John McCain is back in form. Howard Kurtz catches the 74-year-old Republican in his Senate office and finds he has shed his grumpy-old-man mode,jolted into action by the Libyan debate. The Vietnam war veteran tells Kurtz he couldnt help feeling Gaddafi would be gone had Obama started the bombing sooner,and that the president should never have relinquished control of the mission to NATO. Kurtz begins the feature with a meeting that McCain had with Gaddafi in 2009. The Libyan leader,a map of Africa emblazoned on his shirt,was ensconced in a tent in Tripoli with horses exercising outside when he turned to the visiting senator and said,If you had withdrawn all the troops from Iraq,you would have been elected president. McCain,concluding his host was crazy,countered: I can think of a lot of reasons I lost,but that wasnt one I had seriously considered.

The Observer
Banning the burqa

As Frances ban on face veils went into force on Monday,anyone wearing the niqab or burqa in public now faces a fine of 150 euros. If this sound a little unfriendly to you,writes Viv Groskop in The Observer,be very worried. Because this trend is spreading. A ban is already in operation in Belgium and under discussion in Canada,Denmark and Spain. It is likely to become law in the Netherlands this year or next, she says. What a lot of fuss over a piece of cloth, says Groskop. But she warns that the UK hasnt seen the last of this debate where some parrot the French argument that the ban is not racist,its common sense. Liberty means allowing others to get on with their lives,even if you dont approve of their wardrobe choices. In the meantime,anyone planning a trip to the Alps might want to select their winter headgear very carefully, writes Groskop.

The Atlantic
Risk of arming Libyas rebels

Flooding Libya with guns and arming the rebels can set off a dangerous chain of events,one that the US has seen before,writes Diana Wueger in The Atlantic. We teach the rebels how to use them guns,essentially standing up an alternate Libyan army. Eventually we go home,whether they win or lose,pleased to have done something we think was right. But then what?8230;What happens in a post-conflict Libya awash in arms,heavily populated by young men who know how to use them,who lack jobs or money or any prospect for either? writes Wueger.

The story of arming rebels,says Wueger,is the story of one of the unrecognised tragedies of our time: small arms proliferation.

Los Angeles Times
A broad change

Before the earthquake struck Japan on March 11,Japan had been far from perfect. Nobody knows this better than the Japanese. Two decades of economic malaise,unsteady politicsthe country has had five prime ministers since 2007a greying population and dispirited youths: Japan had serious troubles. But now,many hope the catastrophe will be a catalyst that will turn around the nation and give it a rebirth, write Don Lee and Julie Makinen. Though much has been said about the incredible resolve of the Japanese,the authors say that in interviews,many Japanese expressed lingering doubts about whether the country could pull together and overcome such deep-seated problems as weak leadership and Japans huge public debt.