BERLIN, Germany — Next month in Munich, those associated with a long-unknown neo-Nazi terror cell go on trial for 10 murders allegedly committed over the last several years. The public and media outrage at the state for failing to uncover the group’s existence is another reminder of how sensitive Germany remains to its heinous past, and how serious it still is in confronting it.

EAST ORANGE, N.J. — US energy independence has been a pipedream of presidents and politicians.

With President Barack Obama’s looming decision on whether to approve the Keystone pipeline, proponents are citing US energy independence, lower fuel prices, and a chance to get oil from a more friendly country as reasons to back the project.

Opponents to the pipeline have largely based their arguments on environmental concerns and long-term climate change.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Rare are the days when we can truly say the world is becoming a better place. At the United Nations General Assembly on April 2, 2013, history was made when 155 states voted in favor of an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), opening the opportunity countries begin signing on June 3.

OWLS HEAD, Maine — "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest."

Henry II's frustrated plea to be rid of Thomas a Becket is surely mimicked these days with regard to Kim Jong Un and his whole turbulent regime. And not so much in Washington and Seoul — though surely in both capitals such deliverance is devoutly wished — as in Beijing where their unruly puppets in Pyongyang could, through miscalculation, set off an explosion that China has no interest in but for which it would certainly share much blame.

For half a century China has tolerated, and indeed supported, their North Korean ally's belligerent behavior, regarding them as a welcome buffer to the nearly 30,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea for well over 50 years.

But a China that has long since emerged from the hardline days of Mao must now be increasingly worried that its poorly trained pet will bite the wrong leg once too often.

Western analysts continue to suggest that Chinese reluctance to reign in its irrational neighbor reflects Chinese fear that overt pressure, were it to lead to North Korea's collapse, would have two disastrous consequences: in the short run, millions of starving North Koreans would flee across the Chinese border bringing economic and political instability to China. And, longer term, as the peninsula is re-united under Seoul, American troops would end up stationed along China's border.