Excerpts of editorial opinion from newspapers in the U.S. and abroad:

The Hutchinson (Kan.) News on renewable energy:

Most everyone knows about ethanol plants. They take agricultural foodstuffs — primarily corn and milo grown — and make a fuel much like gasoline that can power our cars in part if not whole.

Now imagine one of those ethanol plants getting its operating power from a yet another renewable energy source. Imagine creating energy by mixing cattle manure from a nearby feedlot, municipal waste from a nearby city, grain dust and animal waste.

That’s just what the Western Plains Energy ethanol plant in northwest Kansas will do, eliminating nearly 90 percent of fossil fuels currently used to operate the plant and becoming a user and producer of renewable energy.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a $5 million grant for the biogas anaerobic digester to Western Plains Energy while in Kansas recently.

It’s progress and results are well worth watching.

Los Angeles Times on Cuba’s exclusion at the Summit of the Americas:

Once again, Cuba was absent from the Summit of the Americas. Yet the communist nation might as well have attended the gathering in Cartagena, Colombia, because it took center stage, despite U.S. efforts to focus on other issues.

Ecuador’s president refused to attend the summit in protest of Cuba’s exclusion. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazil’s Dilma Rouseff, both moderates rather than left-wingers, said there should be no more Summits of the Americas without Cuba. A leftist bloc of nations that includes Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and some Caribbean countries said it won’t participate again unless Cuba does. And the meeting ended without a final joint declaration because the United States and Canada refused to agree to language specifying that Cuba would be invited to future summits. Continued...

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The controversy should serve as a wake-up call to the United States: The policy of banning Cuba from the gathering of the hemisphere’s leaders for nearly 18 years is backfiring. It hasn’t led to regime change any more than the 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba has; it hasn’t persuaded President Raul Castro or, before him, his brother Fidel to embrace democratic reforms, hold free elections or abandon human rights abuses. Instead, it has fueled frustration among Latin leaders.

Engagement, not isolation, is the best way to encourage change without alienating allies.

The Jerusalem Post on the pro-Palestinian “flytilla”:

The coordinated arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport of hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists from countries such as Canada, Portugal, Jordan, France, Britain, Belgium and Turkey was designed to create a provocation.

The timing of what is being dubbed a “flytilla” — after maritime attempts such as the infamous Mavi Marmara to challenge Israel’s sovereignty — is no coincidence.

It was purposely planned to take place precisely when thousands of Israelis vacationing abroad for Passover or Easter made their way home via Ben-Gurion Airport.

Thankfully, our political leaders took pre-emptive action.

There also appears to be increasing understanding in the international community that many self-proclaimed pro-Palestinian activists are not so much motivated by the desire to improve the lot of the Palestinian people as they are to do everything in their power to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Amazingly, however, many prominent Israelis who should have known better attacked our government leaders for mishandling the situation.

– Compiled by The Associated Press

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