These are excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers from around the world that may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers:

The Greenville (South Carolina) News, on childhood obesity (May 8):

American children, mirroring the adult population, are getting fatter. And it's making them sick.

A poor diet and inactivity are giving children serious diseases often associated with overweight adults. ...

Bad habits often begin at a young age, and overeating and a sedentary lifestyle are likely to continue into adulthood. ... Obesity may soon overtake smoking as the chief cause of preventable deaths in this country.

The answer to the problem, of course, is to encourage good habits in children: a better diet and more exercise. Physically active young people not only avoid obesity-related diseases but also feel better than their overweight peers and perform better in school. They tend to avoid risky behaviors such as smoking and drug use.

Parents have the primary responsibility for encouraging children to adopt a healthy lifestyle, but schools and local governments have crucial roles to play as well. ...

The Philadelphia Inquirer, on former Carter's trip to Cuba (May 14):

He's not our man in Havana.

He holds no portfolio from the Bush administration. Nor ever will where Cuba is concerned.

But ex-president Jimmy Carter, representing the Carter Center in Atlanta, is visiting Cuba this week. He's the first current or former president to visit Cuba in 74 years. He's his own man in Havana. And he really dislikes our country's Cuba policy.

Carter is in his third decade as worldwide rover for peace and justice. He's done much good. ... Where some interpret Mr. Carter's missions through the years as admirably principled, others view them as undercutting the foreign-affairs policy of the sitting president.

Nor is his own Cuba record spotless. His efforts in 1980 helped lead to a flood of more than 120,000 Cubans, many of them criminals, in the notorious Mariel boatlift.

But, even though Mr. Castro is a dictator and thug, Mr. Carter is right when it comes to our Cuba policy. While the embargo — a creaky, drooling relic of the cold war — has trapped Cuba economically, it has also impoverished the Cuban on the street.

And it's hypocritical through and through, since we regularly play footsie with human-rights disasters Saudi Arabia and China. If Cuba had scads of oil, or a billion-plus entrepreneurs and consumers, its US relations would be as sweet as Cuban coffee.

The real reason the Cuban embargo persists? Politics — what else? Rich and powerful, the Cuban emigre community in Florida (about 800,000 strong) wants the United States to keep the screws on Fidel Castro. President after president, Republican and Democrat, has crumpled under this group's passionate political pressure.

The Bush administration is no different. On May 20 (in Miami, of course), President Bush will deliver a foreign-policy address in which he's expected to propose new measures against Cuba, including initiatives to aid Mr. Castro's domestic opposition.