17th May 08 - Walden Bello, The Nation

When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place?

17th May 08 - Noam Chomsky, New Statesman

Nineteen sixty-eight was one exciting moment in a much larger movement. It spawned a whole range of movements. There wouldn't have been an international global solidarity movement, for instance, without the events of 1968. It was enormous, in terms of human rights, ethnic rights, a concern for the environment, too.

17th May 07 - Greenpeace

Policymakers should prioritise investments in sustainable energy solutions to stop the climate crisis and not succumb to pumping vast amounts of taxpayers money into the elusive promise of carbon capture and storage (CCS), concludes Greenpeace in a new report, entitled “False Hope”.

15th May 08 - Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, CounterPunch.org

15th May 08 - Omnesha Roychoudhuri, Alternet

TV dinners were launched at a time when only a small percentage of Americans actually owned TVs. Thus, the meals, writes Raj Patel, "were what people ate while they dreamed of affording one." In the American dream, we imagine a bucolic Midwest, a place of bounty, yet the reality is that the breadbasket of America is rife with poverty and a declining life expectancy. The idyllic vision of quaint American farmland doesn't work like that "except in fiction," says Patel, and there is perhaps no greater fiction than the comforting hand of the free market -- particularly as it pertains to food.

14th May 08 - Herman E. Daly, CommonDreams.org

Recent increased attention to global warming is very welcome. But much of it is misplaced. We focus too much on complex climate models, which ask things like how far emissions will increase carbon dioxide concentration, how much that will raise temperatures, by when, with what consequences to climate and geography, and how likely new information will invalidate model results. Together these questions can paralyze us with uncertainty.

14th May 08 - Hope Shand, Foreign Policy in Focus

14th May 08 - Aileen Kwa, IPS News

The high food prices that have sparked riots in many parts of the developing world -- from Indonesia, India and Bangladesh to Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti -- should come as no surprise. These are only the latest in a series of events many developing countries have suffered as a result of opening their borders and neglecting domestic agriculture.

13th May 08 - Jeremy Seabrook, The Guardian (UK)

The failure of the working class to fulfil the "destiny" prescribed for it by Marx as "grave-diggers of capitalism" has been the object of much retrospective scorn - although while the labour movement retained its power, Marx's prophecy was treated more cautiously. In rich western societies, the end of any threat to stability by the workers was welcomed, since it seemed to lay to rest the sterile enmities of class conflict. Countries in which the proletariat (or its surrogates) did triumph soon discovered they were trapped in bureaucratic contortion and social nightmare.

13th May 08 - Ian Angus,  Socialist Project: E-Bulletin No. 107

When food riots broke out in Haiti last month, the first country to respond was Venezuala. Within days, planes were on their way from Caracas, carrying 364 tons of badly needed food. The people of Haiti are "suffering from the attacks of the empire's global capitalism," Venezuelan president Hugo Chàvez said. "This calls for genuine and profound solidarity from all of us. It is the least we can do for Haiti." Venezuela's action is in the finest tradition of human solidarity. When people are hungry, we should do our best to feed them. Venezuela's example should be applauded and emulated.