4th April 08 - Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South

There is now a solid consensus in the scientific community that if the change in global mean temperature in the twenty-first century exceeds 2.4 degrees Celsius, changes in the planet's climate will be large-scale, irreversible, and disastrous. Moreover, the window of opportunity for action that will make a difference is narrow -- that is, the next 10 to 15 years.

4th April 08 - Nicolaus Mills, The Guardian (UK)

2nd April 2008 - Robert Weissman, Multinational Monitor

Philip Morris International today starts business as an independent company, no longer affiliated with Philip Morris USA or the parent company, Altria. Philip Morris USA will sell Marlboro and other cigarettes in the United States. Philip Morris International will trample over the rest of the world. Public health advocates have worried and speculated over the past year about what this move may mean, but Philip Morris International has now removed all doubts. The world is about to meet a Philip Morris International that will be even more predatory in pushing its toxic products worldwide.

1st April 2008 - David Usborne, The Independent (UK)

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis.

1st April 2008 - William M. Gumede, The Guardian (UK)

When it comes to chosing between a dictator and the long-suffering people, African leaders have always instinctively sided with the autocrat, no matter how disreputable he - almost always he - is. Now neighbouring African leaders who have propped up Robert Mugabe for most of his 28-year autocratic rule of Zimbabwe will now have to make a decision they have never had the courage to take before: support the people, instead of the dictator in question.

1st April 2008 - Zia Mian, Foreign Policy in Focus

Five years ago the United States attacked and occupied Iraq. It has lost militarily, politically and morally. The end of the war may be in sight. But the consequences will endure, as will the deep-seated impulse among America’s leaders for global intervention without constraint. The war has exposed the limits of American military power. The promise of a high-tech war of “shock and awe” quickly crumbled and has been all but forgotten.

31st March 08 - John Gray, The Observer (UK)

History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.

31st March 08 - Tariq Ali, MRZine

What has happened to the movement against the war that exploded in 2003, mobilizing millions of people in the entire West, to the point that the New York Times called it "the second superpower"? The fact is that it never was, in the true and proper sense of the word, a movement -- only a day of paroxysm, a spontaneous and desperate attempt of citizens of all political persuasions to stop the war.

31st March 08 - David Cronin, IPS news

Rich countries have made "patchy progress" in honouring pledges to improve their contribution to the fight against global poverty, according to a new report. In a declaration agreed at a 2005 international conference in Paris, 35 donor governments and many international agencies gave an undertaking to ensure that their development aid would become more effective.

28th March 08 - John Heilprin, Associated Press

Seven years ago as the economy boomed, the United Nations agreed to a set of ambitious goals for cutting poverty and disease and improving health care and education for the world's poor by 2015. Now, those "millennium" efforts are lagging. Midway to the deadline, progress is too slow to succeed in some key areas - notably efforts to provide food, shelter and improved care for mothers and children in sub-Saharan Africa - according to internal U.N. documents and interviews with senior diplomats and U.N. and U.S. officials.