14th March 08 - Per Pinstrup-Andersen, The Guardian (UK)

Because of the way the US allocates its food aid, soaring prices mean less is available at the very moment developing nations need help the most

Recent increases in food prices have been spectacular. International grain prices more than doubled during the last three years, and the prices of other foods have increased as well. When food prices are high, poor people, who are not food producers, are more likely to suffer hunger and malnutrition, unless, of course, they get help in the form of cash, food subsidies or food aid. But when prices are high, less food aid is available.

14th March 08 - David Singer, Monthly Review

Michael Moore’s film, Sicko, dramatically illustrated how problems in access to health care in the United States have escalated to the point of a crisis for all but the richest Americans. The problems include the fact that many citizens are uninsured, health care costs are increasing faster than inflation and wages, and more of those costs are being passed on from employers to employees.

14th March 08 - Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch.org

March 12.  Crude oil for April delivery hit $110 per barrel.  The US dollar fell to a new low against the Euro.  It now takes $1.55 to purchase one Euro. These new highs against the dollar are the ongoing story of the collapse of the US dollar as world reserve currency and corresponding collapse of American power.

14th March 08 - John Vandaele, IPS news

For the first time in decades, if not centuries, most of the so-called developing countries have seen their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- that is the sum of all incomes earned on their territory -- grow faster during the last five years than that of the so-called rich countries (EU, U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia...).

America's so-called gross domestic product is an enormous number and an important number, but is it the right number? That's the question that comes before the US Senate Wednesday in an unusual hearing on the far from perfect science of measuring economic activity.

13th March 08 - John Vandaele, Asian Times Online

Neo-liberalism is slowly fading away - that is, if we define neo-liberalism as an ideology that steadily wants to reduce and belittle the role of government and promote ever freer markets. While almost everybody nowadays recognizes the market as an interesting instrument, dogmatic market fundamentalism is on the way out. If you want to prevent big trouble, there is really no alternative but that it should be so.

13th March 08 - Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

As the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War approaches, the once-unchallengeable claims that “the surge worked” are harder to find. While the additional 30,000 U.S. occupation troops remain in Iraq, analysts agree that the most important reasons for the late 2007 decline in violence – especially the rise of the Sunni-based “awakening” militias – are becoming increasingly dicey.

13th March 08 - Shawn Hattingh, MRZine

The battle against US imperialism and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has once again been taken to the streets of Mexico City.  On the 31st of January, hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers came out in protest against the free trade onslaught that the people of Mexico have been subjected to.

13th March 08 - Andrew G. Marshall, Global Research

This report examines the current war and genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which started in the mid-1990s, placing emphasis on the roles of Western covert operations, corporations and the plundering of resources that has resulted.

12th March 08 - Susan A. Mainka, Jeffrey A. Mcneely and William J. Jackson, redOrbit.com

A new paradigm is emerging in the world of environmental conservation. Conservationists have traditionally spoken of conserving the building blocks of nature-genes, species, and ecosystems, along with the air, water, and land with which these interact. But this approach has not captured the interest of those who influence the activities that degrade these building blocks.