After decades of liberalization and globalization which was
supposed to bring prosperity for the majority, how is it that the
vast majority of people are impoverished? Unless more attention is
paid to local production, the global food crisis will linger,
perhaps indefinitely. Like so many problems, the solution lies with
consumers andnot with politicians-many of whom are the cause of the
presentcrisis anyway. We don't need more globalization but less of
it.

When oil jumps as much as it has, doubling since May 2007, it's natural to assume that something striking must have happened. In the past five years, investment in index funds tied to commodities has grown from $13 billion to $260 billion.

The "tortilla crisis" signalled the beginning of the distribution battles the planet is about to face - struggles over the most productive farmland, the most favorable supply contracts and the best seed.

In the Creole trick, the perpetrator pretends to be the victim, the
war criminal the peacemaker and the destroyer of nature the
conservationist. The Bushies have shown all the grace of an
elephant in a china cabeinet. Wolves masked as sheep must be
exposed, not accepted as peacemakers.

Conditions cry out for a national food policy, one that recognizes
the modern reality of unstable world food supplies in a finite
world under increasing human pressure. We need food for our
bellies, not our gas habitat. It seems to take chaos before
government reacts.

Southeast Asia May 10, 2008 The case for invading Myanmar By Shawn
W Crispin BANGKOK - With United States warships and air force
planes at the ready, and over 1 million of Myanmar's citizens left
bedraggled, homeless and susceptible to water-borne diseases by
Cyclone Nagris, the natural disaster presents an opportunity in
crisis for the US. A unilateral - and potentially United
Nations-approved - US military intervention in the name of
humanitarianism could easily turn the tide against the impoverished
country's unpopular military leaders, and simultaneously
rehabilitate the legacy of lame-duck US President George W Bush's
controversial pre-emptive military policies….

When it became clear that the presidential primaries would be the news story of the year in the US, Iraq was dropped by the media. The occupation and the campaign for the presidential nominations were de-linked almost from the start. What the potential candidates would do in Iraq? No information, but pulling troops out doesn't seem to be an option for any of them. 65% of people in the US oppose the occupation—yet Obama, Clinton and McCain march towards the election with the media not challenging their ambivalent positions on Iraq. Dahr Jamail reports.

Now that the financial clouds have lifted a bit, the pushback against sensible regulation is in full swing. Wall Street did an end run around regulation. There's every reason to believe that the next crisis will be bigger still-and the Fed won't have enough duct tape to hold things together.