It makes no sense to single out biofuels as the scapegoat for high food costs without considering the effect of the spectacular rise in oil prices, writes Ignacy Sachs, honorary professor, School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris, and visiting fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo.

The Caucasus is today a major theatre of the Cold War II, which involves the long-term encirclement of Russia-India-China in order to control Eurasia through the eastward expansion of NATO and the westward expansion of AMPO, the U.S.-Japan security system, writes Johan Galtung, a professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and author of "50 Years: 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives," TRANSCEND University Press, 2008.

The struggle of the new and developing countries to affirm their presence in the world is not much in evidence but is no less pressing and must be perceived as unrelenting. This is true notwithstanding, and perhaps because of, the reality that some in their ranks such China, India and Brazil have in the meantime evolved into great political and economic powers and are seeking their own place in relation to the great powers of the cold war days, writes Benjamin William Mkapa, former president of Tanzania and chairperson of the South Centre.

Blaming high food prices on rising demand in fast-developing countries like China and India deflects scrutiny from structural causes -- like the liberalisation of agricultural markets -- and suggests incorrectly that market-friendly reforms have uplifted the poor and underprivileged, writes Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank working to increase public participation and to promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues.

At the bottom of the world economy people die from hunger and preventable curable diseases, while at the top, where enormous quantities of wealth are transported upwards, particularly into U.S. hands, speculation is the twin of starvation, both offspring of the same morbid, and probably moribund, system, writes Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network.

There is a clear lesson to be drawn from the unsuccessful WTO negotiations held in Geneva July 21-29: the world is witnessing a shift of power in the arena of the world economy and world trade as new states with growing economies and political ambitions are asserting themselves, writes Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister.

A year ago, when then provisional president Raul Castro made an overture to the United States, the response was fundamentalist and hostile, and Havana's counter-response was the usual: that after 50 years, Washington's hostility (the major effect of which has been the suffering of individual Cubans) has not budged the Cuban government, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban author and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

There has never been a time when it was more important for us to inspire each other by learning from our differences or holding a creative dialogue of the wise, writes Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and peace-builder and president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) grassroots Buddhist movement.

The last G8 summit (Hokkaido, Japan, July 7-9) sat in judgment over the democratic credentials of the government of Zimbabwe, but it had itself no legitimacy. The Group of Eight had no choice but to bring the matter to the United Nations Security Council. And there the West lost: China and Russia vetoed, writes Yash Tandon, executive director of the South Centre, Geneva.

We are at the threshold of the transition out of the oil and, hopefully, the fossil energy age, writes Ignacy Sachs, honourary professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris, and visiting fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo.

The structural solution to the problem of world food security is an increase in productivity and production in the low-income food-deficit countries. This would require, in addition to official development assistance, innovative new solutions. To this effect, it is necessary to develop partnership or joint-venture agreements between, on the one hand, those countries that have the financial resources and, on the other, those that possess land, water and human resources, writes Jacques Diouf, director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The 2008 World Report on the Death Penalty from Hands Off Cain confirms that there has been positive movement in the fight to end capital punishment for more than a decade, and highlights the most striking advance yet: the universal moratorium against capital punishment approved by the United Nations last December, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in Italy's Radical Party who prepared the death penalty report.

Between floods, droughts, epidemics, food shortages and rising prices, the world seems about to spin off its axis. For all the drama of the past half century, historians and natural scientists tell us that the postwar era has actually been something of an anomaly, a period of relative calm in nature and human events in a world that history has shown to be reliably unpredictable. That hiatus may now be ending. Moreover, they say, we are approaching a threshold moment, a change of phase that will throw every long-held habit and assumption into question. War and revolution are just such moments, but never before have we endured simultaneous transformations of politics, culture and nature, writes Mark Sommer, host of A World of Possibilities, an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio programme (www.aworldofpossibilities.com).

Forty-six years after it was proclaimed, Cuban socialism seems to have finally revived the idea of the value of money as an economic regulator and social catalyst, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban author and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

Burma's military junta is exploiting cyclone Nargis to advance its interests and annihilate supporters of democracy, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma who now lives in exile and is presently the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma.

Cold War I came and went, and then, in the mid-1990s, Cold War II began, building on the ruins of Cold War I and now gathering strength, writes Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network.

Whether they hope for the materialisation of certain wishes or are convinced of certain disappointment, a day looms in the near future for Cuban: July 26, anniversary of the beginning of the armed struggle of Fidel Castro and his followers in 1953, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

Given the unmistakeable signs that Earth cannot survive the intensified exploitation of her resources, the assault on the dignity of her children, and the exclusion and condemnation to starvation of millions of humans, it is essential that we seek inspiration in other civilisations that offer ecological wisdom, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer, liberation theologist, and a comissioner and author of the Earth Charter.

It's not easy to explain why, virtually alone among advanced industrial democracies, the United States holds on to the practice of capital punishment. The United Nations General Assembly recently passed a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment and most advanced industrial democracies have outlawed the death penalty. Capital punishment is coming to be seen in much of the world as an ultimate abuse of human rights. In continuing to embrace the practice, the United States finds itself aligned with nations whose human rights records it routinely condemns: China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, writes Mark Sommer, host of "A World of Possibilities", an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio programme.

The next Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to George W. Bush, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of IPS.