As the world reels with the shock of soaring food prices erupting into food riots, questions are being raised as to how this situation came about. Jayati Ghosh analyses the current world food crisis and traces its origins to the neoliberal policies that have dominated economic decision-making in the Third World.

Walden Bello outlines the development of the G7 and G8 in his speech at the opening plenary of the People’s Summit in Hokkaido, Japan.

A new development model is needed in countries like Britain and the US, just as much as in the majority world, says Andrew Simms. We have to demonstrate that good lives do not have to cost the earth.

Whilst the poor of the world’s developing nations starve and struggle over soaring food prices, Andy Rowell describes how the rich world is now squabbling over the huge subsidies it gives its producers to produce more biofuels instead of food.