SOUTH AMERICA: Leaders Seek Regional Energy Sovereignty

The South American energy summit that got underway Monday marks a point of convergence between the certainty that the region has the energy resources needed for its development and the political will to translate that into socially and economically viable undertakings.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Presses On With Subsidies

This year the European Union will spend more than 35 percent of its 115 billion euro (156 billion dollars) budget on supporting farmers, even though agriculture accounts for less than 5 percent of the EU workforce.

ENERGY-CHAD: A Solution to Deforestation That Some Also View as a Problem

It's affordable, and central to stopping deforestation in Chad. But, butane gas has a long way to go before it becomes a household staple in this Sahelian country: many Chadians have a fixed belief that gas is simply too dangerous to use.

ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Fuel in the Car at the Expense of Food on the Table?

South Africa has joined the race to find alternative sources of energy: government has already approved a 'Draft Biofuels Industry Strategy', and called on stakeholders to discuss it.

ENERGY: Brazil Aims to Dominate World Ethanol Market

Brazil is working towards producing enough ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline consumed worldwide within 18 years. That would mean increasing its current production of 17.3 billion litres a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests, protected areas or food cultivation.

DEVELOPMENT: More Uncertain Promises of Aid

The ministers of development and international cooperation of the Group of Eight most industrialised countries (G8) have agreed again that their governments "must make...development cooperation more effective" and "keep their pledges to increase official development assistance."

TRADE-US: Democrats Push Labour Friendly Trade Rules

Democrats in the U.S. Congress unveiled a new plan Tuesday that would require Washington to incorporate stronger labour and environmental standards as well as provisions for access to life-saving drugs in pending free trade agreements.

EUROPE: Poor Need More Than a Declaration

The 50th anniversary of the European Union has been marked by a declaration committing the 27-country bloc to "drive back poverty, hunger and disease" throughout the world.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Renewable Sources the Key to Energy Crisis?

Biofuel and other renewable energy sources may hold the key to Africa's energy crisis. Without intervention, this crisis is set to grow. Southern African cities such as Lusaka in Zambia, Harare in Zimbabwe, Gaborone in Botswana and Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania will be affected.

BRAZIL: No Consensus on Success of Land Reform

Brazil's land reform programme has settled nearly one million families on small farms of their own in the last 20 years. But there is no consensus on the effort, which the government touts as a success, the landless movement sees as insufficient, and the opposition criticises as wrongheaded.

ENVIRONMENT: Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation

Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the world's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, new biofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the environment.

POLITICS-INDIA: ‘Neo-Liberal’ Left Behind Peasants’ Massacre

By ordering police to open fire on peasants trying to protect their land from being acquired for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the communist government of West Bengal state has indicated the crumbling away of the last bulwark in India against neo-liberal and free market policies.

TRADE: Promises Go One Way, Subsidies Another

Africa's leading cotton producing countries - Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad - are upset over Washington's continued failure to implement the commitments it undertook at the World Trade Organisation's Hong Kong ministerial Meeting in 2005 to address the distortions caused by the U.S. subsidies in the global cotton trade.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: MDGs Depend on Power Relations Changing

‘‘The people of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta are poor not because they do not have resources but because they do not have political power. Those who wield power in Nigeria are building skyscrapers in Lagos and Abuja while there is nothing in the Niger Delta. It is the same at the global level.''

BRAZIL-US: Ethanol Deal Represents Convergence of Multiple Interests

The new partnership to promote the use of ethanol agreed during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Brazil is the result of the convergence of varied interests between the two countries.

URUGUAY-US: Bush, an Unwelcome Guest

U.S. President George W. Bush's arrival in Uruguay Friday has created quite a stir in the leftwing coalition that is governing this South American country for the first time ever.

TRADE: Europe Grapples With the Future of ACP Sugar Imports

The European Union (EU) has imported sugar at preferential prices from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries since the 1970s; but, failed sugar reform within the union and the prospect of unlimited imports from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the near future have put a question mark over this arrangement.

CUBA-VENEZUELA: Making Biofuels Without Wasting Food

The governments of Cuba and Venezuela are planning to move forward together on biofuels production, but they will rely on producing alcohol from sugarcane, in order to spare food crops.

ENVIRONMENT: Ocean Fisheries Maxed Out

Two-thirds of fish stocks in the world's high seas are overfished, while most of those closer to shore are failing or fished to the maximum, a new U.N. report said Monday.

TRADE: Developing Countries Fight Another Formula

Several developing countries have sharply criticised fresh attempts by the European Union and the United States to pry open their industrial markets through a controversial Swiss formula.

ENERGY: Major Oil Consumers Warm to Biofuels

Despite their diverse - and sometimes sharply conflicting - political and economic interests, the world's major powers seem to be getting closer to each other in their quest to develop clean alternative sources of energy.