There is growing evidence that the financial markets have discovered the huge opportunities presented by agricultural commodities, writes Norman Girvan. The consequences are devastating, as speculators drive up food prices and plunge millions of people into poverty.

The fire at the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 8 September probably won’t ‘turn into a bushfire’, writes Gabriele Habashi, but it does give the Egyptian military an excuse for clamping down on protests by ordinary people in the eyes of the international community.

Kenya is under national and international obligation to guarantee the right to food, but the current famine and inadequate response point to government failure, writes Joseph Kibugu, who calls for effective measures to end the cycle of famines.

Thousands of children die each year in Zimababwe from HIV-related illnesses, often because they have no access to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.