Olav Orheim, the head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, believes the melting of the Arctic ice cap will occur this summer. Noting that its ice sheet had reached a historical low of 3m sq. km last summer - it covered around 7.5m sq. km as recently as 2000 - Orheim told Xinhua that "if Norway's average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away." Barring this disaster, Orheim predicted that excess carbon dioxide emissions and higher average temperatures would unpredictably alter the region's fragile ecosystems. On a separate note, he said that Asia would likely be hardest hit by rising sea levels, estimating that a one meter rise would affect "nearly 100 million people on an area of 800,000 square km in Asia and direct economic loss will amount to 400 billion U.S. dollars."

Today, a large part of our planet (roughly 40%) is being used for either growing crops or grazing cattle," said Dr Navin Ramankutty, a member of the Wisconsin-Madison team. By comparison, only 7% of the world's land was being used for agriculture in 1700. The Amazon basin has seen some of the greatest changes in recent times, with huge swaths of the rainforest being felled to grow soya beans. "One of the major changes we see is the fast expansion of soybeans in Brazil and Argentina, grown for export to China and the EU," said Dr Ramankutty. Meanwhile, intensive farming practices mean that cropland areas have decreased slightly in the US and Europe and the land is being gobbled up by urbanisation. The research indicates that there is now little room for further agricultural expansion. "Except for Latin America and Africa, all the places in the world where we could grow crops are already being cultivated. The remaining places are either too cold or too dry to grow crops," said Dr Ramankutty.

President Bush on Friday defended his emphasis on ethanol to help the nation meet its energy needs even though increased production of the corn-based biofuel has been blamed for contributing to sharp increases in food prices. "As you know, I'm a ethanol person," he said, explaining his belief that it can help reduce U.S. dependence on oil. "It makes sense for America to be growing energy." On the day the government announced the loss of 20,000 payroll jobs in April, Bush said he recognized the nation was in a difficult period, "but this economy is going to come on." He also chastised Congress for blocking his initiatives, including a stalled free trade agreement with Colombia, his plan to open Alaska lands and coastal waters to oil and gas exploration, and his proposal to overhaul the government's mortgage program. He also shifted into a reflective mien, saying to a worker in Dallas with whom he was conversing in a demonstration of a videoconferencing system: "Tell everybody down there, in about 10 months, I'm coming home." With that end of his administration in sight, the president's remarks brought into focus the flaring issues he faces: the economy, energy costs and, now, food prices

"A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind." --George W. Bush