MIAMI, Jul (IPS) Recently Bob Roach, Chief Investigator of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the US Senate, took part in a conference in Miami organised by Offshore Alert, a specialised media organisation focused on financial crime.

Many around the world look to the United Nations conference on the global financial and economic crisis this week with great expectations, as it should be the start of a process that could bring the UN into the forefront of tackling the greatest economic crisis in half a century, writes Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Geneva.

It is said that a French politician, asked whether Brazil had a good future, answered with scorn and knowing irony, "Brazil has always had, still has, and will always have a magnificent future." It would seem that the country has suffered for decades under this sort of stigma, writes Joaquin Roy, ''Jean Monnet'' professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami.

This year's theme for the forum of the Literary Chiasso festival in the enchanting Swiss town was "nostalgia for the future", a subject that revealed with striking clarity the worries of thinking people today, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

The current global economic downturn is contributing significantly to deeper poverty and hunger across the world. Preliminary estimates indicate that more than 100 million could be dragged into hunger as a consequence, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Although the pace of capital investment in agricultural has slowed, there has been an intensification of the appropriation of natural resources that are still available. Recent years have seen a noticeable capitalist offensive to buy up more areas with biodiversity, mineral reserves, and sources of water and energy, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, an economist and a member of the Movement of the Landless (MST) and of Via Campesina International.

Representatives of African States will meet in Addis Ababa (June 8-9) to "exchange views" on the International Criminal Court (ICC). Prompted by the war crimes indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the meeting will provide a platform for the Court’s dissenters in Africa, and aim to sew discord among ICC supporters, writes Wangari Maathai, Wole Soyinka and Desmond Tutu.

One of the most urgent problems of today's world is the danger of nuclear weapons. The unexpected nuclear test by North Korea on May 25 and the test-firing of a series of short-range missiles is the latest, frightening reminder, writes Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991.

Burma's state-run media reported on 23 May that junta-appointed chief judge Thaung Nyunt found Aung San Suu Kyi had breached the terms of her house arrest because of the entrance into her compound in early May of an American man who swam across the lake in front of her house and stayed uninvited for two days, 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.

For years the Cuban population has been undergoing a decline that is now, according to specialists, "evident and pronounced", and it will continue to decrease unless there is a shift in the three crucial areas that affect demographic growth: mortality, emigration, and birth rate, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.