Estimates suggest there will be 50m new mouths to feed every year. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian Hedge funds, with billions of pounds in assets, are recklessly gambling on food prices, with speculators driving massive price volatility that threatens the most vulnerable people on the planet. That’s the view of the World Development Movement [...]

Fermented cocoa beans being dried. Cocoa prices have risen 150% in 18 months – but farmers have not necessarily benefited. Photograph: Alamy Financial speculators have come under renewed fire from anti-poverty campaigners for their bets on food prices, blamed for raising the costs of goods such as coffee and chocolate and threatening the livelihoods of [...]

Linda Stay joined forces with filmmaker Reed Cowan to detail the prominent role the Mormons played in the reinstatement of Prop 8 in the new documentary “8: The Mormon Proposition.” Following a lengthy investigation, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission ordered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints last month to pay a $5,539 [...]