We reported at the beginning of the month on the sudden demise of MF Global Inc.  If you recall Jon Corzine, an ex "Democratic" governor and senator, and (coincidentally?) also an ex CEO of Goldman Sachs, presided over the seventh largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the regulators charged with keeping an eye on shady dealings on Wall Street on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, has just released a long statement about the affair. Amongst other things CFTC Commisioner Scott D. O’Malia has this to say:

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As the G20 leaders start their deliberations in Cannes today some more famous names have been putting their weight behind the campaign to introduce some kind of financial transaction tax.  On Tuesday the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams,  joined Pope Benedict XVI in calling for the introduction of what he referred to in an article in the Financial Times as

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As we reported last week, the leaders of the G20 nations (plus a few others) are on a jaunt to the Mediterranean seaside in Cannes this week. Amongst other things they are scheduled to discuss the global financial crisis. As luck would have it another item will have added itself to their agenda this morning. According to Yahoo!

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Earlier today I drove Kasia from Exeter to Bristol Airport, to catch the Ryanair flight to Poznan. She's going back to Poland for a few weeks to see her family, and part of mine!  We left in plenty of time, just in case our previous experience of long delays on the M5 motorway was repeated. As we left I grabbed my green rucksack, still full of Contemporary Art in the Community kit from our last trip. As luck would have it, whilst there was lots of rain to contend with, there were no significant delays.  Just for a change the EasyJet queue to check-in hold luggage at Bristol was almost non-existent, but the Ryanair queue was perhaps ten minutes:

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The next summit meeting of the leaders of the G20 nations takes place next week in Cannes, and the global financial crisis is top of the agenda. A variety of people from around the world are pressuring the G20 leaders to introduce a "tax on bankers". Such a tax has been discussed over the years under a variety of aliases, including "Tobin Tax" and "Financial Transaction Tax". However here in the UK currently the most popular euphemism for the idea is "Robin Hood Tax". Here's a video in which the team of Richard Curtis and Bill Nighy (of Love Actually fame) present their interpretation of the concept:

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One way or another it's been an eventful week for protesters around the world, loosely gathered together under the "Occupy Wall Street" banner.

Amongst the usual suspects, last Friday Michael Moore spoke to Lawrence O'Donnell in an interview broadcast on MSNBC:

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According to the Miami Herald:

Former singer Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly is expected to be the next president of Haiti, observers say, defeating former first lady Mirlande Manigat.

After many months of intimidation, fraud allegations, reruns, recounts, and other delays it appears that later today Michel Martelly will be formally proclaimed as the new President of Haiti.  If that is confirmed the musician will  have a mountain of problems to deal with, but here is the one that concerns us most. According to the official statistics 4766 people have already died in the outbreak of cholera in Haiti. Things seem to be much improved, and only one of those deaths was on March 28th, currently the most recently reported date. However just as it was this time last year the Haitian rainy season is on the way. Unlike last year people in Haiti are already dying from cholera, and the program to improve supplies of clean drinking water and better sanitation is way behind schedule.

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Yesterday Google and other members of The Climate Group sent an open letter to President Barack Obama urging him to:

Adopt the goal of giving every household and business access to timely, useful and actionable information on their energy use.

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Way back in May 2009 the Guardian reported that:

The Obama administration took on the powerful farming interests in America's heartland today, making clear it does not see corn-based ethanol as part of the long-term solution to climate change.

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In an interview on CNBC this morning Texas oil billionaire and wind energy advocate T. Boone Pickens blamed "lack of leadership" from George W. Bush and "that speech" from Nancy Pelosi for the vote against the Bail-Out plan in the House yesterday:

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