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The answer to that from The Guardian I guess would be:

It's an estimate of course, not a conclusion. What you've quoted above about embarrassing GWB is reported as a quote from someone (Senior development sources, whatever that is) anyway.

It's highlighted the issue in a high profile way and provided opportunities for it to be discussed which is no bad thing. Parts of the report may be ever so slightly hyped but that's the way newspapers work. Maybe necessary to get attention.

It is? I think they quoted a guy from Oxfam and referred to 'Senior development sources'. The word squashed wasn't used.

My reading is that I'd like to know the truth of the matter. I think it looks like that might help, yes. I also realise that there are other factors that affect the price of food. Not entirely sure what is meant by 'only marginally influenced by a change in the fundamentals'. Apart from that I...

I've said what I've said, don't put words in my mouth. These are all your terms. I'm not sure what you are getting at here anyway. How would I know why or if the report has been 'squashed'? All research is speculative, does something magically become absolute truth when Robert Zoellick puts...

The figure may or may not be accurate, it's something that is obviously massively complicated to calculate, but it's not a 'random working paper', it's an internal report by a senior World Bank economist that was intended to contribute to the official World Bank report for the G8. They trust...

I pointed out that your link to the WSJ blog where it was supposedly shown that The Guardian 'just got it wrong' didn't show that The Guardian 'just got it wrong' at all. Let's just have the whole thing: What it shows is what the WB boss has said, which is that this is an internal study and...

Except for export bans it did exactly that, explicitly, I've quoted the paragraph twice already. And why would there be export bans if not because food stocks were already low in those countries? They say it's not. OK, it may not be, but I'm not surprised at that response anyway. 'Seemingly...

And the point I was making about that was that this (quoted for the third time) from the WSJ blog is not true:

Presumably that's why this draft report has had so much attention. What? I know! I'll just quote it all again. The WSJ quotes the draft report as saying this: And yet says this about the Guardian article: Which said this about the report: Which is almost exactly the same thing. So the...

It hasn't been published in full yet. According to the WB it was a draft paper that was leaked and they are now putting it together in a form for release because of the publicity it's had. But either way it covers price increases in the period from 2002.

That's where the blog page you linked to with the interview with Donald Mitchell and the WB response was. It's no surprise they should respond to the publicity around this draft report is it? No experts except the draft report's author, Donald Mitchell. Or perhaps he's not an expert. I agree it...

It does seem overly convenient (and unfeasible) to ascribe the large rise in food prices entirely to bio fuel production. And not even all bio fuel production: And it does seem rather badly timed that such a a 'damning' paper should be leaked just as the G8 is discussing bio fuels. I'm not...

So this in the Graun: Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy

The further stirring up of anti-Muslim sentiment is the worrying part here, and to be honest they are handed the opportunities on a plate with stuff like this The other part, the first story, is just pro-Cameron under the guise of being New Labour PC-brigade bashing. Again, not at all hard to do.

Mark Easton - Skeptical of knife epidemic I have done a bit more number-crunching for a piece on tonight's BBC News at Ten and I think it is quite informative. By my calculations, knife crime has risen three times faster in London over the past five years than the rest of England. This, I...

In my school the religious educating teacher would typically be locked in a cupboard at the beginning of a lesson and, if he was lucky, released at the end of it. At the time I thought this was possibly a little on the unruly side but I now realise it was entirely correct and as it should be...

Yeah I'm sure she's tackled it in depth. That was a just a one sentence thought I had about that as an aside really. It is still a philosophical question as to why it needs to be realised though and I acknowledge that. And of course CA is by definition a huge open space and in many cases the...