In opulent Europe (at least in Spain, where I live), nothing special will happen as a result of the price increases. Today, Europeans set aside a much smaller percentage of their wages for food than they did 10 or 20 years ago. The problem in Europe, as in the United States or Canada, is not the price of food but obesity.

It is even possible that, by increasing the price of food, the portions consumed by people will be reduced, and that may contribute to improve society's health in general. Aside from that, the high prices of food at an international level are a good argument to ask for the elimination of farm subsidies, a real cancer that corrodes Europe's finances and barely benefits 6 percent of the population.

The Current Discussion: China's on a resource-buying spree, most recently paying US$13 billion for a stake in an Australian mining company. Is this a threat to your nation and its economy? To the world's?

Chinese investments in Spain are regrettably small – if only they were more copious. China is trying to guarantee for itself the supply of raw materials to continue to grow at a fast rate, but Spain is not the right place for that purpose.

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The Current Discussion: With the U.S. presidential primary season in full swing, there's a lot of talk here about "change" vs. "competence" in leadership. Which does your country have more of? Is that a good thing?

Young Senator Barack Obama has become the great revelation in the U.S. elections. Not only because he is the first African-American candidate with a serious chance to become president, but also because he says he embodies the change that American society presumably needs. Among the Republicans, Mitt Romney, a successful Mormon businessman, former governor of Massachusetts, the quintessence of the country's economic and political establishment, is running for president making the selfsame argument: he asserts that he represents change. It seems the word is very much welcome by voters.

The two men may be wrong. The function of American politicians is not to generate changes but to regulate them.

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The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?

I have two short pieces of advice: One, stop allowing yourselves to be taken over by the growing sentiment against immigrants, and particularly against Hispanics, that now exists in American society. This Lou Dobbs rhetoric is truly dangerous. Two, reject the increasing temptation to be protectionist when it comes to foreign trade.

The Cuban daily Granma had so much faith in Chavez and his referendum that it had already announced his victory. To Castro, his disciple's defeat was unthinkable, so it took him by surprise. It meant that Chávez could not be reelected - yet Carlos Lage, Cuba's First Vice President, had publicly announced in Caracas in 2005 that Cuba, de facto, had two presidents: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

Castro is dying and Chávez, unless he breaks the law, will cease to govern at the end of his current term. Now what?

In its 69 amendments, the proposed Venezuelan Constitutional reform laid down the groundwork to create a future federation between the Cuba and Venezuela. If both nations were to unite formally in the future, they needed to bring their legal systems closer together. Venezuela had to imitate the Cuban legislation, which in turn was inspired by the Soviet laws dictated in the 1930s, during the Stalin era. For now, that is no longer possible.

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