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By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world - Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more - have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people - mostly children - couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."

The US imagines itself a great democracy, yet most Americans despise its politics. Which is why direct democracy inspires them

By posing naked, Aliaa Mahdy has brilliantly challenged the misogyny and sexual hypocrisy of Egypt's leaders

Britain faces no serious threat, yet keeps waging war. While big defence exists, glory-hungry politicians will use it

The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare

Too often associated with mayhem on the streets, for centuries anarchists have actually sought a more ordered society

Inspired by protests from Tunis to New York, activists and people's assemblies have collaborated on a vision for a new global governance