Our daily round-up of what other think-tanks and commentators are saying on the big issues:

The Tax Payers’ Alliance commends the new Budget.

Temba Nolutshungu explains how the precautionary principle harms developing countries.

Dan Ikenson urges restraint in lauding China’s decision to allow the yuan to appreciate.

Whistleblowers offer us small glimpses into the politics and bribery that surround international environmental agreements. Both The Times and the BBC have discovered that Japan has bought developing countries' votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

A two-week-long meeting, starting today, will decide whether the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling will remain in place. Japan is keen to revive commercial whaling – despite a lack of consumer demand and a declining whaling industry. The governments of Grenada, Guinea and Ivory Coast, amongst others, seemed ready to sell their vote to Japan, when approached by undercover journalists. And for what? A “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money during the IWC meetings, according to Guinean officials; “good girls” that were made available at hotels for Tanzanian Ministers; or, in the case of Kiribati, foreign aid. Naturally, anti-whaling nations and conservationists are outraged.

However, they don’t apply the same standards of democracy and transparency when it comes to other international agreements, where governments’ votes are regularly bought. In exchange for Russia joining the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the EU supported its accession bid to the WTO. And developing countries stand to gain hundreds of millions – potentially billions – in adaptation and technology transfer funds, and straightforward aid, if they sign up to the prospective climate change agreement.

The reality is that international politics often amount to a “$1,000 a day” games of buyoffs- far removed from the people or causes they seek to represent.

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) continues to thwart Americans’ access to new life-saving medicines, costing billions of dollars and uncountable lives. An article in the Washington Examiner notes the huge value of innovative new drugs, and equally the cost of delaying them for just one year:

“For HIV/AIDS patients, the value of one year's earlier access would've been $19 billion. For breast cancer patients being treated with trastuzumab, the value of one year's earlier access would be $8 billion.”

And the FDA has even made confessions about their bureaucratic inertia:

"FDA's inability to keep up with scientific advances means that American lives are at risk. While the world of drug discovery and development has undergone revolutionary change... FDA's evaluation methods have remained largely unchanged over the last half century."

The author of the article points to a lack of funding for processing of new drugs, when compared to money spent on other regulatory spending on (supposed) innovation. But it may be better to look at the incentives which cause skewered funding and an illogical, harmful emphasis on caution above innovation.

In a previous paper released by IPN, Corinne and Robert Sauer explore such incentives, and suggest alternative market-based methods of approving new pharmaceuticals. These solutions may seem radical, but more than ever they need to be considered.

The next decade is to be one of higher food prices, according to the UNFAO and OECD’s annual agricultural outlook report.

The bad news? The increase will in part be caused by higher oil prices, especially in places like the EU and the US where farming is mechanised and fertiliser-intensive. Rising demand for biofuels is also to be blamed- no matter how much the EU and US have sought to absolve themselves of contributing to the 2007/08 food prices hikes. Enough, then, to rethink the current energy and climate legislation that is making oil more expensive and propping up unsustainable biofuel production.

The good news? Higher food prices will also be caused by economic recovery in general and growth in developing countries. More people will be able to afford meat and processed foods, rather than just relying on staple foods. It is also large emerging countries – such as Brazil, China and India – that will step up agricultural production to meet demand, both at home and abroad.

Andrew Mitchell, the new head of the UK’s Department for International Development, is now calling all EU taxpayers to spend 0.7% of their national output on foreign aid, even though the theories behind this “absurd” target have been thoroughly discredited, which we pointed out in the Ghost of 0.7%, in articles, and in interviews we know Mitchell has seen.  Wake up, Andrew, promoting development is about more than throwing good money after bad.  After all, as you say, we have a “moral duty” to help the world’s poor.