Financial Times - In 1973 the US imported 33 per cent of its oil; today it imports about 60 per cent and this figure could rise to 70 per cent by 2020. America’s transport system is still completely dependent on oil.

New Republic - Romantics and Greens tend to idealize the natural and demonize technology. Traditionalists and conservatives by temperament distrust radical change. Egalitarians worry about an arms race in enhancement techniques. And anyone is likely to have a “yuck” response when contemplating unprecedented manipulations of our biology.

Independent - It is undeniable that social mobility in Britain has not accelerated in the way which most people would have expected, if they had been asked 40 years ago to make predictions about the direction of movement. Private education does seem, if anything, to be more of an advantage than it was then – at least as far as academic results are concerned.

Guardian - The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

Independent - As the harvesting season for the UK’s £3.5bn horticulture industry gets under way this month, growers are fighting a losing battle to recruit enough labourers from across the European Union to pick more than 50,000 tonnes of strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruits being cultivated for the domestic market.

Guardian - The zero-carbon homes of the future should self-generate the vast majority of the energy they use, but a small amount of near-site or off-site renewable generation will also be allowed, a report says today.

Slobodna Evropa - Pobeda Tadićevog bloka je potvrda evropske orijentacije Srbije, kazao je za Radio Slobodna Evropa Martin Šlecinger iz vašingtonskog Instituta Vudro Vilson. On smatra da je nemoguće da Tadićev blok ostane van vlade. Šlecinger smatra da Tadićevom pobedom još ništa nije rešeno kada je reč o Kosovu ali se može očekivati evolucija politike koja na duže staze može omogućiti kompromis.

NY Times - Much has been made of 1968 — the student uprisings in Paris, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the full flowering of youth culture. But what of its more unassuming antecedent, 1958? Fifty years ago, Eisenhower was in the White House, the country was in a recession and the American intellectual scene was crackling with energy.

Times, by John Habgood - Personal evil is essentially about wilfulness rather than reason, nor can it be subsumed within our rational understanding. Evil in this sense, as part of our humanity, is not a fashionable concept, but we have good reasons to recognize it, not least in ourselves.

Independent - Just as the Department of Health is trying to promote breastfeeding, food giant Nestlé, makers of powdered baby milk, is forging links with the Government.