Oil rose more than $4 a barrel early Friday morning to a record $145.98 on concerns that Israel may be preparing to attack Iran and on supply concerns in Nigeria and Brazil.
[Update: Oil prices continued to climb, reaching a record of $147.03 a barrel, and this may not be the last update.]

Oil came within a whisker of $146 per barrel after Israeli fighter jets reportedly practiced over Iraq according to Iraqi and Iranian sources. This, however, was enough to increase speculation among traders that Israel is preparing to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The United States and the European Union want Iran to end uranium enrichment, a technology that would give Iran the materials needed to produce a nuclear bomb. Iran says it wants the nuclear technology solely to produce electricity for civilian use. If one discounts oil sands, Iran has the world's second largest proved oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia.

Oil was also fanned higher by threats of additional Nigerian civil unrest and Brazilian oil union's plan to start a 5-day strike, Bloomberg News reported Friday.

The other major energy commodities, likewise, also jumped in early Friday morning trading. Heating oil surged 8 cents to $4.12 per gallon, unleaded gasoline rose 6 cents to $357 per gallon, and natural gas jumped 16 cents to $12.53 per million BTUs.

Perhaps no other economic phenomenon better characterizes this initial decade of the twenty-first century than the development of -- and GDP growth in -- the developing world.

The economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- often referred to as the BRIC economies -- are major reasons why the developing world will grow 6.7% in 2008, far outpacing growth rates in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen argues that what we're seeing is not just the development of markets, not just 'the world is flat,' to use the term popularized by his Times colleague Thomas Friedman, but a reversal: the world is upside down. In Cohen's interpretation, the new economic tigers' accomplishments are large, ongoing, and system changing. Moreover, a power shift is occurring from the U.S and Europe to the new engines of growth.

For Cohen, Brazil is the economic model of the age: abundant minerals and crops, investment capital pouring in, a sugarcane-based energy policy, rising personal incomes, and an increasingly prosperous middle class, with plenty of land to mine, to plant, to expand. It is, in many ways, much of what the United States is not in 2008.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a 50% increase in global food production by 2030, saying that a failure to meet the world's expanding need for food will create civil unrest and starvation, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. Ban said food prices and production is tantamount to a global security issue, and will remain so for many years.

Prices for staples such as wheat, rice, and corn have increased more than 100% amid a global economic expansion. Part of the increased grain cost, particularly regarding corn (ethanol), can be attributed to the diversion of corn for energy production use. Most of the price increases for other staples, however, stems from the fact that -- for the first time in human history -- all regions of the world are embracing free markets and developing economically, at the same time.

Moreover, the U.N. said it expects large price increases to continue for at least the next several years, due to rising demand. The UN called even moderate 10-20% food price increases disruptive for poor households, which spend a disproportionate percentage of their income on food.

The decade's dramatic rise in crude oil prices to roughly $90 per barrel levels has had a lesser-known, but equally consequential impact on life in the developing world -- a rise in price of cooking oils from palm, soybean and many other types of vegetable oils, The New York Times reported.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that exports of 60 internationally-traded foodstuffs increased 37% in 2007, following a 14% rise in 2006. Further, price increases in cooking oils hit the developing world particularly hard, as the bulk of poor families in these countries grow their own food, but buy the oil to cook it with.

In the case of palm oil, The Times reported that rising consumption in China and other emerging markets, along with use of the oil in developed markets as a substitute for chemically-altered trans fats, are two major factors behind its price rise.

Biofuel nexus

However, for other oils the rise in crude oil is playing a considerable role, according to London-based economist Mark Chandler. Chandler, whose economic specialization includes developing world economies, said crude oil's rise has led to a dramatic rise in the use of cooking oils as biofuels.

This post is part of our Money Face-Offs feature. Let us know who you think comes out ahead in this head-to-head match-up, and check out our other Money Face-Off posts.

In October 2005, I went to hear Bono, the lead singer of rock band U2 and global poverty-fighter, at New York University. He wasn't there to sing, although he was met outside the door by a crowd of adoring fans. He was there to advocate for the world's poor, sick, and hungry, sharing top billing with renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs.

During his talk, Bono explained how Sachs was his mentor, teaching him about the roots of poverty in the developing world, traveling with him to Africa, and convincing him it was possible to end global poverty. But lately, he lamented, when he called Sachs, he was told, "Sorry, he's with Angelina Jolie."

That line brought down the house. At that point, film actress Jolie was just coming under Sachs' tutelage. She was an increasingly important celebrity advocate for the poor, but she had nowhere near the creds of Bono, who was that year nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and named Time magazine's person of the year.

Fast forward two years and the picture has changed a bit. Bono is still large on the world stage as a humanitarian, social activist and rock star. But Jolie, in large part due to constant media focus on her relationship with actor Brad Pitt, has lately become a more prominent fixture in the news media.

Jolie has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency since 2001, but her involvement with Pitt starting in 2005 has increased her influence. Marketers now rank her among the most influential celebrities in the world. She has been photographed repeatedly on UN missions to Africa and Asia, adopting three children from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been a target for a number of internet privacy groups who feel that it keeps personal data on users for too long. Google argues that having the data helps deliver better search results. Plus, the company decided to cave into pressure and agreed to keep data on individuals no longer than 18 months.

Now, Google want to be out in front of the drive for Internet privacy. It is an unlikely about face, but it is one nonetheless. According to the Financial Times, Google is "calling for new international laws to be set up to protect personal information online." It wants a body like the UN to draw up the rules.

Google's position is clearly one that it would rather not be forced to take, but it is making the best out of a bad situation. Clearly, the more data a search engine has, the better the results. This allows for better text ad targeting and better profits. Now that Google has purchased DoubleClick the use of data collected from users is even more important to get good results for display ads.

But, Google has to protect its image and so instead of just going along, it will lead the parade.

The company may figure that if it take a central position in drafting new rules so that it can at least slant them a bit to its advantage. It is not being helpful for nothing.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

For just a moment, let's try to forget the perceptions we have in our minds of a barren, desolate Africa. Sometimes it is easy for us to forget that there many areas on the African continent that possess great wealth in natural resources, but the Chinese aren't forgetting. China has been making big moves into the continent in pursuit of natural resources, mainly oil, to fuel its growing demand.

I ran across a great article today over on The New York Times online regarding the growing interest China is paying to African countries such as Sudan. Sudan is one of the countries in Africa that has a sizable amount of oil resources, but so far has yet to be fully developed. The question is why? Why is it that in today's world, where oil seems to be the most important resource for developed countries, there are places like Sudan not being developed?

After all, it was only just a little over a week ago when Russia went so far as plant its flag under the North Pole, but has not gone into Sudan. Why? The answer is that countries like Sudan are viewed (and arguably correctly so) as being too volatile for a country to set up shop. Civil wars have gripped the region and corruption is assumed to be fairly widespread.