  Recent evaluations of the hadronic vacuum polarization contributions to the
effective fine-structure constant alpha_{em}(M_Z) are summarized and commented.
A new update based on corrected CMD-2 data is presented. My new estimates are
Delta alpha_{had}^{(5)}(M_Z) = 0.027773 +/- 0.000354 (e^+e^- - data based) and
Delta alpha_{had}^{(5)}(M_Z) = 0.027664 +/- 0.000173 (via the Adler-function
and extended use of pQCD). Prospects of further possible progress is discussed.
