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Russia has also said it wants to link the nuclear talks to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile shield in Europe and has pushed for the United States to put a limit on the number of delivery systems -- the rockets or other means that deliver weapons.

However, exports to China fell only 31.5% in March from a year earlier, compared to a 39.7% decline in February and one of 45.2% in January. This improvement has persuaded analysts to see signs of hope, at least within Asian trade.

Exports to Asia fell 39.5% in March from a year earlier, while exports to the US dropped 51.4%, and those to the European Union were down 56.1%. Japanese newspapers have reported expectations that economic growth forecasts would be lowered again, to a 3% contraction, due to the rapid deterioration in trade and production.

Already, schools across Mexico have closed, public gatherings are restricted and archaeological sites have been placed off-limits.

Meanwhile in Mexico, President Felipe Calderon has announced the partial suspension of non-essential work and services from 1 to 5 May - a holiday period there. In a TV address, he urged people to stay in with their families - saying there was "no place as safe as your own home".

Ms Chan stressed on Wednesday that there was no danger from eating properly cooked pork. She advised hygiene measures such as hand-washing to prevent infection and said it was important "to maintain a level of calm".

Mexico is already being hit hard by the global economic slowdown, and the country's finance minister says swine flu could cut a further half-percent of GDP.

Officials have put the number of suspected deaths from swine flu in Mexico at 168, although just eight deaths have been confirmed, with 26 infections positively tested.

In Europe, the director-general of health and consumer protection, Robert Madelin, said the continent was well prepared but nonetheless deaths from the disease were expected. "It is not a question of whether people will die, but more a question of how many. Will it be hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands?", he said, speaking to Reuters news agency.

Spain has seen the first case of a person contracting swine flu without having travelled there.

After Mexico, the US has recorded the next highest number of confirmed cases, with 91 - and the first death of swine flu outside Mexico, after a visiting Mexican child died in Texas.

Kavi Chongkittavorn, a columnist and editor at The Nation, an English-language newspaper, said that despite the numbers in the streets, Mr. Thaksin’s challenge was fading in strength.

Mr. Thaksin, a former telecommunications billionaire, was convicted last year on charges asserting he had abused his power. He left the country before his conviction — he was sentenced to two years in jail — and now lives in exile, principally in Dubai.Mr. Thaksin faces other charges in Thailand, and the courts have frozen an estimated $2 billion in his and his family’s assets. But he insists that he wants to return to Thailand — and to Thai politics.

The protests were reminiscent of the political paralysis that gripped Thailand last year. Those demonstrations, which were sometimes violent, forced the previous government to abandon Government House, paralyzed the workings of the administration and eventually shut down Bangkok’s two major airports. The protests were led by the “yellow shirts” of the People’s Alliance for Democracy.

The protests ended in December when — with the airports blockaded, tourism crippled and the economy at a virtual standstill — the Constitutional Court found the governing party guilty of election fraud. The court ruling led eventually to Mr. Abhisit’s selection as prime minister by Parliament in December.

The dismal state of the Thai economy has been another cause of anger among protesters. Just this week the World Bank revised its growth prospects downward: The bank now expects a 2.7 percent decline in Thailand’s gross domestic product in 2009, the country’s first contraction in more than a decade.

By late 2008, though, the global financial crisis was in full swing. The Russian leadership was slow to grasp it, blaming the West for its profligacy and suggesting that Russia would be immune. Soon, however, the country experienced a triple shock: oil dipped below $40 a barrel, demand for Russian exports sank precipitously, and Western financial institutions began calling in their loans.

Medvedev has always styled himself as something of a reformer. As the crisis has worsened, the president has been especially careful to distance himself from Putin. Policy differences between the two men -- on the response to the financial crisis, the locus of prosecutorial power, the use of force against protesters, the tenure of judges in the courts, and the definition of treason, among others -- are serious and growing.

By February 2009, the ruble had depreciated to 36 rubles to the dollar, illustrating the ongoing loss of faith in the Russian economy. As a result, the cost of dollar-denominated imports increased substantially. The official unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent, and most observers project further increases in the near term. Not surprisingly, public approval of the country's political leadership fell. Although public opinion polls do not yet show massive discontent or unrest, they do show a pronounced downward shift.

Meanwhile, Medvedev's popularity is growing. According to a February 2009 national survey, 73 percent of those polled said they trust him, compared with 56 percent in 2006. Although it is impossible to predict what will happen, one thing is certain: The current power dynamic is shifting, and shifting fast. If the trend continues, Medvedev will undoubtedly begin asking himself why he is still playing second fiddle.

The prime minister is undoubtedly a cunning adversary, but he does have vulnerabilities. For instance, Medvedev could be laying the groundwork for a move against Putin by making his war on "legal nihilism" and corruption the centerpiece of his domestic policy.

This club is anything but exclusive. Candidate members include Indonesia, Thailand, and Turkey, where there are already signs that the economic crisis is exacerbating domestic political conflicts. And let us not forget the plague of piracy in Somalia, the renewed civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the continuing violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the heart of darkness that is Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe. The axis of upheaval has many members. And it’s a fairly safe bet that the roster will grow even longer this year.

The problem is that, as in the 1930s, most countries are looking inward, grappling with the domestic consequences of the economic crisis and paying little attention to the wider world crisis. This is true even of the United States, which is now so preoccupied with its own economic problems that countering global upheaval looks like an expensive luxury. With the U.S. rate of GDP growth set to contract between 2 and 3 percentage points this year, and with the official unemployment rate likely to approach 10 percent, all attention in Washington will remain focused on a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package. Caution has been thrown to the wind by both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. The projected deficit for 2009 is already soaring above the trillion-dollar mark, more than 8 percent of GDP. Few commentators are asking what all this means for U.S. foreign policy.

The answer is obvious: The resources available for policing the world are certain to be reduced for the foreseeable future. That will be especially true if foreign investors start demanding higher yields on the bonds they buy from the United States or simply begin dumping dollars in exchange for other currencies.

Economic volatility, plus ethnic disintegration, plus an empire in decline: That combination is about the most lethal in geopolitics. We now have all three. The age of upheaval starts now.