The forecasts for the shape of the "global talent pool" in 2020 show China as rapidly expanding its graduate numbers - set to account for 29% of the world's graduates aged between 25 and 34.

The biggest faller is going to be the United States - down to 11% - and for the first time pushed into third place, behind India.

The US and the countries of the European Union combined are expected to account for little more than a quarter of young graduates.

According to StatCounter global statistics, mobile traffic jumped from about 4% of all Web traffic at the end of 2010 to over 10.5% now.

According to its public statistics, Facebook had "more than 500 million mobile monthly active users as of April 20, 2012." It also claimed "488 million monthly active users who used Facebook mobile products in March 2012."

Facebook's overall monthly active users is 901 million, so that's 55% of Facebook's monthly active user base who access the social network on a mobile device.

"We live in a real state of war from all angles," Assad told a cabinet he appointed on Tuesday, in a speech broadcast on state television. "When we are in a war, all policies and all sides and all sectors need to be directed at winning this war."

The Brotherhood has contested the army's power to dissolve parliament and warned of "dangerous days" ahead. But few expect the Islamists, who were not in the vanguard of the revolt and spent much of the past year in uneasy symbiosis with the army, to launch a violent grab for power any time soon.

The failure of the new parliament to agree a consensus body to draft a constitution - liberals accuse the Islamists of packing the panel with religious zealots - has left Egyptians picking their way from revolution to democracy through a legal maze while the generals control the map and change it at will.

Under the latest order, writing of the new constitution may pass to a body appointed by the SCAF - if a court rules against the contested panel nominated by the now defunct legislature.Any new constitution would need approval in a referendum, with a new parliamentary election following. By a timetable contained in the decree, it would take another five months or so to complete the planned "transition to democracy".

Officials from the G20 nations, whose leaders are meeting in Mexico next week, said that central banks were ready to take steps to stabilize financial markets - if needed - by providing liquidity and prevent any credit squeeze after Sunday's election. Canada is "ready to act" if the situation takes a serious turn for the worse of there is "an external shock," Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said on Thursday.

Greek banking stocks soared more than 20 percent on Thursday amid market talk that secret opinion polls were showing that a government favourable to the international bailout agreement was likely to emerge after the June 17 election.

Central bankers are ready to ensure enough cash is flowing through the financial system if severe market strains emerge after the elections in Greece, which coincide with votes in Egypt and France, G20 officials said."The central banks are preparing for coordinated action to provide liquidity," said a senior G20 aide familiar with discussions among international financial diplomats.

Mr Papandreou told the BBC that, given more time, Greece could abide by the terms of the bailouts. "The euro is keeping us stable. Leaving would mean a bank run, higher inflation, deep wage cuts and a fall in GDP of more than 20% - it would be a major catastrophe," he said. But Mr Papandreou said Greece was not the problem. "If it was, you could simply kick out Greece".

He said the underlying problem which needed to be addressed was the architecture of the euro. There was a single currency, but "no unified banking system, no common fiscal policy, and different labour laws and pension systems".

"If people are poor they are more open to extreme ideas."

Whether the euro lives or dies, the chaotic way Europe has tackled the crisis could undermine the region's geopolitical clout for years to come and leave it at a distinct disadvantage in a rapidly changing world.

"The Europeans are completely consumed with a battle to save the euro zone," says Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "It's a deep and ongoing crisis bigger than any they've experienced in decades... it's an environment where European leaders could hardly be expected to prioritise anything else."That could leave the continent being increasingly sidelined as emerging powers - not just the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China but other states such as Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa - grow in importance.At the very least, it could undermine the ability of the continent's leaders to persuade the rest of the world to take them seriously on a range of issues, from trade to the importance of democracy and human rights."Europe probably isn't going to stop preaching to the rest of the world," says Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College. "But it's much less likely that others are going to be inclined to listen."

At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, European states suffered the indignity of being outside the room when the final deal was struck between the United States and emerging powers. In the aftermath of the euro zone crisis, it's a position European leaders may simply have to get used to.

the polite fiction employed by Washington serves Asia-Pacific countries who seek security assurances from the far-away United States without sacrificing important trade with nearby China and its fast-growing economy."Treading too forcefully on China's interests can and has resulted in economic reprisals against Southeast Asian countries," said Scott Harrison of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a consultancy in Manila.

Beijing responded last month to its South China Sea dispute with Manila by tightening quality controls on Philippine fruit and cutting the number of visits by Chinese citizens to the Philippines.

Some regional security experts, however, say the renewed U.S. emphasis on Asia has emboldened China's opponents in the South China Sea dispute, an outcome Washington might not have intended."The U.S. becoming involved has fired up the Philippines and Vietnam to contest things more strongly," said Sam Bateman, a retired senior Australian naval officer and maritime security researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.