InternationalRelations

"It was almost normal that he screamed, that we worked 14 hours, that we ate on the floor," she said. "That was our America."

: a world undergoing a far-reaching, irreversible, and, indeed, unprecedented restructuring of economic power.

Western economic dominance -- 10 percent of the world's population producing a majority of the world's exports and investment -- is finished, never to return. After two centuries in which Europe and America monopolized global economic activity, the West is now being out-produced, out-manufactured, out-traded, and out-invested by the rest of the world.

was Bildt's mission to find Al Khalifa on Twitter successful? "Yep," Bildt said. Al Khalifa saw his tweet — Bildt's 1,000th — and got in touch with the Swede, who noted that social media isn't the only way he contacts his peers: "I know which ones are on Twitter."

diplomats are likely to use social media ever more frequently, even in contacting each other, if only to show that they move with the times

When it comes to social networking, Bildt has a strong challenger in Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who has a more casual tone on his Twitter and Facebook accounts and official home page.

"Chavez once again shot his mouth off," said Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign minister and respected writer on the Latin American left.Castaneda, speaking at the Nixon Center in Washington Wednesday, said that Zelaya apparently was on his way to the U.N. Mission in Tegucigalpa when Chavez took to the airwaves and urged Hondurans to greet their returning president.After Chavez's broadcasts, Zelaya was unable to get there, and in the heat of the moment fled to the Brazilian embassy, Castaneda said.Castaneda, who's no friend of Chavez, ended Mexico's decades-old foreign policy of not criticizing human rights abuses in Cuba and its financial patron, Venezuela. Castaneda is considered center-left and is one of the region's most prolific political scientists.

Brazil had no warning of Zelaya's return to Honduras three months after his June 28 ouster, in which he was unceremoniously flown out of the country and dumped in a Costa Rican airport wearing his pajamas.

A leading Honduran businessman has put forth a plan that calls for Zelaya to serve out the rest of his term with limited powers, and the Organization of American States and the Roman Catholic Church are serving as emissaries between Micheletti and Zelaya in an effort to break the stalemate.

Hundreds of thousands will take part in massive parades by civilians and the military, who have been drilled so thoroughly that soldiers are only permitted to blink once every 40 seconds. A dazzling half-hour firework display, using 300,000 shells, will surpass even the pyrotechnic splendour of last year's Olympics, organisers promise.As tanks roll through the heart of the city, and fighter planes zoom overhead, the People's Liberation Army will reveal 52 new types of weapon, including its latest nuclear missiles – all made in China.

Pope Benedict has warned that a form of colonialism continues to blight Africa.

the developed world continued to export materialism - which he called "toxic spiritual rubbish" - to the continent.

the Catholic Church is already growing faster there than in any other part of the world, nearly trebling in size to 150 million followers over 30 years.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,"

North Korea looks across the heavily armed border to its South Korean neighbour, backed by a nuclear superpower, the United States.

With the nuclear powers China and Russia on its other border, one of the world's most isolated and friendless countries believes it has a strong and compelling logic for wanting its own atomic bombs.

This may be a deeply authoritarian and impoverished place, but at least some of its citizens appear genuinely proud and defiant. Upon whatever it is based, it is that strand of legitimacy, as much as the physical controls, that has helped make North Korea so resilient for so long.

China and Russia signed a framework agreement Tuesday that could see a steady flow of natural gas to energy-hungry China from its resource-rich neighbor. It was one of numerous trade and military agreements signed during a state visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the countries overcome traditional mistrust to push ahead mutual economic interests.

Other deals included Chinese companies making investments in construction industry facilities in Russia, Zhukov said. "Naturally, the Chinese are interested in getting (ownership) stakes," he said without giving any details.

an agreement on advance notification for planned ballistic missile launches by either country.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that he is encouraged by news that an agreement has been reached to resolve the political crisis in Honduras that began when President José Manuel Zelaya was ousted from power in June.

Prominent women and tribesmen from the North West Frontier Province delivered the same hostile message that she'd heard the two preceding days from students and journalists: Pakistanis aren't ready to endorse American friendship despite an eight-year-old anti-terrorism alliance between the countries and a multi-billion-dollar new U.S. aid package.

"We are fighting a war that is imposed on us. It's not our war. It is your war," journalist Asma Shirazi told Clinton during the women's meeting. "You had one 9-11. We are having daily 9-11s in Pakistan."

"The problem is that we want American dollars but we, as a country, hate Americans," Abida Hussain, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, told McClatchy. "We're not perfect, but we want the Americans to be perfect."

About 50 African nations have boycotted some meetings since Monday evening at the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona. The talks are meant to prepare for next month's major climate convention in Copenhagen.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

John Hemming, the MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil and gas, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions that the IEA underplayed how quickly the world was running out and this had profound implications for British government energy policy.He said he had also been contacted by some IEA officials unhappy with its lack of independent scepticism over predictions. "Reliance on IEA reports has been used to justify claims that oil and gas supplies will not peak before 2030. It is clear now that this will not be the case and the IEA figures cannot be relied on," said Hemming."This all gives an importance to the Copenhagen [climate change] talks and an urgent need for the UK to move faster towards a more sustainable [lower carbon] economy if it is to avoid severe economic dislocation," he added.

Poor countries considered vulnerable to climate change have pledged to embark on moves to a low-carbon future, and challenge richer states to match them.The declaration from the first meeting of a new 11-nation forum calls on rich countries to give 1.5% of their GDP for climate action in the developing world.

The declaration contends that man-made climate change poses an "existential threat to our nations, our cultures and to our way of life, and thereby undermines the internationally protected human rights of our people".

"The key message to rich countries is that what seems like them to be a domestic political difficulty is for the vulnerable nations an existential problem," said Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in climate change at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), which gave technical support to the Maldives meeting. "They're saying 'getting a good deal for us means survival, but you seem to be coming to the table only with what's feasible domestically' - and there is another reality that trumps domestic political realities,"