In our case that experience is all the more unnerving in that it has struck our small society with unexpected suddenness and magnitude.

A few years ago, Professor Vaclav Smil tried to calculate the probability of sudden disasters large enough to change history.

If the adjustment came abruptly, Chinese companies would suffer a sudden loss of competitiveness and no longer be able to export.

But there are many examples where such change was sudden and violent the French and Russian Revolutions, for example.

That came to a sudden stop in 1949, as a result of the first of many trade wars that the two countries have fought.

Crisis, disasters and emergencies are critical issues of global, as well as national concern, with multiple dimensions and sudden and chaotic features that demand both linear and non linear approaches for prevention and management.

CA But are there risks with that, either to the individuals concerned or indeed to society at large, where leaking can actually have an unintended consequence?

Never mind that high demand drives up oil prices, creating a windfall for many in the Middle East who are not among America s friends.

15. Recognizes, in this regard, that the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination system continues to be a valuable tool by which disaster management expertise is made available by Member States to respond to the sudden onset of emergencies

7. Urges all development partners to support the implementation of the transition strategy and to avoid any abrupt reductions in either official development assistance or technical assistance provided to the graduated country

In other words, rebalancing the system, not any sudden desire to reverse the increasingly illiberal course Russia has taken since 2003, was the key reason for choosing Medvedev.

None of those things happened, and astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled.

The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction).

At independence more than 60 years ago, Pakistan had a larger trade to GDP ratio, owing in part to trade with India. That came to a sudden stop in 1949, as a result of the first of many trade wars that the two countries have fought.