Any New Financial Order For The World

A Century Ago, Petroleum - What We Call Oil - Was Just An Obscure Commodity; Today It Is Almost As Vital To Human Existence As Water.

The Rise To Prominence Of The Saudi Novel In Arabic Is The Great Man-bites-dog Of Recent World Literature. Saudi Arabia Is A Country Without A Free Press, Where European Styles And Forms Are Distrusted And Where The Female Half Of The Population Became Literate Only In This Generation.

Governments Of Rich Countries Spend Some $6bn Of Tax Money A Year On Disaster Relief And Development Aid Overseas, While Each New Earthquake, Famine Or Tidal Wave Can Attract 1,000 Aid Organisations, From The United Nations Children's Fund And Oxfam To The 'jesus Brigades' Of The American South And Other Charitable Adventurers.

Osama Bin Laden, The Saudi-born Revolutionary Who Is Believed By Most Arab And Iranian Observers To Be The Inspiration Of The Attacks In New York And Washington, Is The Best Known Of The Islamic Militants To Have Emerged In The Past 20 Years And The Least Difficult To Fathom.

The Use Of Refined Petroleum As Fuel, Which Began In The 1850s, Freed Hundreds Of Millions Of People From The Toil Of Centuries, Gave Hundreds Of Millions More A Life Of Ease And Plenty, And, By Allowing Great Cities To Feed Themselves From Every Corner Of The World, Multiplied The Population Of The Earth Fivefold.