When Malcolm X went to Jedda in the early 1960s, he was shocked by his reception. Back home he was a pariah - a race-baiter and white hater - who would become even more loathed by the US authorities when he returned to preach not racial segregation but socialism. In Mecca it was a very different story. A senior Sudanese official hugged him and declared, "You champion the American black people!" An Indian official wept, declaring "[his compassion] for my brothers in your land". In his autobiography, Malcolm X wrote: "The American Negro has no conception of the hundreds of millions of other non-whites' concern for him: he has no conception of their feeling of brotherhood for and with him."

Following its refusal to back the first Gulf war, America cut off aid and pushed to make it a virtual pariah state. As the UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, packs his bags for Baghdad following Friday's security council resolution, the UN risks being used as a fig leaf for the military and economic pretensions of the US and Britain.

As the US watched the millennium approach, time zone by time zone, the anchorman for the ABC network, Peter Jennings, watched the fireworks cascading over the Thames and offered his appraisal of recent British history. "This country has been through so much," he said. "In 1900, when Queen Victoria was on the throne, Britain ruled over one fifth of the world's population. But for all this fantastic show, Britain's possessions have dwindled to... Well, Hong Kong has gone now and, well... The Falklands are still British."