Demand in the world's largest economy is slowing as the U.S. housing market falters, a development that the International Monetary Fund on Sept. 14 called a key risk to global expansion. If so, it's a risk that the biggest exporting nations are better prepared to weather now than five years ago.

"Domestic demand in so many other parts of the world is picking up,'' says Jim O'Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London. "If there ever was a good time for the U.S. to slow, this is it.''

The share of global exports purchased by U.S. consumers and businesses fell to 17.9 percent in 2005 from 21.8 percent in 2000 as demand increased in the European Union, Japan and emerging markets in Asia and Eastern Europe. Exporting nations in Europe and Asia are poised to grab a larger share of world markets with trade agreements that don't include the U.S.

The European Union said Sept. 9 it will seek bilateral trade deals with China and South Korea. In August, Japan proposed a 16- nation economic bloc, including 10 Southeast Asian nations, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

"That will expand trade amongst these countries at the expense of trade with the U.S.,'' says Michael Mussa, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist who's now with the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Largest Drivers

Of course the world is nowhere near becoming immune to the ups and downs of the U.S. economy, says Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. "The U.S. is still one of the largest drivers of growth,'' Bryson says. "We're probably decades away from people saying the U.S. won't matter.''

The U.S. remains the biggest importer by far, buying $1.7 trillion in goods and services from the rest of the world last year, more than double the amount that second-place Germany took in, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a London-based research company.

Still, says Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate economist who teaches at Columbia University in New York, "the U.S. is no longer the single pivotal player to world trade that it was, because China and India and other nations have become a major part of the engine of global growth the past five years.''

The 2001 U.S. recession struck a blow to the rest of the world. Taiwan's economy contracted 2.2 percent that year, its worst slump on record, as exports tumbled. The economies of Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were hurt too. Recessions in Argentina and Mexico deepened, while growth in Germany and Italy slowed.

U.S. Slows, Others Expand

Now, as the U.S. decelerates, other economies are expanding. U.S. economic growth is expected to slow to 2.6 percent in the final three months of 2006 from 5.6 percent in the first quarter, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Growth in consumer spending, representing more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, will slow to 2.7 percent from the first quarter's 4.8 percent gain.

The euro region is on track this year for the fastest growth since 2000, led by Germany, Europe's largest economy. Domestic demand in Japan is reviving after seven years of deflation, and China's economy grew in the second quarter at the fastest rate in more than a decade.

"It is better for the U.S. not to be in a dominating position, and to have other countries rising faster,'' says Robert Kuhn, a senior adviser to Citigroup Inc. in New York and the author of "The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin.'' "Diversification will make the system more robust.''

China's Trade

China including Hong Kong has in the last three years overtaken the U.S. to become Japan's and South Korea's biggest trading partner. The share of Japanese exports purchased by the U.S. dropped to 22.9 percent last year from 30.1 percent in 2000. Some Japanese shipments to China, though, were unfinished goods ultimately destined for U.S. consumption.

Similarly, the proportion of European Union exports going to the U.S. declined to 7.9 percent last year from 9.1 percent in 2000. While important to trade for the 25-nation EU, the U.S. has lost its preeminence there, says European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.

"As regards trade links, the United Kingdom is more important for the euro area than the United States,'' Trichet said in an Aug. 31 interview. "It also means that for the United Kingdom, the euro area is much more important than the United States.''

The picture is similar in Asia. The U.S. share of Asia's exports fell to 19.7 percent last year, from 24.5 percent in 2000.

"Intra-Asia trade for sure is expanding rapidly and Europe- China trade is booming,'' says Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Trade Talks

The stalemate in world trade talks may lead to an even faster proliferation of bilateral and regional free trade agreements. A new World Trade Organization deal to lower tariffs and open markets would have pumped at least $96 billion into the world economy, according to World Bank estimates. Its July collapse means a major pact among the 149 WTO members is unlikely before 2009, says Carlos Braga, senior trade adviser with the World Bank in Geneva.

The U.S. has signed deals with countries including Morocco, Nicaragua and El Salvador in an attempt to pressure WTO members into a worldwide agreement, a strategy former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick termed "competitive liberalization.'' It hasn't worked, says Jagdish Bhagwati, a Columbia University economics professor and former WTO adviser.

'Piffling' Agreements

While the U.S. is lining up "piffling little bilateral agreements,'' says Bhagwati, "Asian free trade agreements are breaking out rapidly, and the U.S. is not part of it.''

A major Asian trade deal excluding the U.S. would divert $25 billion from U.S. trade in the first year and more over time as investment patterns change, says Bergsten. "That is already motivating the U.S. to beef up its own free trade agreements and perhaps try to go back to the WTO with a better offer,'' he says.

Demand building in developing nations is a major driver behind changing trade routes.

The so-called BRICs economies, Brazil, Russia, India and China, account for about 30 percent of world growth in the past five years, says O'Neill of Goldman Sachs.

"Domestic demand in so many parts of the world is picking up, and that's the biggest driver of world trade,'' O'Neill says. "As the BRICS become bigger, the world's exporters export more to them and less to the U.S.''

The Pope is praying for peace and tranquility in Hungary. I cannot even believe what I'm seeing. I have studied and worked here for 20 years, and have never seen anything similar. It was a corner of stability in Eastern Europe, a "goulash paradise" during socialist construction. Without any social upheavals Hungary gradually and almost routinely turned into a quite European parliamentary democracy with a very decent standard of living for the entire post-socialist space. What happened with the genetic restraint of the Hungarians, which rested on their inalienable self-esteem, and failed them only when their destiny was at stake?

What have compelled the Hungarians to go into the streets now, on the very eve of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 revolution? And who are they? Do they stand for the legitimate resignation of the prime minister, whom the opposition denounces for impudence, or are they the criminal gang, who has sensed an opportunity for a gain?

Initially, many observers have confidently attributed peaceful demonstrations, riots and pogroms to the leak of the closed speech made by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to his Socialist Party associates. An informal Socialist leader, and a legal millionaire, he admitted that the government was just pretending to rule the country, while the Cabinet of Ministers had to cheat the nation round the clock about the real state of affairs in the economy, which was saved from total collapse only by the God's providence, a favorable global economic situation, and a thousand tricks.

Others see the main reason for the unrest in the Cabinet's announcement of a sharp rise in prices, and tariffs for gas and electricity. Economists point justifiably to an extremely high level of the already chronic deficit of the state budget, while sociologists are registering growing pessimism. Only one in four Hungarians is hoping to live better in the future.

Some of the opinions expressed in public discussions, the media, and the Internet seem to me quite radical. Some say that the appearance of the prime minister's secret speech in the media was his own inspired leak because he was trying to avoid an economic collapse, and get a free hand in carrying out unpopular reforms, which would tighten the belts of many social strata.

The proponents of the second radical version claim that the main rival of the Socialists, the leader of the Alliance of Young Democrats, and ex Prime Minister Viktor Orban is going all-out to take revenge for his loss to the Socialists and their partners in the government coalition at the latest parliamentary elections. His goal is the resignation of Ferenc Gyurcsany, who is popular with the Socialists and considerable part of the population, a government crisis, and establishment of the transitional non-party cabinet of ministers.

The third version is a peculiar mix of the first two. It was an inspired leak, and Viktor Orban is ready to go beyond the constitutional framework for his political ambitions, and the criminals are ready to catch fish in troubled waters.

My friends and co-students from Budapest University are now on different sides of the barricades. Some of them occupy high-ranking positions, which allow them to influence the actions of the main political rivals during the current events. Having finally got through to some of them on the phone, I heard almost endless requests to call later, and received some comments only on conditions of anonymity.

A high-ranking leader of the ruling Socialist Party said that rightwing radicals have inspired the riots in Budapest with tacit, if not open connivance of the Young Democrats, and involvement of criminal elements, and that the crisis will soon be overcome. Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany is very popular with the party and will retain his post. No one and nothing can change constitutionally the results of the elections and change the alignment of forces in parliament. "You say those who seized the TV building wanted to read an address to the nation? Do you know that one of their demands was to return the Fradi soccer club (as popular as the Moscow Spartak in Russia) into the higher league? What about the robbed and mucked up TV snack bar? What about stolen or spoilt office equipment? The police know them by name. They are popular figures within the criminal community. Are they bearers of social protest, political fighters? The head of state is a man of great courage. Let me remind you of his words: 'I don't know how this tape appeared and what for, but I do not regret what I said, and am not ashamed of it.' The gist of some phrases may change substantially if they are taken out of the context of a very emotional speech pronounced by a man in an expressive language before his associates and supporters. Last, but not the least, do you know a government, which would tell its nation the whole truth, no matter how awful it might be? Gyurcsany is calling on us to break the vicious circle. Despite all obstacles, we will carry out the announced program of economic stabilization," my interlocutor said.

The opposition is of contrary opinion. A high ranker from the Alliance of Young Democrats, who preferred to remain anonymous, told me, "The Prime Minister, who has cheated the nation all the way, has no moral right to retain his position by all divine and human laws. The same concerns his cabinet. Elections to the local bodies of government will take place in October, and if the Socialists lose them, they will have to give way to a transitional government to include experts without markedly expressed party affiliation. Subsequent parliamentary elections will put everything right. There is no reason to present tens of thousands of people in the streets of Budapest as cutthroats and criminals. They are simply demanding the resignation of the government of liars and hypocrites. The Alliance of Young Democrats has never backed the actions of radical elements. But social upheavals bring forth criminals as well. But this does not and will not determine the situation in Hungary," he said.

The events in Budapest continue unfolding. I recalled what the first post-socialist Prime Minister Jozef Antall told me years ago: "I wish Hungary never got front-paged by the world press." His wish did not come true.

One commentator said with good reason that a government's failure to honor its election commitments may be called 'the Budapest syndrome' in other countries. Following all these events Hungary may lose its 'goulash paradise,' a definition without irony. This is a pity.

There is an old Hungarian saying "let's pour pure water into the glass, and we'll feel better." Will this be the case? I don't know.

"After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line," Defense News said.

The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent spy photography as they pass over China.

According to senior American officials: "China not only has the capability, but has exercised it." American satellites like the giant Keyhole craft have come under attack "several times" in recent years.

Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.

The American military has been so alarmed by the Chinese activity that it has begun test attacks against its own satellites to determine the severity of the threat.

Satellites are especially vulnerable to attack because they have predetermined orbits, allowing an enemy to know where they will appear.

"The Chinese are very strategically minded and are extremely active in this arena. They really believe all the stuff written in the 1980s about the high frontier," said one senior former Pentagon official.

There has been increasing alarm in parts of the American military establishment over China's growing military ambitions.

Military experts have already noted that Chinese military expenditure is increasingly designed to challenge American military pre-eminence by investing in weaponry that can attack key systems such as aircraft carriers and satellites.

At the same time, China is engaged in a large-scale espionage effort against American high-tech firms working on projects such as the multibillion-pound DD(X) destroyer programme.

Several spy rings have been cracked and the FBI is increasing the number of counter-intelligence staff tracking the Chinese effort.

Today's announcement means that every Warsaw Pact country outside the former Soviet Union - bar Albania - will be a member the EU by January 1 2007. So far only three former Soviet republics - the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - have been allowed in.

"This is the genuine and final fall of the Berlin wall for Bulgaria," the Bulgarian prime minister, Sergei Stanishev, declared in Sofia.

The EU delayed Romania and Bulgaria's EU membership by nearly three years amid deep concerns about their failure to crack down on organised crime and corruption - and fears about their criminal justice systems.

Such fears were highlighted today when the commission announced that it would impose a series of restrictions on both countries, with the toughest penalties falling on Bulgaria.

In a "monitoring report" on the progress made by the two countries, the commission expresses particular unease about Bulgaria. "Contract killings of persons rarely result in successful investigations and prosecutions," it says.

"Ilegal possession of firearms remains a problem. The number of cases prosecuted successfully related to trafficking of human beings, drug smuggling, money laundering, counterfeiting of goods, currency and documents is still low.

"Organised crime continues to be a problem ... Overall, certain mechanisms have been put in place which should facilitate the fight against organised crime. However, there are insufficient tangible results in investigating and prosecuting organised crime cases."

Romania is criticised, though less harshly. "A consistent interpretation and application of the law at all levels of courts throughout the country has not been fully ensured," the report says.

"Romania has continued to make progress in fighting corruption ... There needs to be a clear political willingness of all political actors to demonstrate the sustainability and irreversibility of the recent positive progress in the fight against corruption."

The commission is so concerned by the slow progress of reform that it has set Romania and Bulgaria a set of benchmarks - with a demand for a first report by the end of March next year.

Bulgaria will have to prove in its report that it has removed "any ambiguity regarding the independence and accountability of the judicial system" and conduct "professional, non-partisan investigations into allegations of high-level corruption".

Romania faces less strict benchmarks, which include more transparency in its judicial system. If either country fails, it will be excluded from EU business in the areas covered by the benchmarks.

Today's commission report, which will now go to EU foreign ministers, who have the final say, is mainly focused on crime and the judiciary, but other areas of concern are highlighted. Both countries are warned that they could see cuts in valuable agricultural payments unless they improve their payment systems.

But Bulgaria is given a particularly strong warning that its planes will be banned from EU airspace unless it improves safety. "Non-complying Bulgarian carriers may be added to the EU list of banned carriers," the report says.

The strong criticisms in today's report will strengthen the hand of critics who say that Romania and Bulgaria are not ready to join the EU. But the commission will argue that allowing them to join in January - given that its only sanction is a year long delay until 2008 - is the best way of encouraging reform. A delay would, the commission believes, be a gift to EU critics in Romania and Bulgaria.

The guarded commission report comes amid a growing sense across the EU of what is being dubbed "enlargement fatigue". Mr Barroso set down a significant marker on Monday when he said that the EU cannot expand any further - once Romania and Bulgaria have joined - until it works out what to with the comatose EU constitution.

The EU's rules are currently covered by the Nice treaty, which sets a cap on the number of members at 27. This will be reached in January. Croatia, which is next in line to join, will now have to wait until the EU decides what to do with its constitution.

He said recent figures suggested employers were underestimating the life expectancy of their workforce. Recent data showed workers were living two years longer than current estimates and the estimates were probably out of date.

Mr Norgrove urged employers to look more closely at the likely longevity of their own workers to gain a more accurate picture of life expectancy.

Companies are not obliged under the accounting rule FRS17 to undertake a separate review of life expectancy themselves. They tend to follow industry estimates calculated by firms of actuaries.

However, the regulator's comments are likely to add to the pressure on employers to limit further their exposure to final-salary schemes. Most firms have closed their schemes to new members.

Some financial experts said a demand to fill the deficits opened up by projections of increased life expectancy could push more employers to take the "nuclear" option and close such schemes to all employees.

Mr Norgrove's comments follow a series of statements from investors and taxpayer groups claiming that official figures underestimate the size of deficits in the private and public sectors.

A recent report by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a rightwing thinktank, argued that the increasing life expectancy, coupled with falling investment returns and low interest rates, had increased the public-sector pension deficit by a quarter to more than £1 trillion. The deficit in the private sector is estimated to be about £100bn on liabilities of £900bn.

Mr Norgrove told a pensions seminar in Brighton that a recent study of 207 companies by the consultancy KPMG showed that among companies in some sectors there was up to nine years difference in assumed life expectancy.

In a recent analysis, the actuaries Lane Clark & Peacock looked at the life-expectancy assumptions made by the 33 companies in the FTSE 100 that reported longevity figures in their accounts.

He said: "The average assumption was for a man retiring at 60 to live to about 85, with three companies assuming 82 or under. Only two companies used a figure consistent with what's known as the medium cohort projection, which places the figure at 87."

"My life was ruined," Mr Kioru said, recalling the day, as a 23-year-old labourer, when he was rounded up and detained for four years without charge during Operation Anvil in 1954, a brutal military offensive launched by Britain to crush the Mau Mau uprising. He said he was forced to stand neck high in water for days at a time; had raw sewage pumped into his body - contracting typhoid as a result - and was severely beaten. He was left in constant pain and suffering frequent nightmares. The British also confiscated his family's farm, he said.

Kenya's Human Rights Commission believes 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions.

"This was a dark period in British history," said Martyn Day, a British human rights lawyer hired by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission to represent the Mau Mau veterans.

He believes the case could also have implications for the US over its role in Iraq, Afghanistan and the treatment of prisoners at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr Day will lodge the case at the High Court in London on 20 October - a Kenyan public holiday marking the beginning of the uprising when 180 independence leaders were seized. Legal papers will also be served on the British Government claiming the UK was responsible for atrocities during its rule. Judges are expected to fix a date for a legal hearing.

It is not clear that Britain can be sued so long after the alleged abuses. Charley Williams, a spokeswoman for the British embassy in Kenya, said all claims of government responsibility were passed to the Kenyan government at independence. "We would defend the case in this matter vigorously although we would wait to see the details before deciding on what approach we would take."

If the case does go to trial, among those who will give evidence is the American academic Caroline Elkins, author of the 2006 novel Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. She said: "The British tried to cover up systematic abuse and have to take responsibility for what happened." But she warnedthat it was a "political hot potato" that could raise tensions in both countries.

Mucheke Kioru, 75, lives in a one-room wooden hovel and works as a watchman guarding a small farm for a wage of £7 a month.

"I fought for freedom only to be shackled by poverty, nightmares and to die a lonely old man, unable to have a wife or children," he said. "That is my legacy of independence."

The T-shirts were given out free earlier this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He was born on a Monday, and so intense is Thailand's devotion to him that the whole country has now taken to wearing them, without fail, every Monday. Some Thais have gone even further: they have managed to get their hands on several identical T-shirts, so they can wear them every day.

Last week's military coup has thrust King Bhumibol, the world's longest reigning monarch, back into the political spotlight after he endorsed the group of senior generals who have seized power. On Wednesday, the day after the coup, a large crowd of Thais gathered next to the tanks which had taken up position outside government buildings. At first it looked as if they were there to protest, and soldiers were eyeing them warily. But then the royal motorcade came into view, and it became clear why the people were there. They had not come to demonstrate against the sudden overthrow of democracy: they had come to try to catch a glimpse of the King as he drove by.

It was far longer than a British royal motorcade, or that of a US president. To the onlookers' disappointment, the police said the Crown Prince and not the King was inside the old cream-coloured Rolls-Royce which looked somewhat out of place amid the ultra-modern skyscrapers of Bangkok.

It was followed by an extraordinary number of Mercedes and BMWs, all in royal red with a crest on the side, that seemed to be there for no other reason than to swell the procession. The motorcade must have added up to £1m worth of cars. Traffic was stopped by police so it could pass. People stood respectfully to attention in the streets.

It was a glimpse of the power and mystique of King Bhumibol. Even though he is a constitutional monarch, with almost no official powers, the events of the last week have shown that he is still the real power in Thailand.

The televised ceremony in which he endorsed the coup leader, General Sondhi Boonyaratglin, was another insight into his grip on the country. Bhumibol did not even have to turn up. Instead, General Sondhi, in full ceremonial regalia, knelt and prostrated himself before a picture of the King.

No one has suggested this implies the King was not wholeheartedly behind it. That is just the way they do things here.

This is a king who plays jazz saxophone to relax, and used to give concerts to his people. He has played live with the late jazz musician Benny Goodman, who said that if he weren't a king he'd give him a place in his band. Bhumibol holds the patents to several agricultural inventions, and is said to drive himself around Bangkok secretly at night to see how his people live. But at the same time, he commands such devotion that Thais do not dare look him in the eye: they address the dust beneath his feet.

Bhumibol wrote a biography of his favourite pet dog, Thong Daeng, when she died. You can imagine a British royal doing the same - what's harder to imagine is Prince Charles writing the sort of social parable Bhumibol's book was. "Tongdaeng is a respectful dog with proper manners; she is humble and knows protocol," he wrote. "She would always sit lower than the King; even when he pulls her up to embrace her, Tongdaeng would lower herself down on the floor, her ears in a respectful drooping position, as if she would say, 'I don't dare'."

Most Thais say the one thing that made them accept last week's coup was Bhumibol's endorsement. Almost the first thing you see at Bangkok airport is a sign saying "We love our King", and people say the same thing on the streets. Almost all of those we interviewed this week, whether they supported the coup or not, said they backed the King.

On the other hand, of course, it is illegal to say anything else. Thailand is one of very few countries in the world that still enforces lèse-majesté laws. Say anything remotely critical of the King or the royal family, and it could land you a lengthy prison sentence. And there are Thai social activists who can testify from their own bitter experience that those laws are enforced.

When an American journalist, Paul Handley, published an unauthorised biography of Bhumibol, The King Never Smiles, earlier this year, the Thai government banned it and blocked its page on the Yale University Press's website. But then, it also banned an earlier biography by William Stevenson, who was granted hundreds of hours to interview Bhumibol, and who says it was the King who suggested he write the book in the first place. Thai newspapers were told they weren't even to mention Stevenson's book in print.

All the same, there is no doubt that Bhumibol's immense popularity among Thais is genuine. Nobody makes them wear those yellow T-shirts. And there are many Thais, respected university professors among them, who will tell you they would die for their king. So it was no surprise that the generals who seized power last week were so eager to stress that they had the King's backing. They even ordered Thai newspapers to refer to their junta as the "Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy".

But that is where it gets tricky. Because Bhumibol is widely considered, both in Thailand and internationally, as the man who has safeguarded and overseen the country's transition to democracy. When he came to the throne at the age of 18, the generals who were then running the country told him to keep his mouth shut. He outlasted them and, at several critical moments since, intervened in attempted coups on the side of democracy. Western newspapers have eulogised him for it.

Yet last week he personally endorsed a coup that overturned 15 years of stable democracy, and turned his country - the West's key ally in the region - back into a military dictatorship.

"There are two schools of thought," said one Thai observer who preferred not to be named in view of the strict laws of the country. "One is that the King has backed the coup for sake of stability. The other is that he is a part of this coup. Personally, I tend to the former."

There was no love lost between Bhumibol and the deposed Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. As one Western observer put it, the coup was "the culmination of months of shadow boxing between the palace and the Prime Minister".

Whatever his true feelings about the coup, Bhumibol has always trod a more subtle path than outright backing for democracy, and preserving the monarchy has always been as much of a priority as democracy. As a younger brother, he never expected to accede to the throne, and inherited it in 1946 under dramatic circumstances that have never been fully explained, when his brother, King Ananda Mahidol, was found dead in his bedroom, with a gunshot wound to the head. Bhumibol was studying in Switzerland at the time, and because of his youth, his uncle was appointed regent.

The young man had not inherited a throne with the immense influence he wields today. The Thai monarchy had been weakened through long years of military dictatorship under Field Marshal Pibulsonggram, and the generals made it clear to the young king who was in charge. "When I opened my mouth, they'd say, 'Your Majesty, you don't know anything'," he has recalled. "So I shut my mouth. I know things, but I shut my mouth." So Bhumibol threw himself into another role, devoting hours to agricultural research and national development, and beginning to build the immense popularity he enjoys today.

In 1957 he got his chance. When a rival general moved against Field Marshal Pibulsonggram, the young King advised the dictator to resign to avoid a coup. Pibulsonggram refused, and his rival seized power, endorsed by Bhumibol. The country was still a military dictatorship, but Bhumibol had made the monarchy count again.

In 1973, he asserted himself dramatically. There had been massive protests and the army had killed many student demonstrators. Bhumibol opened the gates of his palace to the fleeing students and gave them sanctuary. It was a decisive moment that overturned the military dictatorship.

But in 1976, Bhumibol went the other way, as the military seized power again. The army went into the universities and massacred hundreds of students, but Bhumibol sided with the military. Analysts believe he may have done so because of the advance of communism across south-east Asia, which had just wiped out the royal family in Laos.

In 1992, Bhumibol played a decisive role in the country's peaceful transition to democracy. There was considerable violence after the military had been called in to quell popular protests. Neither side would back down and the situation was critical. Bhumibol summoned both the military leader of the time, and the leader of the democracy movement, to his palace. Forcing both to kneel and prostrate themselves before him in a televised audience, he scolded them in front of the nation. It was the end of the crisis, and Thailand became a peaceful democracy - until last week, when Bhumibol appears unexpectedly to have backed the military. As recently as April he refused to intervene in the burgeoning crisis, after opponents of Mr Thaksin boycotted a general election and asked the King to appoint an alternative prime minister.

Now he has intervened, though whether his hand was forced by events is not clear. What the long-term effects will be remain to be seen. Earlier this year, the King of Nepal saw his throne stripped of nearly all its powers after his ill-fated attempt to seize back power for himself. Bhumibol is far more popular on a personal level in Thailand than King Gyanendra was in Nepal, but reverence for the institution of monarchy was similar.

At the age of 78, celebrating his 60th year on the throne, Bhumibol is back in the thick of Thai politics.