And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.

Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people.

Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.

Each of us have things and thoughts and descriptions of an amazing universe in our possession that kings in the 17th Century would have gone to war to possess.

If a war started, the oil price probably would go up, as you said, maybe $5, $6 a barrel until you saw other oil from the extra supplies that are available elsewhere coming into the world, into the market.

China pays a great deal of attention to the Korean nuclear issue. We stand for achieving denuclearization of the peninsula in a peaceful way through dialogue and consultation to maintain peace and stability of the peninsula and Northeast Asia.

People sense that our reaction to phenomena such as epidemics or religious war is not that different to how we reacted to plagues or to battles a millennia ago.