President Barack Obama said that the then president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was “the most popular president on earth”. Now, while fighting for a new term in office, he has been brought low, imprisoned for 12 years for corruption.

Personally I am a coward. I am unlikely ever to be a hero. I have rescued on different occasions three young children from drowning, but I did not risk my life. I certainly would never have done what Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, the French policeman, did.

This present Pope, Francis, is probably the most powerful man in the world, in the round.Stalin once asked when confronted with the argument about the Pope’s reach and influence, replied, “How many divisions has the Pope got?” He missed the point.

Like it is not we find that we are having to get used to the paradoxes, contradictions and confusions of the Trump era.None is more apparent than his attack on the landmark Iran denuclearisation agreement, fashioned by the Obama administration and the Iranian government.

The seemingly eternal president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has an iron grip on his nation and a foreign policy to match. A large majority of Russians give him their support.  He will win reelection.Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability?

It is been an odd couple of months for southern Africa.

The new, vicious fighting in the Congo is the fourth round of warfare since its independence in 1960. No other country has seen so many “blue berets”, UN peacekeeping troops, in its short history.

How rude can you get? The US vice president, Mike Pence, sitting one row in front of the sister of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un refused to turn round and say hi. She was one outstretched arm away from him.

We are soon going to have a clash between President Donald Trump and international law. This is predicable when one examines the presidential discourse over what to do about North Korea and its possession of nuclear-tipped rockets.