Globalization (or globalisation) refers to the process or processes of international integration. Human Interaction over long distances, such as the overland Silk Road that connected Asia, Africa and Europe, existed thousands of years ago. In the 15th century, Europeans made important advances in exploring the World Ocean and locating the "New World" of the Americas. Global movement of people, goods, and ideas expanded significantly in the early 19th century with development of new forms of transportation (such as steamship and railroads) and telecommunications that seem to "compress" time and space. In the 20th century, road vehicles and airlines made transportation much faster. Electronic communications, most notably mobile phones and the Internet, connect billions of people in new ways.

The term derives from the root word "globe", with the meaning of "sphere," which came to English from the Latin globus: "round mass, sphere, ball," carrying the sense of "planet earth," or a three-dimensional map of it, from around 1550. One of the earliest known usages of the term as the noun "globalization" was in 1930, in a publication entitled Towards New Education, to denote a holistic view of human experience in education. A related term, 'corporate giants', was coined by Charles Taze Russell in 1897 to describe the largely national trusts and other large enterprises of the time. By the 1960s, both terms began to be used synonymously by economists and other social scientists. It then reached the mainstream press in the later half of the 1980s. Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations, with antecedents dating back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onwards.

Thomas "Tom" Horn, Jr. (November 21, 1860 – November 20, 1903) was an American Old West lawman, scout, soldier, hired gunman, detective, outlaw and assassin. On the day before his 43rd birthday, he was hanged in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the murder of Willie Nickell.

Born to Thomas S. Horn, Sr. and Mary Ann Maricha (née Miller), in rural northeastern Scotland County, Missouri, on the family farm of 600 acres (bisected by the South Wyaconda River) between the towns of Granger and Etna, he was the fifth of twelve children.

At sixteen, he headed to the American Southwest, where he was hired by the U.S. Cavalry as a civilian scout under Al Sieber and became involved in the Apache Wars, aiding in the capture of warriors such as Geronimo. On January 11, 1886, Tom Horn was involved in an expedition into Mexican territory in the pursuit of Geronimo as a packer and interpreter. During the operation, Horn's camp was attacked by Mexican militia and he was wounded in the arm. Horn allegedly killed his first man in a duel-a second lieutenant in the Mexican Army Horn was present at Geronimo's final surrender, acting as an interpreter under Charles B. Gatewood.

Ahmed Rashid (Urdu:احمد رشید) (b. 1948 in Rawalpindi) is a former Pakistani revolutionary, a journalist and best-selling author of several books about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

Rashid attended Malvern College, England, Government College Lahore, and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

After graduating, Rashid spent ten years in the hills of Balochistan, western Pakistan attempting to organise an uprising against the Pakistani military dictatorships of Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. He ended his guerrilla fighting days frustrated and defeated and turned his attentions to writing about his homeland.

He has been the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph for more than 20 years and a correspondent for Far Eastern Economic Review. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Daily Times (Pakistan) and academic journals. He appears regularly on international TV and radio networks such as CNN and BBC World.

He is a well known and vocal critic of the Bush administration in relation to the Iraq war its alleged neglect of the Taliban issue. Rashid's 2000 book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, was a New York Times bestseller for five weeks, translated into 22 languages, and has sold 1.5 million copies since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book was used extensively by American analysts in the wake of the 9/11 attacks^{[citation needed]}.

Sir Peter John Westmacott, KCMG, LVO (born December 1950) is a senior British diplomat, who effective January 2012 is Her Majesty's Ambassador to the United States of America, in succession to Sir Nigel Sheinwald.

The Prime Minister's Office announced Sir Peter's appointment on 24th June, 2011.

Sir Peter joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1972, and his first overseas posting was as Second Secretary in Tehran, Iran, in 1974. In 1978, he was sent to the European Commission in Brussels, and from 1980 to 1984 he was in Paris. After a period in London he was in Ankara as Head of Chancery from 1987.

In 1990 he was Deputy Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales, and in 1993 was sent to Washington as a Counsellor. Later postings included Director for the Americas in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Deputy Under Secretary of State.

From 2002-6, Sir Peter served as HM Ambassador to Turkey where he had to deal with a suicide bomb attack on the British Consulate in Istanbul in 2003, which killed 15 people, and was closely involved in the decision to begin accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU in 2005. He was HM Ambassador to the French Republic from March 2007 until he took over as HM Ambassador to the United States in January 2012.

Martin Wolf, CBE (born 1946) is a British journalist, widely considered to be one of the world's most influential writers on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.

Wolf was born in London, 1946. His father Edmund was an Austrian Jewish playwright who escaped from Vienna to England before World War II. In London, Edmund met Wolf's mother, a Dutch Jew who had lost nearly thirty close relatives in the Holocaust. Wolf recalls that his background left him wary of political extremes and encouraged his interest in economics, as he felt economic policy mistakes were one of the root causes of WWII. Wolf was educated at University College School and in 1967 entered Corpus Christi College at Oxford University for his undergraduate studies. He initially studied Classics before starting the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Course As a graduate student Wolf moved on to Nuffield College, also at Oxford, which he left with a master of philosophy degree in economics in 1971. Wolf has said that he never pursued a PhD because he "didn't want to become an academic". Wolf was an active supporter of the Labour Party (UK) until the early 1970s.