Economist:

China overtook America in 2009 to become the world's biggest consumer of cars.

Lee Kuan Yew:

The size of China's displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world.

Robert Samuelson:

If global warming is as dangerous as alarmists claim, we can't do much about it. A 2012 study by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group, found that nearly 1,200 new coal-fired plants had been proposed worldwide, three-quarters of them in China and India.

Hans Rosling via FT:

By 2100, ... the global population will peak at 11bn, with 4bn in Africa and 5bn in Asia. By that time, the main maritime thoroughfare in the world will be the Indian Ocean not the Pacific. That is the waterway that will link 9bn of the world's 11bn inhabitants. If you are looking far enough ahead, you should be buying prime beach property on the east coast of Africa.

Brad Plumer:

Currently, Africa has 1.1 billion people. By the end of the century, the researchers think there's an 80 percent chance that the continent will have between 3.5 and 5.1 billion people.

Theatre Stories:

Mickey Rooney: I was the number one star ... IN THE WORLD! YOU HEAR ME!?

[ Mickey puckers his lips and sucks. He bangs his fists together and pretends to pull a string. ]

Mickey Rooney: Bang! THE WORLD!!

Kenneth Reese-Evans: Y-e-e-s, of course. Yes, yes.