The Foreign Policy Centre also calls for the Commonwealth to become a properly organised and policed organisation, with transparent rules of membership.

ECONOMIST: The Commonwealth

Some kidnap groups may have political beliefs, but the Foreign Policy Centre's Rachel Briggs said the driving force for all of them - like any multinational company - is trade, reputation and the bottom line.

BBC: The kidnapping business

In return, he bowed to a plan stitched up between pan-European socialists and the European People's Party, the main conservative block in the EU, to give the council presidency to someone from the centre right and the foreign-policy job to the centre left.

ECONOMIST: The EU presidency