This is the happy talk among United Nations experts who reviewed the global landscape along with Project LINK, a research outfit founded by the Nobel economics laureate Lawrence Klein. It provides comprehensive coverage of the global economy through 250 analysts from 60 countries working with 79 models (computer, not couture).

"After a pervasive global slowdown in 2001, with roughly a dozen economies falling into recession, a recovery is unfolding," their report promises. The forecast is for 1.8 percent gross world product this year, up from 1.2 percent in 2001, and for a growing momentum in 2003 that could push the GWP back onto its long-run path of 3 percent.

Confirming what Wall Street analysts and the media have been saying, the UN-LINK crowd call the upturn's arrival an event that happened much earlier than expected. The post-Sept. 11 recovery in the US was "surprisingly faster than anticipated," they add. Why is it that economists seem forever surprised? Theirs is the dismal science; it surely supplies the thrill of the unexpected.

Away from the US, data from Asia and Europe "have all shown either an actual revival of economic activities or at least the antecedents of a recovery," according to the report. So why are the bourses still following their weird, dispiriting yo-yo pattern instead of consistently trending upward?

Ah, read the final chapter titled "Uncertainties and forecasting risks" and you'll find that the happy talk has been turned down a bit since the opening page. "Notwithstanding an improvement in the global economic prospects, many uncertainties and downside risks remain."

The report blames terrorist threats for "some new uncertainties" and fears an "adverse impact on the economies in the region and on the global economy as a whole" if the Middle East conflict is not contained but "goes awry."

Comes the oil price equation. The report says that a $10 a barrel increase in the price of oil for a year would knock a full percentage point off the GDP worldwide, while oil at $35 a barrel for more than 6 months would likely create recession in major industrialized countries.

Also, say the experts, there are global risks in the high dependency of the worldwide economy on a US recovery. Stocks and shares still are too expensive despite a substantial correction, household davings are too low and private debt is at historical highs, they complain. Then there's a real estate bubble. All of this, the report warns, can threaten US and global economic recovery.

"Internationally, only a small portion of the large extenal deficits of the United States has been reduced so far, and the deficits are likely to grow during the recovery, implying that there is a higher risk of a more abrupt adjustment in the future."

Keep your seat belts fastened.