TITLE: Global stability for dynamical systems in $R^n$
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Suppose we have a smooth dynamical system on $R^n$ (defined by a system of ODEs).
Assume that:
(1) The system has an absorbing ball, that is every trajectory eventually enters this ball
and stays in it. 
(2) The system has a unique stationary point, and this stationary point is locally
asymptotically stable.
(2) The system has no period orbits.
Can we conclude that the stationary point is in fact globally stable?

REPLY [4 votes]: As the questioner notes in a comment, the answer is Yes for n<3. 
One way to create counterexamples for larger n is to use the work on the Seifert Conjecture. Start with a vector field pointing inward to the origin, and replace a little piece of it with an "aperiodic plug." This "plug" looks from the outside like a constant flow, has no periodic orbits in the interior, but there is at least one orbit that goes in and never comes out.
For details on various plug constructions, this note from the Geometry Center is very readable and also has references to the original papers of Wilson and Kuperberg.