- Sun sets on US power: report predicts end of dominance
The United States' leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being "taken over and run by criminal networks".
The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama's intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to "call the shots" alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane.
Looking ahead to 2025, the NIC (which coordinates analysis from all the US intelligence agencies), foresees a fragmented world, where conflict over scarce resources is on the rise, poorly contained by "ramshackle" international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict grow more likely.
"Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed" warns that the spread of western democratic capitalism cannot be taken for granted, as it was by George Bush and America's neoconservatives.
"No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term," the report warns.
It adds: "Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control," giving the examples of China and Russia.
"In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world."
At the same time, the US will become "less dominant" in the world – no longer the unrivalled superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War, but a "first among equals" in a more fluid and evenly balanced world, making the unilateralism of the Bush era no longer tenable.
The report predicts that over the next two decades "the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships."
It is a conclusion that meshes with president elect Obama's stated preference for multilateralism, but the NIC findings suggest that as the years go by it could be harder for Washington to put together "coalitions of the willing" to pursue its agenda.
International organisations, like the UN, seem ill-prepared to fill the vacuum left by receding American power, at a time of multiple potential crises driven by climate change the increasing scarcity of resources like oil, food and water. Those institutions "appear incapable of rising to the challenges without concerted efforts from their leaders" it says.
In an unusually graphic illustration of a possible future, the report presents an imaginary "presidential diary entry" from October 1, 2020, that recounts a devastating hurricane, fuelled by global warming, hitting New York in the middle of the UN's annual general assembly.
"I guess we had it coming, but it was a rude shock," the unnamed president writes. "Some of the scenes were like the stuff from the World War II newsreels, only this time it was not Europe but Manhattan. Those images of the US aircraft carriers and transport ships evacuating thousands in the wake of the flooding still stick in my mind."
As he flies off for an improvised UN reception on board an aircraft carrier, the imaginary future president admits: "The cumulation of disasters, permafrost melting, lower agricultural yields, growing health problems, and the like are taking a terrible toll, much greater than we anticipated 20 years ago."
The last time the NIC published its quadrennial glimpse into the future was December 2004. President Bush had just been re-elected and was preparing his triumphal second inauguration that was to mark the high-water mark for neoconservatism. That report matched the mood of the times.
It was called Mapping the Global Future, and looked forward as far as 2020 when it projected "continued US dominance, positing that most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US".
That confidence is entirely lacking from this far more sober assessment. Also gone is the belief that oil and gas supplies "in the ground" were "sufficient to meet global demand". The new report views a transition to cleaner fuels as inevitable. It is just the speed that is in question.
The NIC believes it is most likely that technology will lag behind the depletion of oil and gas reserves. A sudden transition, however, will bring problems of its own, creating instability in the Gulf and Russia.
While emerging economies like China, India and Brazil are likely to grow in influence at America's expense, the same cannot be said of the European Union. The NIC appears relatively certain the EU will be "losing clout" by 2025. Internal bickering and a "democracy gap" separating Brussels from European voters will leave the EU "a hobbled giant", unable to translate its economic clout into global influence.
Disaster diary
An imaginary diary entry written by a future US president, produced to illustrate a climate-change disaster:
Those images of US aircraft carriers evacuating thousands in the wake of flooding stick in my mind. Why must the hurricane season coincide with the UN general assembly in New York?
It's bad enough that this had to happen; it was doubly embarrassing that half the world's leaders were here to witness it. I guess the problem is we had counted on this not happening, at least not yet.
• Read the full National Intelligence Council global trends review (pdf)
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds - Find £1bn to help 10p tax rate victims, Darling told
The leaders of Labour's 10p tax rebels yesterday served warning on the chancellor, Alistair Darling, that he has to find at least £1bn in Monday's pre-budget report to help the 6 million people who have still not been compensated for the disastrous decision to abolish the lower tax rate earlier this year.
Frank Field and Greg Pope, the leaders of the tax rebellion earlier this year, have written to Darling, urging action. Field told the Guardian: "The Labour backbenches will not abandon the poor who have still not been compensated. It is a Rubicon they will not cross, and at a time the government has found £50bn to bail out the bankers, the Treasury can surely find £1bn to ease the resentment of our core voters."
The chancellor is expected to announce a series of business and personal tax cuts in Monday's pre-budget report, aimed at the poorest because they are most likely to spend any extra cash.
The intervention of Field and Pope will add to the pressure on the Treasury which was last night seeking to dampen speculation of a massive tax giveaway next week after the latest official figures showed a backdrop of rapidly deteriorating public finances.
In the wake of the first October deficit in 14 years, officials dismissed suggestions that the chancellor could unveil a £30bn package - worth 2% of GDP - designed to lift the economy out of recession.
The quarterly payment of corporation tax means October is normally a surplus month for the public finances, but the slowdown in the economy, the collapse of the housing market, financial turmoil and tax concessions since the budget combined to leave the state in the red by £1.4bn last month.
City analysts said the budget deficit could rise to £70bn this year and top £100bn in 2009-10 even before the extra borrowing for Monday's fiscal package was taken into account.
In their letter Field and Pope write: "We are anxious that the government's promise to do all in its power to compensate fully the losers from the abolition of the 10p rate is not only met, but kept clearly separate from other tax reductions the government may announce next Monday."
Following an unprecedented backbench rebellion, and amid signs that Brown's leadership was at risk, the Treasury hastily assembled a £2.7bn compensation package in May. Darling increased personal allowances for all basic rate taxpayers. Although only 1.1 million householders have lost out overall, this masks the fact that 6 million individuals have been losers.
Field and Pope write: "Overwhelmingly these taxpayers are on low earnings. The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates that the greatest loss of around £112 a year are for taxpayers earning £7,755."
They accept that the complexity of the tax system means it will be impossible for the Treasury to help every group that has lost, but argue it does seem likely that most of these losers are on low earnings and fall below a threshold of £13,355 a year.
"We do hope you can give us an assurance that Monday's statement will include a measure that will recompense as many of these individuals as is practically possible. Only in this way would it be possible to draw a clear line under this wholly sorry saga."
Field claims the net cost of his proposal will be £1bn.
In other developments the employment minister, Tony McNulty, said the pre-budget report would propose a new employment programme, adding it was "a no-brainer" to revisit the closure programme for Jobcentre Plus officers. Since 2002, the government has closed nearly 500 job centres, including 40 in the last year, and cut staff by 16,000.
Ministers are also under intense pressure to use the pre-budget report to rethink its housebuilding programme after figures were released yesterday showing only an estimated 22,200 housing starts in England in the September quarter, down 33% on the previous quarter.
This decline in housebuilding levels makes the government's target of building 240,000 homes a year by 2016 look hopelessly unrealistic.
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds - Supertanker pirates demand $25m within 10 days
Pirates holding a Saudi supertanker off the coast of Somalia have reportedly told the ship's owners to pay a $25m (£16.9m) ransom within 10 days or face "disastrous" consequences.
The Sirius Star, which is carrying 2m barrels of oil worth £68m, was captured on Saturday and is being held near the town of Harardheere along Somalia's eastern coast. The 25 crew, including two Britons, are being kept hostage on the ship.
A pirate who called himself Mohammad Said told Agence France-Presse via satellite phone that Vela International, a subsidiary of the state oil company Saudi Aramco, had received the demand for the $25m ransom.
"We do not want long-term discussions to resolve this matter," the pirate said. "The Saudis have 10 days to comply, otherwise we will take action that could be disastrous."
Vela has not commented on the negotiations, and the pirate's claims could not be independently verified. But British and Saudi officials were against any ransom negotiations.
"Payments for hostage taking are only an encouragement to further hostage taking," said David Miliband, the foreign secretary.
Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, added: "Piracy is an international crime that is the equivalent of terrorism. The only way to deal with it is to eradicate it. We are not supporters of negotiations with hijackers or terrorists."
It not clear what "action" the pirate was referring to in his ultimatum. In the past Somali gunmen have not mistreated hostages while they waited for ransoms to be paid. Neither have they sabotaged captured vessels. Given its load, any attempt to damage the Sirius Star could cause an environmental catastrophe, the main victims of which would be Somalis.
In the first sign that major shipping companies are growing queasy about the Horn of Africa, Danish group AP Moller Maersk said it would reroute some of its fleets around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Gulf of Aden.
Russia, which has called for a ground operation in Somalia against the pirates, said it would send warships to the region.
The various pirate groups operate with impunity within Somalia, which has a government in name only and is gripped by an Islamist-led insurgency. Some 17 foreign ships with more than 250 crew members are believed to be under the pirates' control, including a Ukrainian cargo vessel carrying 33 tanks. The gang holding the ship is reported to have rejected a $2.5m ransom offer earlier this week.
Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that while the transatlantic alliance would continue to patrol the shipping lanes along Somalia's coast, it was the responsibility of the UN to take care of issues of land. That, however, seems unlikely to happen.
Yesterday the UN security council voted to impose new sanctions aimed at reducing the flow of arms into Somalia.
The British-drafted resolution called for asset freezes and travel bans on anyone engaging in or supporting violence in Somalia, including individuals or companies that violate a 1992 UN arms embargo.
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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