Disaster looms in imaginary diary of new US President

Washington, Nov.21 : The National Intelligence Council (NIC), America's leading intelligence organization, has forecasted an unpredictable world in which the advance of western-style democracy is far from guaranteed. In an imaginary "presidential diary entry" from October 1, 2020, it 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," he adds. 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."

ANI