Pak called a wild card in US intelligence report

Washington, Nov 22 : The National Intelligence Council, an independent US Government body, has called Pakistan a 'wild card', whose northwestern territories will remain "poorly governed", as cross-border activities continue to cause instability in nearby areas of Afghanistan.

The Global Trends reports, produced every four years by the National Intelligence Council, represents all 16 American intelligence agencies, in part to inform long-term thinking by new administrations.

The reports project various possible sequences of events in the future; the new publication notes, between dire forecasts, that "bad outcomes are not inevitable."

According to a report - Global Trends 2025 -Afghanistan will remain an essentially tribally centred nation facing continual conflict. The future of Iraq does not look much better, the Daily Times reported.

China, however, is projected to emerge as the world's second strongest economic power after the United States, while the latter will have "less power in a multipolar world than it has enjoyed for many decades".

Russia has the potential to be richer and more powerful, but only if it expands and diversifies its economy, predicts the report.

US economic and political clout will decline over the next two decades and the world will be more dangerous, with food and water scarce and advanced weapons plentiful, the report projected.

The outlook is intended to inform US president-elect Barack Obama of factors that will influence global events. It is based on a year-long global survey of experts and trends by US intelligence analysts.

Thomas Fingar, chairman of the intelligence council and deputy national director of intelligence for analysis, said harmful outcomes were not inevitable.

"It is not beyond the mind of human beings, or political systems, (or) in some cases (the) working of market mechanisms to address and alleviate if not solve these problems," Fingar told reporters. "We could have a better world in 2025."

ANI