Obioku, a village in Nigeria, West Africa. At first glance, this is the end of the world -- and at second glance, even more so. Muggy heat. A miserable set of wooden shacks; ragged children; a muddy hole from which women fetch water. The women use the few fish their husbands have caught to make a thin soup. The biting smell of sulphur lingers in the air. It seems absurd that anyone should fight over this piece of the earth.

But in recent months, hundreds have been killed here in the Niger delta. Rebels fight government troops and even demand the secession of the region from Lagos; they present ultimatums requesting billions from Shell, the Anglo-Dutch petroleum giant. Columns of smoke darken the sky where pipelines have been blown up. It's all about the petroleum that lies under the ground here in vast quantities -- petroleum of an especially light, sweetish, consumer-friendly variety.

The rebels claim they are concerned about the well-being of the residents of Obioku. It's a claim that is shared by Shell and the government. Shell CEOs say that 3 percent of their annual budget goes into local development funds. For their part, Nigerian politicians shrug their shoulders and insist that they are fighting fiercely against every kind of exploitation. Diepreye Alamieyeseigah, the governor of the state of Bayelsa, was arrested on suspicion of money laundering in September. He's now on trial, and said to have diverted hundreds of millions of dollars into his own pockets.

But as long as the oil fields burn, as long as Shell and Italian oil company Agip employees are held hostage and as long as oil platforms are attacked with speedboats, exporting black gold from the country in sub-Saharan Africa that has the largest petroleum reserves will remain an uphill battle. Indeed, the volatility of oil regions like Nigeria are one of the key reasons that oil prices have risen so dramatically worldwide.

The Caucasian highlands, 70 kilometers (44 miles) southwest of the city of Vladikavkas in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia. Pipelines lie on the frozen ground in strangely twisted shapes, like modeling clay handled by an angry giant. Saboteurs destroyed the two gas pipelines that run through an almost deserted territory and towards Georgia at the end of January. The people in Georgia, whose energy supply is meager anyhow, suffered the cold for more than a week, cut off from their most important energy source. No lights were turned on in the capital at night; desperate people burned their own furniture to stay warm. Moscow blamed Muslim rebels for the attacks. But Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili complained that saboteurs controlled by the Kremlin had planted the bombs, and he and accused his Russian colleague of "blackmail." Saakashvili believes Vladimir Putin wanted to teach West-leaning Georgia a lesson by demonstrating how dependent Georgia is on Russian energy.

So Russia is being pilloried once again, a short time after the Kremlin forced the Ukraine to strike a deal by turning off its gas supply. That raises questions about the energy security of the European Union, which is dependent on Russia for natural gas: Hungary gets 85 percent of its natural gas from Russia; Germany gets a still substantial 40 percent. This dependency is yet another reason why energy prices are climbing to record levels.

Fatah, a giant petroleum refinery two hours northwest of Baghdad by car. After almost 20 major attacks in the past year, Iraq's largest oil production facility was closed for the entire month of December. Then, only three days after the re-opening of the complex in Beiji in January, insurgents attacked a convoy of 60 oil trucks and engaged security forces in a firefight that lasted hours. Meanwhile, the number of attacks on oil installations and pipelines across the country continues to rise.

"We repair the pipelines and they blow them up again, and then the game starts over," says former Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum. The violence isn't just directed at objects: In January, rebels murdered Ali al-Sudani, the Iraq Oil Ministry's general director. The two German engineers who were kidnapped in Iraq earlier this year (and have since been released) were also working at Baiji.

It was Washington's aim to finance the reconstruction of post-war Iraq from the oil industry's profits. In fact, the Oil Ministry was one of the few buildings in Baghdad US troops guarded from looters after the April 2003 invasion. And the US has spent millions to train an "Oil Protection Force." Unfortunately, however, Iraq's energy industry just isn't getting off the ground. And though its oil reserves are the fourth-largest in the world (after Saudi Arabia and Canada, and almost equal to Iran), Iraq's oil exports barely reach three-quarters of the pre-war level. That's yet another important reason for the nervous state of the markets.

And then there's that uncanny and unpredictable regime in Tehran: Many already consider Iraq's powerful neighbor state the great winner in the crusade for the "democratization of the Middle East" begun by US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Iran's radical government wields great influence over the Shiite ruling elite in southern Iraq, many of whom received their training in the Iranian city of Qom. Southern Iraq is also home to vast petroleum and natural gas fields.

Never mind the crisis surrounding Tehran's nuclear program -- China and India are aggressively courting Iran as a supplier of natural resources. Beijing closed a gigantic deal worth $70 billion with the Islamic Republic in Fall 2004; Delhi has negotiators in Tehran discussing a strategic pipeline. No state on earth besides Russia has natural gas reserves as large as those of Iran, and Tehran is also the fourth-largest oil exporter in the world. "The West needs us more than we need the West," says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The man who wants to "wipe Israel off the map" is threatening to curb Iran's energy exports to the US and Europe. If the UN Security Council were to impose sanctions on Iran because of the country's patent efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, Ahamdinejad might cut off the supply altogether. What else should someone expect from an irrational politician, whose view of the world is obviously informed by an Islamist vision of the apocalypse?

Some good news and bad news

But the natural resource that greases the wheels of the global economy is running out. All oil-producing states are working close to capacity and slacks or stoppages on the part of one of the major producers can't be compensated by the others. Former White House energy advisor Matthew Simmons evokes a genuinely horrific scenario: He calculates that the price of a petroleum barrel may rise to as high as "$200 to $250" in the coming years -- a far cry from today's $73 and July's nominal record of $78.40. Such an extreme price increase would unhinge the entire world economy and spell ruin even for large corporations.

Should the world be trembling in fear? Should everyone be afraid that gas and heating will soon no longer be affordable? Concern over such issues is certainly spreading in Germany, a country whose energy security is good compared to many others. Should we shiver with fear of anticipated bloodshed over resource allocation? The superpower China is hunting these resources especially aggressively. Should we fear the war that comes from the cold?

The good news is that it's improbable, despite all the dangers and bottlenecks, that fossil fuels will become the much cited unaffordable "black gold" overnight, or that they will even no longer be available in sufficient quantities. Besides, human inventiveness has always been able to discover or invent new energy sources.

The bad news is that the age of cheap oil and natural gas is definitely over. At the very latest, the next generation will be bitterly punished for our reckless overconsumption of fossil fuels. Renewable energies and energy efficiency together won't be enough to cover the shortfall, either. In the long-term, even if renewable resources like solar power, wind power and biomass -- which are urgently needed -- are added into the energy mix with oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, they will still only be able to cover one-quarter of the energy needs of industrialized nations. That's the best-case scenario.

Ideological trench fights over secure fuels aside, most reputable scientists agree that the historical "peak" of oil production will be reached in five to 10 years, despite improvements in drilling technology and the expansion of production to include oil shales and oil sands, which are difficult to process. From that point on, oil production will head downhill -- despite increasing worldwide demand.

Earth's population consumed 83 million barrels of oil per day last year. According to calculations by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Paris-based club of oil-importing states, the number will have climbed to above 90 million by 2010, and it will have reached about 115 million in 2030. The more fiercely fossil fuels blaze in ovens, burn in our engines and power generators, the faster a country can develop. US energy analyst Daniel Yergin has written that "petroleum remains the motive force of industrial society."

Now, at a time when the oil age is irrevocably racing towards its conclusion, more and more people are trying to become a part of it. They are led by emerging nations like China and India -- two countries that know their growth engine will inevitably start to stutter without a constant supply of resources. Petroleum is their elixir for survival.

But there are great unknown variables in every calculation about the future. One of the great fears that troubles CIA experts is the potential for future terrorist attacks in Saudia Arabia, the most vulnerable place in the international energy trade. Even without such a horror scenario, US energy expert Michael T. Klare expects a "new landscape of global conflict" to emerge, a map shaped by the shortage of resources.

That brings back painful memories of 1973, when the Arab states, aided by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), curbed energy shipments and caused the price of oil to rise fivefold in a brief period of time. At the time, the reason was Washington's unconditional support of Israel's policy of occupation. Costs skyrocketed for political reasons a second time during Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Iran-Iraq war. Even then, Helmut Schmidt, the German chancellor of the time, feared that wars over resources would one day be possible.

The global resource grab

All major states have now realized that petroleum and natural gas are of existential strategic significance. They are the driving force behind the coming conflicts. That's why the world's powerful stake the claims wherever vital reserves of resources can be found -- by force of arms or through aggressive diplomacy.

Even Western politicians, who normally like to present themselves as the defenders of human rights and pioneers of democratic liberties, aren't too fussy about who they do business with. Petroleum and natural gas discoveries draw attention to new international hot spots such as West Africa, Sudan, Venezuela or the region surrounding the Caspian Sea. They also bring unusual, previously unknown political stars onto the stage of world politics -- not all of them angelic, to put it mildly.

Take Azerbaijan's corrupt 44-year-old ruler Ilam Aliyev, for example. Under his rule, demonstrations are brutally put down. But there's not much that can be done without the strong man from Baku. The country he rules is the one where the world's most expensive oil and natural gas pipeline -- the construction costs were $3.6 billion dollars -- starts. The pipeline leads from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. It was inaugurated with plenty of pomp and circumstance and in the presence of the US energy secretary in May 2005. For political reasons, the great pipeline is one of Washington's pet projects -- it knocks the much-hated Iran and Russia out of the game.

Like the autocrat Aliyev, the bizarre 65- year- old dictator Saparmurad Niyazov -- who rules Turkmenistan, another country rich in resources -- is wooed by Americans, Europeans, Chinese and Russians. The man, who calls himself "Turkmenbashi" ("Father of all Turkmen"), is cultivating a bizarre cult of personality -- one that could even make North Korea's notoriously self-obsessed Kim Jong Il envious. He's ordered the erection of golden monuments bearing his likeness all over the country. His writings are taught in school and his people are even quizzed on those writing when they take a driving test.

In the summer of 2005, the tyrant, who has opposition members tortured, organized a stately reception for John Abizaid, a delegate of the US government. Corporations didn't want to be outdone and created a favorable mood by presenting gifts. For example, Daimler Chrysler presented Niyazov with an expensively printed German translation of his political bible "Rushnama" ("Book of the Soul"). Turkmenbashi, who administers 90 percent of the revenue from natural gas exports in a fund that only he can access, gave thanks by handing out lucrative contracts.

Even mercenaries are getting in on the international oil business. In March 2004, a strange set of troops set out to stage a putsch in the West African mini state of Equatorial Guinea -- a state rich in natural resources. The troop had been recruited from former South African elite soldiers from the days of apartheid, Armenian warriors and a few Britons. One of them was Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister. The conspiracy failed. Corrupt president Teodoro Obiang Nguema remained in power -- and he is still shamelessly helping himself to the funds in the state budget, which is fat with oil money. The Los Angeles Times estimates that he has deposited some $500 million in foreign bank accounts.

Beijing's insatiable appetite

Even in states as small as Equatorial Guinea, two powerful opponents are mustering each other suspiciously, doing everything they can to score political points and ensure that their businesses continue to prosper: the US, a current superpower, and the prospective superpower China. India, the other great player, is seldom far behind in this chess match. India has impressive high-tech success to show and it is on its way to leadership in at least one respect: By 2035, there will be more Indians than Chinese; and taken together, the populations of the two countries will be almost four times as high as that of Europe.

Beijing is currently fighting for resources more aggressively than anyone else -- and with even less scruples than the West. The ruling Chinese communists deal with right-wing African dictators, fundamentalist mullahs in the Middle East and obscure left-wing populists in Latin America, without any ideological reservations. The People's Republic was long an oil-exporting nation; during the 1950s, it was even the largest oil exporter in Asia. Scientists had discovered enormous reserves of black gold in the northeast of the country. "Learn from Daqing in industry," was the party slogan at the time. The Maoist model worker "Iron Wang" was its selfless protagonist, prepared to make any sacrifice.

The Middle Kingdom was still self-sufficient in terms of its energy needs until the early 1990s. But the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, which allowed for more and more private enterprise and eventually dovetailed into a kind of Manchester capitalism, caused economic development to explode. An ever greater number of cars, air conditioners and factory facilities turned the Chinese dragon into an insatiable creature that scoops up oil, natural gas and coal like an addict -- and the need for a fix continues to grow.

Both the producers behind the economic miracle and the consumers badly need the drug. In 2004, the People's Republic alone was responsible for a full 36 percent of the global rise in petroleum consumption. In 2002, China overtook Japan as the world's second-greatest oil consumer, topped only by the US. According to some estimates, the number of Chinese cars, motorcycles and mopeds will increase fivefold in the next 15 years -- and energy consumption will increase accordingly.

On a global scale, however, the Chinese are comparably moderate in their fuel consumption. If the average Chinese person lived as excessively as a US citizen, he would consume thirteen times as much. The People's Republic would require more than 90 million barrels of petroleum every 24 hours -- more than is produced worldwide in a day at present.

China has no alternative. The Communist Party believes the only chance it has of holding the country together -- and remaining in power -- is by achieving an annual economic growth rate of at least 8 percent. The country had 10.1 percent growth in 2004 and 2005 brought a lower, yet still astounding, 9.9 percent. Through economic growth programs, the party leadership is hoping to contain the threat of protests and demonstrations by Chinese who have been disenfranchised by a lack of jobs. Beijing wants to alleviate the growing rift between the rich and the poor and create at least a rudimentary form of social security for pensioners and ill people.

But production is declining by between three and five percent a year on the oil fields near Daqing. The figures that had been cited by party functionaries were falsidied and, in the days of Mao, no investments were made in new extraction facilities -- the state bet on the muscle power of its workers and not new technology. Today, Beijing is extracting the country's coal reserves at record speed and risking ever worse pollution as well as dangerous accidents.

Now Beijing is betting on giant hydroelectric power plants to help meet its energy needs. It is investing in alternative energy sources and will soon play a leading role in this area, along with Germany. In addition, China is building nuclear plants so quickly that by 2050 it will probably be the world leader when it comes to nuclear energy, too. Yet despite these developments, Beijing's leadership sees no other option but to go on an aggressive worldwide shopping spree for energy.

When it comes to the hunt for oil and natural gas, the Communist party leaders have no qualms about locking antlers with Japan and the US. For months now, Beijing has been preventing the imposition of harsh United Nations sanctions against Sudan, even though the regime in Khartoum is inciting militias in the Darfur region to systematically murder thousands of people. The simplest explanation for Beijing's behavior is that the Chinese are exploiting the oil reserves in the southern part of Africa's geographically largest country, with the consent of the fundamentalist Muslim regime. Beijing has even stationed its own security forces there. Five percent of the oil imported by China already comes from Sudan.

A Beijing-Tehran hook-up

Iran -- ruled by a president who aggravates the entire world -- provides even more -- over 13 percent. Under the recently closed deal, which is valid for 30 years, China's dependence on the mullah state will likely increase even further. And vice versa: The state-owned Beijing corporation Sinopec plans to invest in the opening up of the giant Iranian natural gas field Yadavaran.

The Communist Party bosses don't want Iran to build nuclear weapons, but what they want even less is for their partner to be significantly weakened economically. That's why only hopeless optimists can hope that China -- one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Councile -- will snub its business partner and endorse the isolation of Iran through sanctions that the West is pushing for. If such a resolution should be passed, a Chinese veto is highly likely.

Washington and Beijing seem to be on a collision course -- two giant oil tankers approaching each other at full speed, without either one of them being willing to make even minimal changes to his direction, or even to his speed.

The White House is outraged because Beijing continues to help the aggressive Iranian President Ahamdinejad develop his missile production facilities. The Chinese leadership speaks of an entirely legal business transaction between two independent states and is highly upset that the US government imposed sanctions on five state-owned Chinese corporations in December for doing business with Iran. One of the corporations that the US punished is Catic, one of China's largest weapons producers.

The Chinese leadership surrounding President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is accusing the US administration of hypocrisy, and even of arbitrarily limiting the free trade whose praises the US is always singing. Last year, a planned takeover of the US oil company Unocal by China's CNOOC failed even though CNOOC's bid of $18.5 billion was the highest. Washington prevented the takeover, citing "national strategic interests."

Beijing is now trying to hit the Americans where it hurts -- mainly in the US's trade with the White House's traditional allies. China has signed long-term contracts on the shipment of natural gas and iron ore with Canberra and has surpassed the US to become Australia's second-largest export market. Asia's expansionist enthusiasts have bought themselves into energy projects in Canada as well, spending billions.

In pursuing their relentless strategy of expansion, the self-confident Chinese are taking on Japan too. Maritime gas reserves that both countries stake a claim to are central to the conflict. The Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily newspaper, published a chauvinistic editorial that described the tensions between the two countries as a mere "prelude" to "more dire" conflicts. And Japan's government has revised its security strategy -- on the basis of the assumption that "conflicts over resources can develop into wars."

Tokyo is pinning its hopes on nuclear energy produced inside the country as well as on the huge energy reserves "outside its front door" -- in vast Siberia. But as much as the Russians need a powerful ally to help them access the enormous amounts of natural resources there, the Japanese aren't necessarily Putin's first choice.

The leader of the Kremlin hesitated for a long time before finally awarding Toyko a contract for the construction of a 3,800 kilometer (2,361 mile) pipeline from Angarsk on the southern edge of Lake Baikal to the port of Nakhodka -- a port from which petroleum could easily be shipped to the Japanese coast. The Chinese had proposed an alternative project from Siberia to the Chinese city of Daqing, a center of the Chinese oil industry. A Chinese "branch connection" will now likely be added to the Japanese pipeline. But when he visited Beijing last March, Putin refused to offer the Chinese an exact date for the realization of the project and merely agreed to two enormous natural gas shipments -- a commitment that gave rise to the fear, in Western Europe, that there could be a shortage of natural gas supplies for Germany and France.

As radical as Beijing's rhetoric towards Tokyo may be, and as hard-nosed as the Chinese act in their dealings with Washington -- when they're dealing with India, they become more gentle. On the official level, there is much talk of "common interests." Behind the scenes, however, Beijng is asserting its energy interests against those of Delhi as toughly as against anyone else.

Last summer, the China National Petroleum Corporation acquired the PetroKazakhstan corporation, based in Calgary. The total volume of the business transaction was more than $4 billion. An Indian consortium also made a bid for the corporation, which has access to resources in central Asia. Delhi also lost out on a deal signed early this year: the Beijing-based CNOOC bought $2.3 billion worth of shares in a private Nigerian oil company.d to Latin America -- and a lot of it goes to Africa too. President Hu and Prime Minister Wen have visited dozens of African states in recent years, closing business deals with many of them and trumping Washington in the process. According to Mikkal Herberg, a US specialist on economic development, a confrontation between the US and China over energy is inevitable.

The state-owned Indian company Oil & Natural Gas had already won the bid in the West African state, but the government in Delhi prevented the deal from being closed. The property rights within the Nigerian company were too non-transparent for the Indian cabinet. The story is not without irony: India's democratically elected government, which is supported by the Indian Communist Party, is skeptical, whereas China's Communist Party leadership, which has never undergone popular ratification and probably will never do so, proceeds regardless whether it is with dubious business partners.

In the short term the authoritarian state, with its system of state capitalism, is leading two to zero. State capitalism allows Beijing to advance its ambitions of economic expansion -- a guideline issued by the Ministry of Trade lists almost 70 countries and regions for China's economic actors to play a privileged economic role in. Naturally, companies that invest and take over other, local companies in accordance with this guideline receive generous aid from China's state banks. In the long term, however, India's democratic approach may well turn out to have advantages that China's market-oriented Leninism lacks: It provides legal security for investors and, perhaps more importantly, an opportunity for the Indian people to express themselves through elections on all levels -- an important corrective for negative developments.

The revolutionary nature of India's new way of orienting itself on the world stage is expressed in the country's relationship to the US, which is improving at a dramatic pace. Washington even wants to supply India with the most up-to-date nuclear technology that can be used for civilian purposes. Visiting Delhi in early March, US President George W. Bush agreed to provide India with nuclear fuel -- despite the fact that India is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. All Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to commit to in return was placing 14 of his country's 22 nuclear reactors under international supervision. Following Bush's visit, a visibly pleased Indian government spokesman announced that India had succeeded in maintaining its weapons programs while simultaneously improving its energy security.

Nuclear power notwithstanding, India's population -- which is a billion citizens strong -- remains dependent on oil, and that dependence will continue to grow. Already, India must cover 70 percent of the country's oil consumption and 50 percent of its natural gas consumption through imports. With an economic growth of 7.5 percent in 2005, India is booming, despite its often extravagant bureaucracy. The economic expansion is taking place mainly in the software sector, but also in biotechnology and the especially energy-intensive manufacture consumer goods industry -- from refrigerators to air conditioners.

India's most important oil supplier is Saudi Arabia. India also entertains an intensive resource trade with Iran. And deal was closed with Myanmar for the construction of a pipeline. All three of the states that India is doing business with have extremely undemocratic governments. But the Singh administration seems willing to set aside old grievances with other states when it comes to resources. Serious talks about a natural gas pipeline through Pakistan are ongoing. Delhi's oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer, is even dreaming of an Asia-wide network of pipelines. In pursuing this project, he is striving for cooperation with India's great rival China.

Speaking in Beijing, the Indian politician warned against endangering India's and China's "mutual security" through the run on natural resources. He referred to a proposal prepared by both countries for a natural gas field in Syria, as "exemplary." The relationship between the two giants looks a lot like a love fest: In January, Aiyer and his Chinese counterpart signed an agreement on cooperation in the energy sector. The purpose of the agreement is to prevent a ruthless bidding war over petroleum resources.

Within a few hours, the Indians had learned how difficult it can be to cooperate trustingly with China on energy issues. The ink on the agreement had barely dried when it transpired that Beijing had secretly secured for itself the exclusive rights to lucrative natural gas reserves in Myanmar -- notwithstanding the fact that two Indian companies are formal co-proprietors of those reserves. In the eyes of the dragon, the elephant is a junior partner.

America sobers up

Will the US intervene directly in the competition between the aspirant superpowers China and India? Will Washington help Japan gain access to new energy sources? Will it take serious action to curb Russia's attempts to use oil and natural as instruments for exerting political pressure?

Everyone is looking in the US's direction -- and seeing a nation that is beginning to sober up after decades of wasteful energy consumption. It would have been inconceivable just a short time ago, but for several months now, the Bush government has been advising its citizens to conserve heating oil. The oil corporation Chevron has published an ad campaign reminding customers that "black gold" is only available in finite quantities, and that saving energy is therefor important. Consumers are changing too; they're developing an interest in small cars, scared by oil and gasoline prices, which have increased by about 90 percent since early 2004 (which still makes them only about half as high as prices in Germany and much of Europe).

When Bush first came into office in 2001, his administration didn't need to explain the importance of oil to anyone. Before becoming a politician, the president himself had made a career for himself in the management of the Texas oil company Harken -- thanks to connections made by his father, a man well-versed in the energy business with close ties to Saudi Arabia. Vice President Richard Cheney was once in charge of another Texas oil company, Halliburton. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who became Secretary of State following Bush's re-election in 2004, once sat on the board of directors of the multinational oil corporation Chevron. Professionals like these know that most oil fields in Texas will never again yield as much oil as they once did, just as they know that the US's total oil production has sunk to the levels of the 1940s.

Invading Iraq

A strategy paper commissioned by the Bush administration and issued in May 2001 paints a sombre picture of the global energy situation, warning of the prospects for serious US energy deficits and energy dependence. The conclusion drawn is that questions related to "American energy supply security" should be given a high "priority" in US foreign policy. Soon after the paper was issued, Cheney formulated the same message in more precise terms: He warned that Saddam Hussein was striving for hegemony in the Gulf region and might succeed in bringing a substantial part of the world's energy reserves under his control. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the almost 3,000 victims who died in New York's World Trade Center and in the Pentagon then dramatically revealed the US's vulnerability.

Shortly before the US invasion of Iraq, Lawrence Lindsey, one of Bush's leading economic advisors, said that "the key issue is oil" and that "a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil." By and large, however, US politicians avoided making the obvious connection between a pre-emptive strike and resources.

Other motives may have played a role as well: the fear of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (a fear either imagined or rhetorically induced), or the desire to create a counterbalance to other authoritarian governments in the region -- a kind of beachhead of democracy in the Middle East. But most of all, the US had what former CIA strategist Kenneth Pollack has called a "vital interest" in guaranteeing its energy supply and avoiding "possible blackmail" from hostile countries in the Persian Gulf. According to Pollack, only an idiot would fail to understand why Bush and company are in Iraq: "It's the oil, stupid!"

The US went on to suffer bitter setbacks in Iraq. And now the country is facing a possible confrontation with Iran, one in which its options don't look particularly promising. Add to that a possible long-term confrontation with China and the picture that emerges is far from pretty, at least from the White House's perspective. Despite Republican majorities in both the Senate and the Congress, Bush hasn't even been able to push through plans for oil extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

The Left Hook From Latin America

Then, of course, there's that new troublemaker in the neighborhood, just four hours from Texas by plane, in South America, the US's backyard. He's making a name for himself as George W. Bush's opponent, and the control he wields over substantial amounts of oil permits him to subject the US president to more than the occasional pinprick. Forbes magazine recently described Hugo Chavez, the 51-year-old president of Venezuela as "Oil's New Mr. Big."

Chavez provokes whenever and whereever he can. Speaking at the Caracas counter-summit he organized to coincide with the World Economic Forum Davos, at the end of January, Chavez pulled no punches, calling George W. Bush "the greatest terrorist on earth" and the Bush administration "the most perverse, murderous and immoral government in history." He's even threatening to boycott the US by cutting off Venezuela's oil shipments to that country.

That's one reality. The other can be studied in Punto Fijo off the Caribbean coast. Punto Fijo is Venezuela's main oil port, where large vessels are filled up with the precious substance after it has been extracted from nearby Lake Maracaibo. Half a dozen oil tankers glisten in the bluish-green water, devouring 36,000 barrels every hour -- each complete cargo load is worth $50 million. The most frequent destinations of these ships are Port Everglades, Baltimore and Boston. And when they have arrived and been cleared of their cargo, they immediately head back -- every minute counts for big business.

The US is the main importer of Venezuelan oil; business is going smoothly; and the volume of business transactions is increasing. But the mutual dependence of Venezuela and the US is increasing too. Left-wing populist Chavez is dependent on billions in revenues from Venezuela's petroleum company PDVSA, which was nationalized in 1976, prior to Chavez coming to power. More than half of Venezuela's natural resources go to its large northern neighbor, and Chavez's Venezuela is one of the US's main oil suppliers, along with Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

Chavez uses the petrodollars from his dealings with the abhorred "Gringoland" to finance his army as well as the social welfare programs he has introduced for the neediest of his compatriots. The teacher's son sees himself as a latter-day Simon Bolivar, as a liberator from colonialism. And in his view, the US of today has taken the place of the Spaniards of the 19th century. Chavez has taken it upon himself to unify the entire continent. In many parts of Latin America he has, in fact, succeeded his friend and advisor, Cuban revolutionary hero Fidel Castro, as the "hero of the street."

A new wind is blowing through Latin America -- it's coming from the left and lashing at the US president's face. The pro-American governments of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay were already toppled two or three years ago. An Indio and a champion of common people, Evo Morales, won the elections in Bolivia last December -- his election campaign was largely financed by Chavez. Venezuela's President was immediately visited by his new ally following the latter's his electoral triumph. Chavez promised Morales oil supplies at generously low prices -- in the manner of a feudal lord, without any parliamentary debates, even of the purely formal variety.

Large parts of the Latin American population are displaying a marked willingness to orient themselves in a new way. Latin Americans may have freed themselves from their brutal dictators during the 1980s and 1990s, but the increase in personal liberties and the democratic form of government didn't improve their material circumstances. On the contrary, the "structural adjustment" prescribed by Washington led to high unemployment and a growing split between the rich and the poor -- fertile ground for change.

Chavez even interrupted an OPEC meeting to receive an Iranian delegation. And he told a specially arrived economic delegation from Beijing: "We have produced and exported petroleum for more than a century. But that century was dominated by the USA: Today we're free -- and we're happy to make our petroleum available to the great Chinese nation." Chavez has paid his respects to African potentates too.

The enemy to the south has started to worry US politicians. The Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs has commissioned an urgent Emergency Plan to deal with the possibility that no more petroleum arrives from Venezuela. The USA have built up sufficient reserves to deal with such a scenario. But they would still be hard hit if their main supplier were to leave them in the lurch. There are barely any reserves on the global petroleum market that the USA could fall back on. If Venezuela cut off its oil supplies to the USA, oil prices would rise by at least 15 percent and cause considerable unrest, Washington's unofficial parliamentary report predicted in mid-June.

The rise and fall of nations will involve considerable power shifts during the coming years. The USA aren't likely to be the winners of the coming conflicts over natural resources. While many factors remain uncertain, some general trends can be discerned:

* Despite the far-sightedness of its energy strategy -- and the ruthlessness with which it implements that strategy -- China is having serious difficulties securing the resources it needs. For this reason alone, it is far from certain that the much-quoted "Chinese century" will really happen. The same is true of China's aspiring rival India -- and of Japan, which has to import 80 percent of its resources.

* Given the diminishing oil supply in the North Sea, the European Union will have to think seriously about its energy security during the coming decades -- and may still end up being one of the global winners. The EU's coordinated political approach provides it with all the possibilities it needs in order to overcome its present dependence on Russia. It could reduce Russia's status to one of a number of suppliers, albeit a big one. Europe's proximity to oil fields in North Africa (Liberia, Nigeria) and around the Persian Gulf serve as an advantage for the EU.

* Given the wealth of its energy resources, Russia will likely be among the global winners of the future -- provided it masters its domesitc problems, including rampant corruption and social inequality.

* Brazil has everything it needs for a future free of energy-related concerns. The South American country maintains giant sugar cane plantations and extracts large quantities of ethanol from the harvest. It also disposes of sufficient fossil fuel resources to make imports unnecessary. A few thousand kilometers farther north, Sweden is experimenting with biofuel won from wheat and wood in order to achieve energy autonomy -- and be able to function economically without petroleum by 2020.

"Good governance" -- fair distribution of wealth by proper government -- will play an important role in the rise of the smaller states. Libya, a country that disposes of large amounts of natural resources, and one whose favor everyone is currently striving for, has the possibility of assuming a more prominent political and economic position on the world stage. That is, if General Moammar Gadhafi chooses to really do something for his 6 million citizens. States such as Kazakhstan in central Asia or Angola in West Africa dispose of enormous natural gas and petroleum reserves; their political leaders could provide the populations of these two countries -- some 15 million people in each -- with a high standard of living. That's even more true of the emirate Qatar. The tiny state in the Middle East -- which has a population of 860,000 -- disposes not only of plenty of petroleum, but also of the third-largest natural gas reserves in the world.

Yet for most people living in countries with an abundance of natural resources, the underground treasures have not been much of a blessing in the past. The standard of living has declined for most of the population in corrupt states such as Nigeria, Algeria and Gabun, for example. Experts speak of a "resource curse."

A scenario for the future

The world in January 2012: More than a decade has passed since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The US had to exit Baghdad a long time ago. Iraq is being governed by a Shiite dictator following an Iraq war that the US lost in embarrassment. Iran has become a nuclear power. And the royal family has just been toppled in Saudia Arabia -- the fanatics who organized the putsch are calling the fundamentalist state "Islamajah."

Kuwait and the Gulf emirates still take a sympathetic stance towards the West, and at least some of the petroleum continues to be shipped. But the terrorist advocates of global jihad are already working to devastate the embassies and cultural centers of the US and the EU -- from Doha in Qatar to Manama in Bahrein -- with acts of violence.

Then intelligence experts in London and Washington discover that the People's Republic of China is constructing a secret missile facility in the desert of the former Saudi kingdom. Beijing is obviously out to secure access to the oil fields and refineries for itself. The hawks in Washington have been waiting for just this type of escalation. They plan to use the ultimate weapon in order to decide the struggle for the world's most important resource reserves. It's 2012 and the world is heading for nuclear war.

It's a frighteningly good plot that unfolds in the new thriller "The Scorpion's Gate." What makes the book politically explosive, however, is its author: Richard Clarke worked as an advisor for the White House and the Pentagon for more than three decades. During the hours following the 9/11 attacks, Clarke was in charge of President Bush's crisis management team. In March 2003, the anti-terrorism expert resigned and became one of the harshest critics of the current US president and of the ideology of pre-emptive strikes proffered by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Clark has said that the Middle East scenario in his novel fairly accurately reflects scenarios of future developments that have been played out in the CIA. He adds that the part about the dangerous and determined warmongers in Washington is his personal prediction, but a realistic one. Clarke says the scenario doesn't have to come true, but it very well could.

A terrorist attack carried out in eastern Saudi Arabia in February shows how closely fact and fiction already resemble each other. Terrorists attempted to attack the world's largest oil processing facility near Abkaik, only a few kilometers away from Ras Tanura. Two cars filled with explosives tried to break through the security perimeter. The guards opened fire on the cars, which caught fire. The terrorists were killed. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack -- and promised further attacks on "the world's gas station."

It isn't always bombs and bayonets, wartime victory or surrender that shift the coordinates of world politics. Sometimes tectonic changes happen in less than spectacular ways.

That was what happened over half a century ago, when the Americans handed over patents for computer technology to the Japanese for a few dollars. What could those backward people in the Far East, weakened by the war, possibly do with the patents, the Americans wondered? But the industrious and highly motivated Japanese developed the technologies and built global corporations that forced Western companies in the entertainment and automobile industry out of the market.

A similar thing happened back in December 1978, when Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping managed to convince fellow senior members of the Chinese Communist party -- in a resolution that was adopted with little fanfare -- to tolerate initial experiments with a free market economy. China has since transformed itself into a major economic power able to compete with the likes of the United States and Europe.

The rise and fall of nations is a game in which the cards are sometimes concealed, played by surprising and unexpected rules.

It's no different today, now that a new cold war has begun. We live in an age of dramatic distribution battles over resources that are becoming increasingly scarce and yet required in ever-growing amounts. It's also an age in which international politics are increasingly determined by questions of energy security. The cards are just now being reshuffled for potential winners and losers. Americans have discovered India as a new strategic partner, and energy-hungry China is making overtures to its old rival Russia. Strange bedfellows.

The point future historians will define as the start of this era is anyone's guess. Perhaps it'll be the day in May 2005 when the world's most expensive oil and natural gas pipeline was dedicated in a festive ceremony in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. That pipeline stretches from Azerbaijan through Georgia and ends at the Turkish port of Ceyhan -- a geographically remote and highly controversial project that was promoted by Washington in an effort to curb Iranian and Russian influence in the region.

Or it might be the day China secured resources for the next few decades in a $70 billion deal in Tehran.

Iran threatens to use oil as a weapon; Russia has already used natural gas as a political tool in its dealings with neighboring countries, and it can even shut off the natural gas spigot to Europe. Venezuela is toying with the idea of cutting off oil shipments to the United States, and terrorist organization al-Qaida recently tried, for the first time, to blow up Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

In a recently published study, experts from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and international political consultants from Washington, London and Singapore named international terror as the number two threat to the global economy. According to the report, only one issue poses a greater threat: raw material shortages and the related high price of oil.

In these frosty times, even the American superpower is getting nervous. US President George W. Bush, the domestic oil lobby's man in Washington, and long a proponent of unchecked consumption of fossil fuels, has recently made a surprising about-face. In his address to the nation in late January, Bush said that America was "addicted to oil," deplored the unstable situation in the energy-rich Middle East, and proposed that the nation wean itself off the black drug.

Bush had nothing but good things to say in his speech. He waxed lyrical about hybrid cars, biodiesel, wind and solar power. His proposals included expanding nuclear power, offering the Third World a "global partnership for nuclear energy," coupled with small reactors and a US guarantee for delivery of fuel rods. His critics say the idea is nothing but a new form of imperialism designed to generate dependency.

In any case, Bush's visit to India in early March set a historic precedent. Washington offered New Delhi a privileged energy partnership, which would include shipments of nuclear fuel and state-of-the-art reactor technologies -- despite the fact that India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and should, by all rights, be treated as a nuclear pariah.

This American initiative hasn't gone unnoticed in Europe. European Union Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner recently announced that the EU is making "the issue of energy security a key element of its foreign policy," a necessary shift that she attributes to recent "wake-up calls."

An increasingly desperate-seeming Europe is searching for a common resource policy. "If we can speak with one voice," says Gérard Mestrallet, CEO of the French energy management company SUEZ, "we can apply pressure to any supplier." But it's a rocky path from energy dependency to becoming an energy powerhouse, as was all too apparent at an EU summit in Brussels earlier this year, which produced little more than statements of intent.

Back to the future

So why does this new cold war seem, in many respects, so much like the old one that followed World War II? What are the differences? Where and how has the emphasis shifted?

The first Cold War started with the bomb -- and with a dispute. After defeating Hitler's Germany, the Allies in World War II split into two camps, partly as a result of deep feelings of mistrust between then-US President Harry Truman and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. It was clear that Moscow planned to use whatever means necessary -- some rising almost to the level of armed conflict -- to secure its war spoils and aggressively expand its sphere of influence.

After the American scientists had successfully tested the first nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, and -- a few days later -- American bombers dropped the most horrific of all bombs onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the balance of power initially shifted toward the US. In a secret memo, the military heads of the project were already estimating the "atom bomb requirements for the destruction of strategic regions in Russia." The memo went on to list possible target cities, including the Soviet capital, Moscow.

Only after the USSR had detonated its own nuclear weapon in August 1949 did Stalin's backward realm regain the rank of "superpower" (even though the Soviet Union's rigid ideology, bureaucratic calcification and excessive military buildup already constituted the germ of its downfall). An equilibrium of horror developed which, in the face of the credible threat of mutual destruction, at least ruled out a "hot" military conflict between the superpowers.

This precarious nuclear balance guaranteed Western Europe, including West Germany, a long period of peace. Of course, for many others it was, in the words of author George Orwell, "a horribly stable world," one in which the ideological rivalry between the superpowers led to the formation of blocs, or clearly defined spheres of interest.

Those who lived on the right side of the Iron Curtain were well off, living as they did in prospering, democratic societies with free market economies. Not as well off were those who -- like the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs and Slovaks in 1968 -- wanted to break free from the Soviet straitjacket and, following the bloody suppression of resistance, were forced to feel their chains even more painfully.

But some Third World countries weren't even in a position to offer their citizens the horrible status of "Soviet satellite state." Washington and Moscow weren't fussy when it came to choosing allies; in fact human rights were the least of their concerns. Both superpowers thought nothing of propping up "allies" unconditionally, even if they were brutal dictators on the "right" or on the "left."

The US and the USSR never allowed themselves to be forced into a major direct confrontation. But large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America never enjoyed Western Europe's enduring peace. Instead they were plagued by violent conflicts -- the "conventional" proxy wars waged by the superpowers on their territory. The biggest losers during this era were those living in underdeveloped regions, which the major powers selfishly used as battlegrounds -- and as suppliers of cheap energy.

Take, for example, America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. For decades Washington supplied the country's corrupt princes with the latest in modern weapons and fighter aircraft. In return for cheap fuel, America showered its supplier nations with billions. Hardly anyone was interested in whether the blessings of US currency ever reached the majority of people in these countries, or whether their rulers instead used the money to suppress democratic movements.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons -- as well as mankind's horrible potential for self-destruction -- but the bomb turned out to have uses aside from total destruction. One was to help differentiate between the haves and have-nots. Thus, it comes as no surprise that, following the British and the French, the Chinese pushed open the door to the club of nuclear powers in 1964, with the Israelis (unofficially) following suit in 1967.

Despite the fact that an end to the Cold War was repeatedly proclaimed during the détente phases, it was only the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that brought real change. The Soviet Union -- too big, armed to the point of bankruptcy and cut off from new technologies -- was essentially forced to declare itself bankrupt before its own citizens and the world.

In the end, the Soviet Union's departure from world history was marked by a sigh, and not some horrible explosion, thanks in part to the level-headedness of then-premier Mikhail Gorbachev, who had no option but to support reforms. The collapse of the Soviet Union also spelled the end of monolithic blocs. But after an initial phase of euphoria, even the Western victors quickly realized that the "end of history" predicted by their triumphalists had not come about.

A post-Cold War interlude

The Cold War, the age of the permanent but generally manageable conflict, initially turned into a phase of "wild" peace. During this transitional period it became clear that the US model of democracy wasn't necessarily transferable, that the dangers to world peace had not evaporated, but simply shifted, and that major countries of the Third World could no longer be forced to act as proxies for anyone else.

The economic reforms in Leninist-capitalist China and (more than a decade later) in democratic-socialist India, released tremendous forces that changed and continue to change the balance of power in the increasingly globalized world of the 21st century.

Ultimately, however, "wild peace" in the wake of the Cold War -- the period between 1991 and 2001 -- was nothing but an interlude in which the actors on the world stage positioned themselves. Europe searched for its identity and possibly its own path, while opening membership in its Union to the countries of the former communist East. An insecure and humiliated Russia set out in search of new alliances and tried its hand at a form of state capitalism with democratic overtones. The US, as the sole remaining superpower, settled in to its dominant global role for an indeterminate period of time, making itself "indispensable," as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has said, in crisis situations the world over. It also continued its military buildup -- to the point where the 2007 US military budget will equal the weapons expenditures of all other countries in the world combined.

From the wild peace to a new Cold War

However, America was unable to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In 1998, India and Pakistan successfully detonated their nuclear warheads, and North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in 2005. There have also been unsettling developments in the bomb's motherland. In violation of the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Washington planned to support the development of "mini nukes" -- thereby lowering the threshold for the use of the most horrible of all weapons.

But a few years later, it looked as though the wild peace could develop into a permanent state of non-war. Although Islamist underground groups were attempting to attract international attention with the spread of terrorism, they chose suicide attacks as their preferred weapon. Nuclear power, no matter how imposing, was no match for the perfidious concept of the human bomb. Though unsettling for the West, the problem seemed manageable as long as the attacks by murdering "martyrs" were mainly limited to the Middle East and only sporadically affected US interests.

Of course, all that changed on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists attacked America's heart, and about 3,000 people died in New York's World Trade Center, at the Pentagon in Washington and in a Pennsylvania field near Pittsburgh. What had been a "wild peace" suddenly turned into a hot war -- if an understandable one, as long as it was seen as a punishment of Afghanistan. The country's Islamist Taliban regime had, after all, provided safe haven and logistics for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his fellow terrorists.

But Afghanistan wasn't a big enough prize for the White House. President Bush, and especially Vice President Richard Cheney and hawkish Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, used misinformation about supposed weapons of mass destruction to inflate support within the US population and an international "coalition of the willing" for launching a military campaign against Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Not many in Washington were concerned by the global community's refusal to sanction this step. The attacks of Sept. 11 had made Americans painfully aware of their physical vulnerability, as well as shining a spotlight on the unreliability of its partners and the potential hostility of an entire world region. After all, 15 of the 19 terrorists on the Sept. 11 aircraft were originally from Saudi Arabia, whose corrupt royal family had supported Bin Laden for many years.

Quagmire in Iraq

Bush's Iraq campaign was about toppling a dictator, America's strategic interests and its military bases, and the attempt to "implant" democracy in the Middle East. More than anything, though, it was a war for oil.

Iraq has enormous oil and natural gas reserves. And whoever controls the land on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers can exercise decisive influence over developments in this volatile region, sometimes dubbed the "world's gas station" because of its vast natural resources.

But it's been clear for months now that the campaign has failed. The US occupation force was not greeted with flowers and, as a result of its inability to provide even the most basic necessities, such as water and electricity, it is increasingly abhorred by the Iraqi people. Terror wrought by al-Qaida, which made Iraq its new center, has claimed more Iraqi victims than Americans.

Despite all appeals to stay the course, Baghdad will not be able to liberate itself from economic lethargy through oil exports anytime soon. Almost daily terror attacks against pipelines have reduced production even further. Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi already says that his country is descending into civil war. But US President Bush continues to believe in "victory" and that world has become "a safer place" since the Iraq invasion.

A clear majority of Americans now oppose the war, and many feel bitter about the negative image a country considered a democratic leader is currently projecting in the wake of scandals from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib. Throughout its history, the United States has alternated between periods of global intervention and domestic navel gazing, and it could become increasingly introverted in the near future. A second military adventure, in Iran, for example, is highly unlikely to happen, partly because most Americans are apparently more concerned about a 50 percent increase in gasoline prices in the last 48 months than about a distant country's nuclear ambitions.

The big problems remain: the proliferation of nuclear weapons, radical Islamism and terrorism. No one knows how to prevent an Iranian president who -- at least verbally -- is committed to the destruction of Israel from building nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden has managed to establish, in large sections of predominantly Muslim and economically backward states, his Islamist worldview as a counterweight to a supposedly exploitive, "godless" Western society. Although al-Qaida's role as a tightly run terrorist organization has diminished, its comprehensive ideology of terror has spread throughout the world, making it more dangerous than ever before.

Only an improvement in living conditions -- including integration into globalized world trade under free, non-protectionist conditions and, in particular, personal opportunities for advancement -- can reduce the hold radical leaders have over people in these countries. This social change is the prerequisite for a civil society and, when it comes to democratic social interaction, is far more important than free elections, for example. It can only be achieved through the production, supply and equitable distribution of consumer goods, and it is based on the condition of undisturbed access to all types of natural resources, including fossil fuels, uranium and renewable energy.

A major problem has been pushed to the forefront. All major powers -- the United States, Europe, Russian and up-and-comers China and India -- have now made resource security a top priority political issue. They have devoted considerable efforts to building a network of pipelines across deserts and grasslands and beneath the oceans. As they court the custodians and owners of the resources, trickery, bribery and bargaining have become the order of the day. But in the foreseeable future, this battle is likely to be waged below the threshold of military conflict, which means the intermediate phase of "wild freedom" following the collapse of the Soviet Union has shifted to a different era: the New Cold War.

About a quarter of the world's population lives in areas of "physical water shortage", where natural forces, over-use and poor agricultural practices have led to falling groundwater levels and rivers drying up. But a further 1bn people face "economic water shortages", because lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers.

The findings come from a report compiled by 700 experts over five years, the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture from the International Water Management Institute, presented on Monday at World Water Week in Stockholm, an international meeting of water experts.

David Molden, co-ordinator of the report, said: "If we continue to manage water in the way we do now, there will more problems with scarcity."

He said agricultural practices could easily be improved to reduce the wastage of water.

Farming uses up 70 times more water than is used for domestic purposes such as cooking and washing. In Thailand, the amount of water used to grow food is about 2,800 litres per person per day. In Italy, about 3,300 litres are required to produce each person's food every day, of which about half goes on making ham and cheese and a third to pasta and bread.

Shortages of water are already biting in countries such as Egypt, which imports more than half of its food because it lacks enough water to grow more. In Australia, there is a water shortage in the Murray-Darling basin because so much has been diverted for use in agriculture. In the US, there are increasing disputes with Mexico over the sinking levels of water in the Colorado river.

Water shortages are compounded by corruption, according to Transparency International. David Nussbaum, chief executive, said between 20 and 40 per cent of total investment in the water sector "does not flow to the people who should be getting the clean water and sanitation".

He said big water projects, such as the construction of water networks and treatment facilities, were subject to corruption on a grand scale, but that petty corruption was also common, for instance in cases of people paying bribes to have their water bills reduced.

The result of both was that it cost poor people more to get access to water, he said.

But he pointed to the success of a high-profile water "integrity pact" developed in Karachi in Pakistan since 2002 and completed in May this year, as an example of how water projects could be made more transparent. He said the pact had saved at least $3m that would otherwise have been lost to corruption.

Its recommendations including building more water storage, better irrigation systems and developing drought-resistant crops.

"The last 50 years of water management practices are no model for the future when it comes to dealing with water scarcity," said Frank Rijsberman, head of the IWMI.

"We need radical change in the institutions and organizations responsible for managing our earth's water supplies and a vastly different way of thinking about water management."

The report, drawing from the contributions of more than 700 scientists, was presented at the annual water week organized in the Swedish capital by the Stockholm International Water Institute. More than 1,500 experts from 140 countries and U.N. agencies are attending.

On Thursday, Asit Biswas, a Canadian born in India, will receive the annual $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize for helping U.N. agencies, governments and others improve the delivery of water and sanitation services.

Our storyteller continues in voiceover as the camera cuts to archived footage from the Superdome--a line of men and women dancing and singing, sweat visible through dirty T-shirts. "It was a proud moment for us. We marched around the 'dome, and that time I felt back to the Movement, the civil rights movement, when it was real powerful."

This appeal to "the Movement" is fitting. The poorest people in one of the poorest major cities in the United States are now even poorer than they were before, and the fact that most of them are black is no coincidence. Lee's team devotes a great deal of time and craft to the argument that the devastation resulted from an event in political history--not an event in weather. The film, which was shown for an emotional audience in New Orleans on Wednesday night, is at once a heartbroken hymn to a ravaged city, a comprehensive chronicle of the financial and geographical impact of the hurricane itself, and--most important--an essential new chapter in the unfinished story of the struggle for civil rights in America.

To write that chapter, Lee asked for and was granted four hours of airtime--twice the amount HBO had originally allotted for the documentary. Lee and a small crew visited New Orleans nine times and interviewed more than 80 people, including climatologists, politicians, engineers and on-site journalists, all of whom provide informative, though sometimes conflicting, accounts of many different facets of the hurricane. The story that emerges is one of colossal and criminal government failure on local, state and federal levels. Its many narrators cast an equally scornful eye on President Bush, FEMA, the insurance companies, Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the oil business.

One might expect that all this anger would amount to a tiresome polemic, especially at such a long running time, and moreover because Lee himself has never been known as a subtle filmmaker. At his best, however, he is a gifted one, with an exceptional sense of craft. Even his worst films have always showcased his inventive and remarkable ear for the profane poetry of American speech.

Here Lee wisely turns that ear to the voices of the ravaged city as they spin colorful and dramatic accounts of their experiences before, during and after the storm: the salty and delightful Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, a wife and mother who compares the storm to the 50-foot woman of B-movies ripping the skin off her home, and then delights us with an account of her near throw-down with a cold U.S. servicewoman; Gina Montana, who describes the agony of seeing people "treated like cattle," and reminds us that before it was called The Big Easy, New Orleans was known as The Town That Care Forgot; and finally, Fred Johnson, obscene and on-point, with a snorted dismissal of George Bush and his advisers: "These fools, they don't even know four dogs got four assholes!"

The interviews with the displaced victims of the storm, both black and white, are the most gripping, but Lee also provides political and historical context. He devotes a good deal of space to the testimony of local leaders, including Mayor Ray Nagin and then-Police Chief Eddie Compass--also giving airtime to those who would criticize their actions: Compass for spreading hysteria with his unsubstantiated claims of rapes and murder in the Superdome and subsequent star turn on the talk-show circuit; and Nagin for consulting with the business community about a mandatory evacuation of the city.

Lee does not neglect the landmark moments in Katrina's media coverage, from Soledad O'Brien's surreal interrogation with an apparently brain-dead Mike Brown, to the tape of Bush being warned about the possibility of levees breaking, to Barbara Bush's infamous assurance in Houston that since many of the victims were "underprivileged anyway," displacement was "working out well for them" (to which the indomitable Montana LeBlanc responds by offering Mrs. Bush her cellphone number and saying, "You tell her to call me and say that shit.")

Nor does he neglect Kanye West's impromptu televised announcement that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," along with caustic reminders that Bush was not the only object of scorn: Michael Eric Dyson, professor and author of "Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster," reminds us that Condoleezza Rice's preoccupations during the period of peak suffering included shoe-shopping, theater and a game of tennis with Monica Seles--"Blahniks, Broadway and balls are more important than black people who look like her--for this woman from Birmingham?"

But the real question is, what's next? In Act IV, an Army engineer promises to bring the levees back to pre-Katrina security levels before the next hurricane season. The promise, made several months ago, has not been kept--and even if it had been, it would be completely nonsensical to restore security levels that have proved so fatally deficient. The wetlands, in the words of one expert, are strangled "like a hand cut off by a rubber band," and have been eroded to the point of similar impotence.

New Orleans itself was already one of the most dangerous cities in the nation in terms of crime, and it's seen a spike in violent crime in recent months. Worse still, more than 200,000 of its residents are still scattered across 46 states. Their bitter longing for home is understandable and legitimate, but the recent and documented worldwide rise in hurricane severity makes it highly unlikely that bringing people home would be doing them a service. Indeed, Mike Tidwell, author of the recently published "The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities," calls Bush's exhortations to return to New Orleans an "act of mass homicide."

The victims want to rebuild, and it is easy to see why. Much of the film's third act is devoted to the city's musical history. Some of the same people we've already watched curse and weep through stories of loss now become cheerful, as they speak of their hometown's heritage. We learn that it was a place where slaves where permitted to play music on Sundays, where, because of a peculiarly French relationship to human bondage, "you could buy black people, but marry 'em too," and where one could be a slave and still go to the opera.

One wishes that this portion of the documentary would go on forever, as Lee samples liberally from decades of music and street scenes: Mardi Gras, Indian dances, drum circles and, of course, funeral marches. The jazz funeral is a particular child of this city; it begins with sorrowful hymns, a "giving way to grief," but traditionally ends on a note of celebration. "The idea," we are told, "is that 'Yeah, I'm sad you're gone, but it was sure was nice to know you.'"

America has not known New Orleans well enough. If we did, we'd have done more to save and protect her. "When the Levees Broke" is a jazz funeral, a chorus of voices, some angry, some informed, some specialized, all trying to make sense of a death, not just of one of our loveliest cities but of an illusion: the illusion that our government cares about its citizens.

Acts I and II of When the Levees Broke premiered Monday, Aug. 21. Acts III and IV will air Tuesday, Aug. 22 at 9pm. Watch all four acts on Tuesday, Aug. 29 (8pm-midnight), the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based writer.

The sunken ship is too deep for divers to reach and the Philippines, lacking heavy salvage equipment, has appealed for international help to prevent the disaster from getting worse.

Ignacio Bunye, a spokesman for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, asked critics to stop assigning blame and said the government's crisis team "is on the ball 24 by 7 and making the tactical decisions on the oil spill cleanup."

"We need to focus all our energy and resources in addressing the problem," said Bunye.

Experts from the United States and Japan were on the way to help assess the cleanup operations and suggest measures on how to stop the slick from spreading further to vast mangrove areas and fishing grounds.

Raul Banas, mayor of Concepcion town in Iloilo province, said the slick had reached eight coastal villages, threatening fishing grounds in the central Philippines as ocean currents moved thin sheets of oil to the north.

"We've declared the coastal areas a calamity zone," he said.

The spill is the worst to hit the Philippines but is tiny compared with the world's biggest accident, the collision of the Atlantic Empress and another vessel in 1979 that leaked 287,000 tonnes into the sea off Tobago.

Philippine officials have said the pollution from the spill could take up to three years to clean up completely, with nearly 40,000 people and 200 km (120 miles) of coastline affected.

Virginia Ruivivar, a Petron spokeswoman, said the cost of the cleanup and any losses incurred by the company from the spill would be covered by insurance.

"We have covered nearly 12 km of shoreline and collected 60 metric tonnes of debris," Ruivivar said in a statement late on Monday. "At our current rate, we expect the cleanup to be completed in 30-45 days."