From golf and football to Formula One, the kingdom uses unprecedented investments in global sport to divert attention from its persecution of journalists, dissidents and women, write BELLA KATZ and ROGER McKENZIE
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An error occurred while searching, try again later.No empire dies quietly: the violent twilight of US dominance
With trade wars backfiring, allies resisting military demands, and approval ratings plummeting, Trump’s dangerous pursuit of colonial ambitions threatens to end the ‘American century’ with catastrophic conflict, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE
As Britain plans to increase military spending to 2.6 per cent of the GDP while health services face devastating cuts and drug costs soar, working-class Scots urgently need united resistance, argues DREW GILCHRIST
As the government moves to rein in academy freedoms, former darling of conservative education reform Katharine Birbalsingh cries ‘Marxism.’ Education columnist ROBERT POOLE examines how academisation has failed our children while enriching executives and empowering ideologues at the expense of democratic accountability
MAT COWARD recalls the occasion when the first man in space paid a visit to our shores in 1961
Shocking institutional racism in the schools system was exposed in a 1985 report highlighting the over-representation of black children branded ‘educationally subnormal.’ Four decades on the fight for justice continues, writes JAYDEE SEAFORTH
Communist Party of Ireland Statement on International Working Women’s Day 2025
Despite the harsh conditions they face, Iranian women have proved to be vanguards in the struggle for fundamental changes in our country, says Dr AZAR SEPEHR
ALMOST 15 years ago, historian Alfred McCoy wrote predicting that “the demise of the US as the global superpower could come … in 2025.” He was probably a little early in his prediction, though there is still time for him to be proven correct.
McCoy envisaged a world in which China, India, Iran and Russia would all “provocatively challenge” the dominion of the “fading superpower” and that the US would be riven with “violent clashes and divisive debates” and run by a “far-right patriot” president threatening military and economic punishment for anyone who dared challenge US hegemony.
So prescient was his prediction that McCoy revisited his analysis in The Nation last November and found little cause for changing his forecast.
However, in one key aspect, I suspect he may be wrong. McCoy expects that the “American century ends in silence,” with the world paying little attention despite the threats and belligerence of Trump and his cohort, but the signs are that the US empire will not die quietly.
So far, the reaction of most Western nations and China to Trump’s economic threats has been fairly resolute: Canada responded to his 25 per cent duty on most Canadian imports in a reciprocal manner and is negotiating a new market with the EU for its energy in the face of the 10 per cent tariff imposed on that.
China has imposed retaliatory tariffs on US goods, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum faced down Trump, threatening tit-for-tat tariffs and warning that her country would simply sell its products elsewhere.
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