Not much need to comment on this, as Putin consolidates his control over the pipeline infrastructure.

BBC NEWS | Business | Russian pipeline firms to merge

Transneft, which carries 93% of Russian oil and supplies much of Europe, is to combine with Transnefteprodukt (TNP) in five months, government officials said.

Analysts say the combined business, to be 75% owned by Moscow, could have more clout internationally.

Posted by Philip Sen at 10:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Very distressing to read - and I suspect that The Guardian chose not to publish many of Jonathan Watts's pictures. More evidence that many Chinese have scant regard for the world we live in and the things we share it. It's not just about 'spectacular' animals such as tigers, it's a wider malaise that affects the air we all breathe and the water we all drink.

Not only this, but a shocking BBC documentary on the failure of Project Tiger to boot. Thousands of tiger skins sold to Tibet (though the ignorant buyers swiftly u-turned when the Dalai Lama issued an edict) and the bones all off to China for TCM.

The sheer irresponsibility is amazing. The effect that 1.3 billion people with a similar mindset could have, especially if they get they way and wriggle out of international conventions, is simply terrifying.

I can hear the excuses now. One China: one rule for us and another for the rest of you. Not as unlike America as they'd like to think.

Bred for the freezer: how zoo rears tigers like battery hens | Conservation | Guardian Unlimited Environment

The park is part farm, part zoo and part circus. Its nursery is the start of a production line that churns out hundreds of tigers each year and ends in the freezer packed with carcasses. In between, most animals spend their lives in hundreds of tiny cages that are lined up in rows around the perimeter wall, each jammed with as many as four animals, which lie around listlessly or pace back and forth between wire and concrete.

More fortunate beasts share a few football pitch-sized enclosures in the main visitor area. Others are trained to perform in the Dream Theatre - a circus where they jump through flaming hoops - or in an outdoor show that also has monkeys riding camels and a bear cycling across a highwire without a safety net.

Posted by Philip Sen at 10:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

China, Pakistan team up on energy | csmonitor.com

"I think most security experts are looking at this very closely because this is the closest access point China has to the Persian Gulf," says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. "I don't know that this is something the US particularly likes."

The article concentrates mainly on the US perspective:

Given the energy game's high stakes, some wonder if Gwadar will set off alarm bells in Washington. Last April, while hosting the China-Pakistan Energy Forum in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf was asked as much by a visiting delegate. But to a roar of applause, he quickly deflected the question: "I do not care about pressure from major powers. If Pakistan suffers pressure from certain major powers, I believe China will come forward to help us apply pressure on the other side."

Still, the opening of Gwadar is indicative of how China's largesse in Pakistan is coming into open competition with the US – and how that could alter the region's political landscape.

Apparently, it's all about the money - China has promised $12bn to Pakistan, while the US offers only a paltry $6bn. Who's your daddy, especially in the energy game?

Posted by Philip Sen at 10:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Meetings set for later in April augur well - and China's observer status of the SAARC could be set to make it complement the SCO?

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan - Pak, China to sign 3 accords during PM’s visit: Kasuri

Islamabad and Beijing are set to sign at least three agreements during Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s visit to China, scheduled from April 16 to April 22, said Foreign Minster Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri here on Sunday while talking to reporters after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing at the foreign office.

Kasuri said that there was a complete unanimity of views between the two countries on bilateral, regional and international issues. He said the two countries would sign agreements to establish the Joint Investment Company, University of Engineering and Science and Technology, and the Media University in Pakistan when Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would visit China in the second week of April.

“We welcome China’s entry in SAARC as an observer,” said Kasuri, and it has heightened the importance of the organisation. “We are confident that China will play an important role in the association,” he added.

Posted by Philip Sen at 3:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nothing new here, but worth a quick look.

China's footprint in Pakistan - Los Angeles Times

Gwadar would provide a more secure corridor for China's fuel and energy supplies in the face of instability in the Persian Gulf and also down in the pirate-infested Strait of Malacca, by Indonesia, through which 80% of China's oil imports now pass. From Gwadar, imports could travel overland up through Pakistan and into China.

Trade out of China's own restive western region of Xinjiang would also be easier and faster. The distance from Kashgar, on the edge of Xinjiang, to Gwadar is 1,250 miles, versus twice that distance to reach Shanghai.

Some analysts see a more strategic interest in Gwadar. They say it could play host to Chinese vessels, listening stations or an outpost from which Beijing could monitor the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, including the U.S. Navy base on the remote island of Diego Garcia, a key launching pad for operations in the Persian Gulf.

But a beefed-up Chinese military presence in Gwadar probably is years away, if it happens at all.

Posted by Philip Sen at 3:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)