The Londoner

A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to energy-hungry China’s billion-dollar bids on oil fields in Canada and the Asian giant’s reliance on oil from countries like Iran and Sudan to fuel its growing economy. But its growing interest in another major oil producer has gone largely unnoticed, and if current trends continue, that Middle Eastern country could become the world’s next “oil superpower,” with China, not the West, acting as both Iraq’s main partner and top beneficiary of its rich resources in what some now call the B&B trade axis (Beijing and Baghdad). In the past decade or so, China waited patiently on the sidelines while the U.S. and its allies coped with Iraq’s new, and often times messy internal dynamics that followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein by a U.S.-led coalition. China reemerged in 2008 , however, to sign post-Saddam Iraq’s first major oil deal with a foreign country. While the majority of Iraqi oil deals in the post-Saddam era ...

BY SIKANDER HAYAT Balochistan is not getting resolved and there are no signs that it will get anywhere near resolution in near to medium term. Looking from the Baloch militant 's point of view,  it is very clear that they are not getting their goals nor there is any hope of achieving them. They are disrupting the march of advancement in Baloch dominated areas of the province and killing both frontier corps and ethnically non Baloch residents of the province. In all this killing, there is an exception and that exception is of Baloch militants not touching the Pashtuns of the province. According to Wikipedia, Balochistan is only 50% Baloch and the rest is mostly Pashtun with other smaller ethnicities making up the rest of the population.  If they start fighting Pashtuns, they know they will be routed and without taking on the Pashtun they cannot achieve there goal, which is primarily to make the province a Baloch dominated land. This is a catch twenty t...

By Sikander Hayat Today America has attacked Pakistan again showing all the arrogance of an evil empire . Breaking every international law in the process and treating an ally like an enemy. It would be more palatable if America declares Pakistan an enemy and then kill us. We would than know who to fight against.The Taliban or the so called allies. Imran Khan has been saying this from the day one and now the popular public opinion is agreeing with him that our true enemies are the American government and not the Afghans. America is trying to forge an alliance which has all the enemies of Pakistan in it ranging from India and present puppet government of Afghanistan . Now openly killing Pakistani officers and soldiers in cold blood is basically telling Pakistanis to fuck off and may be this is time for our leaders to wake up from their deep sleep and tell the Americans to  stay in Afghanistan if they can on their own. This alliance must not go no any longer and must en...

ISLAMABAD: The government plans to link the Gwadar seaport with the rest of the country through rail and road networks, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Wednesday. Responding to a suggestion of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) parliamentarian Ghous Buksh Mehar during the debate on the 2009-10 budget in the National Assembly, he said the government would develop the infrastructure in Balochistan and link Gwadar to other parts of the country. He said the Gwadar port was being used to import wheat and fertilizer, adding it would be transformed into a business and economic hub that would generate employment opportunities for the local population. Read the full story here .

By By Aftab Maken With all the skepticism about the Gwadar Port becoming fully operational, the political will of the PPP government has made the strategic port handle 37 shipments of imported commodities and their disbursement to far-flung areas of the country. After satisfactory handling of recently imported shipments of wheat and fertiliser, the federal government entrusted the Gwadar Port with the task of handling more imported fertiliser, as the TCP has accepted bids for 255,000 tonnes for the Kharif season. The Gwadar port has handled 37 ships without any delay including one ship carrying 73,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat, Chief Secretary Balochistan, Nasir Mehmud Khosa told The News during an informal talk the other day on his visit to Islamabad. Khosa said that the cost of transportation would be further reduced after the completion of Gwadar-Rato Dero section. Read the full story here .

Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Water & Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf said that the first wind power plant in nation costing PKR100 million will be inaugurated on April 19, 2009, media reported. The power plant in Jhimpir will produce 50 megawatt (MW) of electricity. Ashraf said more wind power plants will be installed in Gharo and Jhimpir areas in Sindh, and the power produced will be supplied at 12.1 cent per unit. Read the full story at Pakistan To Inaugurate PKR100 Million Wind Power Plant

Hundreds of dignitaries, industry representatives and scientists are expected to gather today in Southern California for an international summit on global warming hosted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two-day conference in Beverly Hills places Schwarzenegger and California under the international limelight as he tries to engage leaders of other states, provinces and nations to work collaboratively to limit greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. The governor first received international acclaim two years ago for signing AB32, landmark legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020. He also has been brokering an alliance with other Western states and Canadian provinces to create the Western Climate Initiative that aims to design a regional market for trading carbon credits. More recently, the governor last week ordered state agencies to consider the effects of global warming, such as rising sea level, in their infrastructure planning. On Monday, he sig...

Except for the soft hydraulic whir of expectations being raised, the first week of the Obama transition was a quiet one. Indeed, the big news came from neither Chicago nor Washington but from Detroit and Beijing. In Detroit, General Motors — the stupendously clueless automaker — begged for a bailout lest it go bankrupt, thereby raising the question: If our resources are limited, why should we invest in the failed corporate past rather than in the technologies of the future? The obvious answer was to protect jobs. But how long would those jobs last without a significant overhaul of the company's management and priorities? Was it even possible that the Federal Government could demand or supervise such a radical makeover? There was even bigger news from China, where the government announced a $586 billion stimulus package in an attempt to soften the blow of the coming recession. The China package was big and bold — and a tacit challenge to the Obama Administration. It represented 18% ...