Monday: v Mexico (Wolfsburg, 5pm).
July 1: v N Zealand (Dresden, 5.15pm).
July 5: v Japan (Augsburg, 5.15pm)

Rachel Yankey has blazed a trail for women’s football ever since she became the first registered professional female footballer in England. After 109 appearances, she is England’s most capped player, having collected an MBE in 2006. The Arsenal winger, now 31, was left out of the Euro 2009 squad but is a central part of coach Hope Powell’s plans for this campaign.

Preparations have gone well for coach Hope Powell - England overcame World Cup favourites the United States in an April friendly, and then beat Sweden ahead of this tournament.

Groups

GROUP A: Germany, Canada, Nigeria, France
GROUP B: Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, ENGLAND
GROUP C: US, N Korea, Colombia, Sweden
GROUP D: Brazil, Australia, Norway, Equatorial Guinea

Weekend matches:

Sunday:
Grp A: Germany v Canada (Berlin 5pm), Nigeria v France (Sinsheim 2pm)

TV: BBC Red Button/British Eurosport/BBC 3 (final only)

QTR-FINALS: July 9/10
SEMI-FINALS: July 13
FINAL: July 17, Frankfurt, 7.45pm
HOLDERS: Germany

Powell says she would have been sacked as England manager by now if the same cut-throat attitudes prevalent in the men’s game existed in women’s football.

Powell starts her second World Cup campaign - and fifth major finals - tomorrow, 13 years after being handed the coaching reins by the Football Association.

However, much like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, it took Powell some time to get a grip on the enormity of the job.

Seven years elapsed before she steered England to the European Championship quarter-finals, during which time she laid the platform for a more progressive period that culminated with a final appearance at the last Euros in 2009.

That improvement has continued, allowing Powell to repay the faith her employers have shown in her.

“The good thing about women’s football is that we are given time to work, nurture and embed a philosophy,” said Powell.

“If it was the same attitude some people in men’s football have, certainly on my initial results in the very beginning, I am sure I would have been sacked.”

The debate over whether the U.S. should abandon its long-standing accounting standards and adopt international rules that are used by most other countries often misses an important point.

While the economic case for the switch isn’t strong, failure to act carries substantial political risks for the U.S. It could also imperil the push for a global reporting regime and weaken efforts to reform other areas of global financial regulation.

At the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh in 2009, the international accounting bodies were charged with devising a single set of high quality, global accounting standards by June 2011. This deadline is fast approaching, but the two key players, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the U.S.'s Financial Accounting Standards Board, have recently indicated they will need more time. Moreover, there is still no decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission as to whether the U.S. will give up Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, known as GAAP, and instead use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which are applied by over 100 countries.

By rejecting IFRS, the U.S. would deal a major blow to the prospect of unified global accounting standards -- a goal that is widely endorsed, including by many American companies and investors. The U.S. would almost certainly lose its current major influence on the setting of international rules including its role in the oversight of the IASB. That would be a loss: The U.S. has been a positive influence bringing authority and expertise in accounting matters. That influence would also benefit global capital markets and investors by countering the growing clout of countries that may pursue less capital-market oriented goals with financial reporting.

Perhaps even more importantly, a perceived unwillingness by the U.S. to cooperate in accounting matters could spill over into other areas of global financial regulation where reforms and international coordination are much needed. This could happen not only because accounting numbers are a mainstay for other financial regulation, but also because the world’s reporting convergence project is one of the longest and most advanced attempts to build a global regime. If it were to fail, it would undermine other efforts to create global standards, for example, in banking or capital-market regulation.

So what is holding the U.S. back?

The possibility that the U.S. could give up GAAP, which Larry Summers called the single-most important innovation shaping U.S. capital markets, has stirred a heated debate. Yet many of the arguments aren't convincing. Proponents of IFRS often claim that the new standards will deliver significant capital-market benefits. For instance, the international rules are said to improve the transparency and comparability of corporate reporting around the world, which, in turn, could lower firms’ capital costs and increase market liquidity. These alleged benefits are almost certainly overstated, at least, as far as U.S. firms are concerned. The U.S. already has a system of high-quality accounting standards and it is unlikely that financial reporting practices by U.S. firms will improve significantly as a result of IFRS adoption.

Similarly, the benefits of IFRS in creating cross-country comparability are exaggerated. With or without IFRS, there will be divergent reporting practices around the world because accounting standards are only one of many inputs that determine companies’ reporting practices. Other factors include countries’ legal institutions, their capital markets, firms’ business and governance practices, and managers’ personal motives. As long as these factors continue to vary across companies, industries and countries, reporting practices will differ, too. Worldwide, IFRS adoption would narrow the set of accounting rules and treatments that investors need to follow, which would yield savings for investors. But it won't bring true comparability of reported numbers across companies and countries.

The argument that IFRS adoption would allow U.S. multinationals to move to a single reporting system for their global operations, leading to substantial cost savings, has limitations as well. Foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms still have statutory reporting requirements to the local authorities that often aren't based on IFRS. This means separate accounts or some reconciliation to local standards regardless of the company’s global reporting system. Thus, while there can be cost savings for U.S. multinationals, they will be limited until IFRS are more widely accepted for statutory reporting purposes around the world.

Still, even if many of the selling points of IFRS are overstated, the risks to the U.S. of adopting those rules are exaggerated, too. For instance, opponents of adopting IFRS often claim that those standards are inferior to GAAP. They point out that IFRS offer more discretion and less guidance than GAAP. Again, these arguments miss the crucial point that factors beyond the accounting standards play a significant role in determining companies’ reporting practices. That is, even if IFRS were inferior to GAAP, the standards would be applied within the U.S. institutional infrastructure, which features strong capital markets, SEC enforcement and private securities litigation. This environment provides many incentives for transparent and truthful reporting, and these safeguards would remain in place after the adoption of IFRS. As a result, it is unlikely that U.S. reporting quality would deteriorate significantly. Similarly, the frequently voiced concern that the IASB could set new IFRS that may not suit U.S. firms or investors could be addressed by having a national endorsement protocol for new and amended IFRS, which is what most countries that already follow international standards have in place as well.

From an economic perspective, the decision to adopt IFRS in the U.S. involves mainly a cost-benefit tradeoff of three factors, as I and other contributors have argued in a research report for FASB: (1) recurring, albeit modest, comparability benefits for investors, (2) recurring future cost savings that will largely accrue to multinational companies, and (3) one-time transition costs borne by all firms and the U.S. economy as a whole. Their net effect depends on how one weighs the future benefits against the current costs. Moreover, these factors likely differ across firms and industries.

In light of these economic and political considerations, one way for the SEC to move forward is to offer U.S. companies a choice for some time. That is, the regulator could give U.S. firms an option to apply IFRS, perhaps even starting in 2012, and then set a longer deadline for IFRS adoption for the rest of the economy. Having some U.S. firms report under the international standards wouldn't have dramatic comparability consequences. Moreover, American investors are already familiar with IFRS reports from foreign firms that list on U.S. exchanges. But such a move by the SEC would be viewed as a commitment to IFRS, which would help the U.S. politically. It also would give American companies more time to adjust: Firms for which the benefits outweigh the costs would move first, which would allow auditors and others to learn from the process, which in turn should bring down the costs of IFRS adoption for other firms with smaller benefits.

While the SEC would probably prefer to study the matter further, it is time to decide. The case in favor of IFRS is largely political and the U.S. cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of this global effort.

(Christian Leuz is a professor of international economics, finance and accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a co-director of its Initiative on Global Markets. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Christian.leuz@chicagobooth.edu

To contact the editor repsponsible for this column: Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net

At first, she played at recess and after school with her older brother. Secretly, she joined a club team, using equipment lent by her brother and cleats borrowed from a teammate that she returned after each practice and game.

“My father wanted me to be a singer or an actress,” Bajramaj, who is known as Lira, said in a recent telephone interview, speaking through an interpreter. “He told me that football was for men, not for women.”

Yet today, at 23, Bajramaj (pronounced BUY-rah-mye) is a star midfielder on the German women’s national team, the lone Muslim player on a squad that is seeking its third consecutive World Cup title, beginning with Sunday’s opening match against Canada before a crowd of 70,000-plus at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. The 16-team tournament, which features the United States and Brazil as the expected top challengers, will end July 17 in Frankfurt.

German soccer officials hope the World Cup will provide a marketing boon for the women’s game and will also enhance their efforts to promote the country’s national sport as a means of social integration. In Germany, a third of all children are born to immigrant families, and the issue of assimilation — or the lack thereof — has become an urgent political concern.

Building on the success of the 2006 men’s World Cup in Germany, German soccer officials said the sport’s national federation had spent more than $27 million on a project to encourage integration. The program includes the building of 1,000 small fields, developing a joint arrangement between soccer clubs and 17,000 chosen schools and devising an ambassador campaign featuring star German players like Bajramaj and Mesut Özil, a midfielder of Turkish descent on the men’s team.

A parallel program started by a university professor, called Football Without Offsides, encourages girls, most from Turkish, Arabic and Eastern European backgrounds, to play soccer at school at ages 9, 10 and 11 — sometimes with their mothers playing alongside them.

Theo Zwanziger, the president of the German soccer federation, is fond of saying, “It does not bother the ball who hits it.”

Heike Ullrich, the head of women’s soccer in the German federation, said this means: “Football is for everybody, man, woman, black, white, green, all races, all religions. Everyone should have a chance to come in contact with the ball. It unites people.”

When the Bajramaj family arrived in Germany from Kosovo in 1993 and settled in a refugee center, Lira was 5. She said she felt resentment from some locals as she went to and from kindergarten, hearing taunts like “gypsies” and “go back where you came from.” At 6, she joined a soccer club in Giesenkirchen, and later played in nearby Mönchengladbach.

“I was the only girl,” Bajramaj said. “At first, the boys didn’t accept me. When they saw I could play football, they decided to play with me. Then they were fighting about which team I should play with.”

Two years after she began playing, Bajramaj said, her father, Ismet, attended a match to watch her older brother, Fatos, and by accident learned that his daughter had also taken up soccer. His response was surprise and acceptance, she said, not disapproval.

“He told me I was very good,” she said. “Now he is my biggest supporter.”

In 2007, Bajramaj came on as a late substitute as Germany won the Women’s World Cup final over Brazil. A year later, she scored both of Germany’s goals in a victory over Japan for the bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics. In 2010, her club team, Turbine Potsdam, won the inaugural European women’s Champions League title.

“Playing football is what helped me integrate,” Bajramaj said. “First, the language. And later I learned a lot about the culture and the cities. In Germany, I am welcome because I play football. And Muslims can see that even though I’m in football, I’m very religious.”

In addition to Bajramaj, three other players on Germany’s Women’s World Cup team have immigrant roots from Cameroon, Italy and Romania. Germany also has about 30 female players from immigrant backgrounds on its youth national teams, soccer officials said. A handful of Muslim women also play in Germany’s professional league, Bajramaj said. Still, cultural and religious barriers exist.

Many Muslim families do not want their daughters playing in shorts, with their arms and legs and heads uncovered. Yet, at the elite level, head scarves that also cover the neck are prohibited by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, for reasons of player safety. The governing body also bans the expression of religious beliefs on uniforms.

Three years ago, a German girl was given a red-card expulsion from a youth match for wearing a head scarf, said Ulf Gebken, the founder of Football Without Offsides and a specialist in sport and social integration at Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany.

The German soccer federation was petitioned, and it amended its rules to allow head coverings for lower-level leagues, Gebken said. Ullrich, the head of women’s soccer in the federation, said: “When we get this question, I say to people, ‘Just let them play.’ If it’s not the highest league, it’s not a problem.”

Football Without Offsides has expanded to about 300 schools and 80 club teams in 120 German cities, Gebken said. A key element of the program is inviting young girls from immigrant families to play at school with their mothers — outside the presence of boys.

“We’re not going to solve all the problems,” Gebken said. “But when we make tournaments of daughters and mothers, the mothers are very happy their daughters are playing football. Then we have a chance. If a girl is a very good swimmer or runner, hardly anyone notices. But if the girl is good in football, the family is proud. The girls will come out and play, and there is the chance for integration and emancipation.”

So far, five Muslim women in their late teens and early 20s have become referees, Gebken said. What is needed, he said, are many more female coaches. Half of the club teams in his program still have male coaches.

As of now, most German girls from immigrant families wear the jerseys of their favorite players on the men’s national team, not the women’s team, Gebken said. Players like Özil and Sami Khedira, a midfielder with a Tunisian father. At the 2010 men’s World Cup in South Africa, 11 of Germany’s 23 players came from immigrant backgrounds and the team was widely celebrated for its multiculturalism.

“Last summer, many Turkish people were proud,” Gebken said. “If Lira Bajramaj is a star in this World Cup, a lot of people will look at her. This is very good marketing for women’s football. Will it help integration? We will see. Maybe girls will start wearing the jerseys of the women’s players in Germany.”

The outburst of emotions and pandemonium sparked by the teaching and non-teaching staff at the Shikshan Prasarak Mandali’s (SPM) 125-year-old SP College on Wednesday revolves around caste politics and a fierce struggle for the post of the college principal.

According to the management committee member, Savita Datar, in 2008, a local court passed an order in favour of SP College and directed that candidates belonging to the reserved category can be appointed as principal in any of the three colleges under the SPM — SP College (Pune), Ramnarain Ruia College (Mumbai) and RA Podar College of Commerce and Economics (Mumbai). The order specified that reserved category candidates cannot insist on a post specifically in SP College.”

Following this order, the SPM began the selection process for the appointment of a regular principal. Senior faculty member Dilip Sheth, who was earlier the rector of the boys’ hostel, was then appointed principal.

This appointment was challenged by vice-principal Subhash Khandagale, a member of the reserved category, who appealed against the verdict in the Bombay high court, Datar said.

This simmering controversy had vitiated the college functioning and environment in the past months and boiled over on Wednesday when a majority of staff members bitterly complained to the principal against the four office-bearers: Khandagale, students’ welfare board coordinator Praveen Ransure, students’ placement cell director Saroj Hiremath and library incharge Sunil Gaikwad.

When asked about the thick shadows of caste politics hovering around the post of principal, Sheth replied, “This college belongs to everyone, not to a particular section of society. All the staff belong to various communities and are working together.”

Speaking to DNA, Khandagale said that the SPM was not following the court order and did not appoint a principal from the reserved category either at Ruia College or at Potdar College in Mumbai. “We, therefore, demanded that the post of principal at SP College should go to a candidate of the reserved category as per the court order,” he said.

According to Khandagale, his case is pending in the Bombay high court and, therefore, the action taken against him is prejudiced.

“The college principal’s post should be given to the right candidate. I am not longing for that post,” he said.

When asked about the allegations that he was harassing other senior faculty members in the college, Khandagale said, “I have never come across any such complaint. If the complaint was true, the principal should have initiated action against me.”

I MUST comment on a glaring omission in your June 19 editorial on the cuts needed to bring the federal budget under control (“Nation needs long-term cuts, not a clash over current deficit’’). Nowhere do you explicitly mention the large part of the federal budget devoted to defense costs. After winning the Cold War, reaching a stage where we are pulling out of Iraq and plan to reduce forces in Afghanistan, taking Osama bin Laden out of the picture, and generally making significant progress against international terrorism, it is time that American taxpayers started receiving the benefits from the substantial investment we have made in our defense sector.

Significantly reducing defense spending could go a long way toward solving our budget problems. To their credit, top Defense Department officials see this as a likely move, and even Republican presidential candidates are starting to voice concern. But opinion shapers such as your editorial writers and our elected officials need to start focusing on this issue.

Trimming our defense budget seems to have replaced Social Security and other entitlement programs as the third rail in politics, but this topic needs to be on the table with the others you cited in order for there to be a meaningful debate and a fair and lasting solution to our budget problems.

Fiscal irresponsibility is at the heart of her opposition to war

RE “OBAMA outlines Afghan drawdown’’ (Page A1, June 23): As a 20-year-old college student and political activist, I care about ending this war because this country’s future is my future. I was only 10 on Sept. 11, 2001, and am of a generation of young people for whom our country has been at war almost our entire lives.

Yet at the heart of my opposition to the war is its fiscal irresponsibility. As someone who has begun earning enough money to pay taxes, I have a stake in how my money is being spent.

It is time to responsibly and quickly end the war in Afghanistan. I commend President Obama’s efforts to secure a lasting peace there as well as his announcement that 33,000 troops will be brought home by the summer of 2012. However, I am disappointed that the president will not end the war sooner, and that there will still be 68,000 service men and women in Afghanistan.

When Obama said that it was “time to focus on nation-building here at home,’’ I thought of the students I know who need more federal money to make college affordable and the young people who are graduating into an uncertain job market. It is investment in these and other important priorities, such as the environment, infrastructure, and public education, that I want my tax dollars to fund.

As Obama charts our future course in Afghanistan, I encourage him to think about what kind of nation he wants to build for the young people of today.

Alana Eichner
Somerville
The writer is a communications and development intern at Women’s Action for New Directions.

Rajiv Jain, Chairman, Chairman, Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council said the disagreement will effect millions of people belonging to the diamond industry in India.

?We decry the divisions that are stopping the rightful exports from compliant mines in Marrange of Zimbabwe,? Rajiv Jain said in an official statement recently.

He said that the politicising of the entire process has effected the normal working of the entire diamond industry.

?The politicisation of the process is demeaning the good efforts of the industry in forging an effective alliance and creating a mechanism against conflict diamonds in today?s world,? he said.

?Being one of the founders of KP, we will not allow these happenings to stop the rightful means of African people to earn their own resources,? he expressed in the statement.

?India remains committed to compliance with Kimberly process and the continuance of the system with all its checks and balances in accordance to the directives and decision taken by KP,? Jain said.

Setup in 1966 the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council is an all - India apex body for Gem & Jewellery representing 5,500 members.

Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is the process designed to certify the origin of rough diamonds from sources which are free of conflict funded by diamond production.

Politics over Shivaji statue delays Mumbai airport expansionBS Reporter / Mumbai June 25, 2011, 0:07 IST

Further expansion of the Mumbai airport — in the form of an integrated terminal — is getting delayed over shifting the statue of Maratha warrior king Shivaji, as a number of political parties oppose this move.

“We have completed 75 per cent of work, but there are some delays,” said Anil Pandit, president (real estate) of Mumbai International Airport Ltd, or MIAL, which runs the airport.

He was speaking to reporters here today on the sidelines of a real estate conclave organised by industry body CII.

Work on the new terminal building began in February 2009 and was expected to be over by December 2012. Pandit said the commissioning of the terminal could be delayed by three to four months. He said the delay was due to political reasons without giving the specifics. According to MIAL, the new terminal will have a floor area of 4.3 million sq metres over four levels. Currently, the airport handles 30 million passengers a year, but the proposed terminal is being designed to handle 40 million travellers annually.

“The terminal building has come up on three sides of the statue. But since political parties are opposing the shifting of statue work, MIAL can’t go ahead with the construction,” an airport official said. The Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party, the main Opposition parties in the state assembly, have held protests against the shifting of the statue and the state government, too, has not taken a firm decision on it.

MIAL proposes to construct a grand memorial of Chhatrapati Shivaji on the Western Express Highway near the airport. In addition, it has proposed to relocate the statue to a garden near the airport and undertake beautification. But this has failed to deter the protests. According to sources, the shifting of the statue was almost finalised last October when Ashok Chavan was the chief minister. However the plan fizzled out with the change of guard in the state.

The construction of the terminal building is stuck but real estate development on the airport land is on course. Pandit said 10-12 acres of airport land would be released for development next year. MIAL is looking to develop a hospitality district around the airport. “Passenger traffic is expected to grow in the next few years,” he said. Pandit said there was a potential for budget hotels and service apartments around the airport.

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By Richard Rousseau

From the end of the 19th century to the mid-1990s, Central Asia was almost the exclusive domain of Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. A “Great Game” involving Tsarist Russia and the British Empire dominated the region’s history in the mid-19th century and what is now South Asia. The growing multi-polarity in global politics and a scramble to secure access to depleting natural resources, especially oil and gas, have led to the emergence of a “New Great Game’ that has the potential to fix the future structure of the global political and economic system. The battle over the construction of new pipelines and the routes they will take is at the heart of this “New Great Game,” which has been playing out in earnest since the mid-1990s.

Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline

The construction of pipelines is of paramount importance for the energy policies of Washington, Beijing, Brussels, and Moscow, making the design, budgeting, and implementation of pipeline projects always thorny and controversial. The proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project (IPI), which would transport extracted gas from the South Pars deposit in Iran to India through Pakistan, is a case in point. The 3,000-kilometer gas pipeline would require a $7.5 billion investment and a multi-stakeholder collaboration. The project, first floated in 1989, has long been delayed because — among other reasons — Iran has routinely demanded gas price revisions and Pakistan persistently asked for higher transit fees. In reality, however, hidden political motivations are the real culprit for the long delay.

The project is once again officially suspended as of the beginning of 2011. According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Ghabini Ali Reza, director general of Iran’s Gas Engineering and Development Company — a subsidiary of the National Iranian Gas Company — said on February 19 that the construction of the pipeline has been temporarily put on hold. Iran has the second largest quantity of known fossil fuel reserves in the world, giving it the potential to supply energy to a wide range of natural gas importing countries, such as Pakistan, India, and China. Iranian gas is usually supplied via physical pipelines, but the production of liquefied natural gas for more distant markets is another option.

Since the discovery of large reserves in the South Pars field in 1988 the Iranian government has continued to promote substantial export of gas. High earnings from these rich fields are expected from possible sales of extracted gas to Pakistan and India, where energy demand is high and steadily increasing.

In 1995, Islamabad and Tehran signed a preliminary agreement for the construction of a pipeline that would connect the South Pars field to Karachi, Pakistan’s most important industrial center located on the shores of the Arabian Sea. The Iranian authorities understood that both Pakistan and India would use this gas, with Pakistan acting as both an importer and a transit country. In 1999 India and Iran signed a preliminary agreement, and discussions were then held about the construction of the IPI (Iran, Pakistan, and India) pipeline — also known as the “peace pipeline.” It was thought that mutual energy cooperation and the sharing of Iranian gas would bring about a possible thaw in the tense relations between Islamabad and Delhi. On March 16, 2010, the Iranian and Pakistani authorities signed a final agreement in Ankara to construct the pipeline. However, despite earlier expectations, India was not included in the project.

There were also financial issues at stake. Iran stated that Pakistan was unable to put together the necessary financing. The timing of this statement could not have been more inopportune. The Pakistani economy was in a precarious state and the situation became more complicated due to the widespread flooding that subsequently devastated large parts of Pakistan. Finally, the geopolitical implications of events in Central and South Asia — the NATO military operation in Afghanistan and the uprising in Kyrgyzstan — also presented a major obstacle to the effective fulfillment of the energy export and the security plan.

Many external interests need to be taken into account in the IPI pipeline project, especially those of the United States, China, and Russia. India’s wavering attitude toward the project can be largely attributed to U.S. pressure on Delhi to join other pipeline projects and Washington’s downplaying of the potential benefits of the IPI. It stands to reason that a gas pipeline linking Iran, Pakistan and India would have significant geopolitical implications. The countries involved in the IPI pipeline project have varying interests and policies.

Iran and the United States

The delays in the implementation of the project have been caused by the state of bilateral and trilateral relations between the individual states involved.

U.S. interests are considered paramount. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States is attempting to control a significant portion of the world’s energy supply via control of the oil and gas reserves in Azerbaijan and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and the establishment of allied regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the United States, the struggle over energy resources is further complicated by China and India’s continual and desperate search for more and more energy supplies, which are essential to maintain their speedy development. The future of Iranian energy policy is therefore a serious consideration for long-term U.S. interests. Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf and the implementation of the IPI project would hinder Washington’s objective of isolating Tehran internationally.

The United States is strongly opposed to any type of energy project that involves Iran, as it is wary of Pakistan and India becoming dependent on Iranian energy supplies. The United States continues to actively interfere in the region as it tries to prevent these countries from taking part in the IPI project. Washington is actually sponsoring the construction of an alternative pipeline, and Iran has clearly not been given the opportunity to become directly involved in this project. The Americans are promoting the TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India) pipeline project, which would transport natural gas from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan directly to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan. This project, however, is largely contingent on U.S. and NATO stabilizing Afghanistan.

Projects benefiting U.S. geopolitical and energy plans draw wary looks from Russia and China. Under the U.S. plan, Kabul would be an integral part of a safe corridor for energy flows running from the Caspian Sea through Central Asia to end users in Pakistan and India. This would bypass the Russian and Chinese routes that presently supply much of the energy in the region.

China, India, and Pakistan

As for India, the Americans are trying to dissuade Delhi from signing any agreements with Iran, a country that Washington considers a “rogue state.” Unsurprisingly, tensions between the United States and Iran have influenced Indian energy policy. Indeed, it is difficult for Delhi to bargain with Iran over an energy agreement while it is developing a civil nuclear program of its own with the contribution and consent of the United States. Secondly, India’s high mistrust of Pakistan has stalled talks on energy projects involving both countries. This has led to India’s current suspension of participation in the IPI project.

Despite U.S. caution, India has nevertheless strengthened diplomatic ties with Iran. These closer relations were demonstrated by the joint financing of the port construction in Chabahar, an important energy transit point located in southeastern Iran. This collaboration has proved strategically and economically important in promoting Indian exports to Central Asia, which are now delivered via Iran — bypassing Pakistan.

India has many doubts about the IPI pipeline. First, India and Iran have not yet agreed on gas pricing levels. India has always insisted on importing high-quality gas from Iran at internationally accepted prices. Second, India is concerned over the details of Iran’s plan to route the pipeline through Pakistan and its provinces. Iran wants the pipeline to pass through Baluchistan, one of the poorest and most remote areas of the country — and a highly unstable region noted for the political activities of hostile nationalist and separatist forces. Tehran has been fighting Baluchi nationalist independence movements in the Iranian provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan, which border Pakistan. The insurgency in Baluchistan has dragged on for years. Jundallah, the Sunni terrorist organization also known as the People’s Resistance Movement of Iran, is also allegedly operating in the Baluchi areas of Pakistan and Iran and in the southern provinces of Afghanistan, among other places. The countries involved in the IPI project worry that terrorist acts will be launched to sabotage the pipeline.

India has two additional concerns about Pakistan: the transit tax that Islamabad claims it will impose and the possible interruption of gas supplies. India fears that if new diplomatic tensions develop with Pakistan or if the Kashmir conflict reignites, Pakistan would be in a position to stop energy flows to India, similar to what Russia did to Ukraine during their 2006 and 2009 gas disputes. India is also hesitant about the construction of the TAPI pipeline, sponsored by Washington. New Delhi doubts about TAPI’s actual ability to effectively pump Turkmen gas in adequate volumes, and it expects continued and long-term insecurity in Afghanistan. The United States, however, is still trying to steer India toward other energy sources, including liquefied natural gas from Australia, Qatar, and other Gulf countries.

Pakistan is concerned with the potential hegemonic status India could gain if it became actively involved in the IPI pipeline. Indeed, Pakistani authorities have devised a plan to encourage the active participation of China — a traditional ally of Islamabad and rival of New Delhi — in the project rather than India. Beijing has shown serious interest in this project, as it would effectively increase Chinese influence in South Asia at the expense of both the United States and India. Moreover, Islamabad would benefit, at least hypothetically, from the inclusion of China. Pakistan urgently needs energy, but Tehran will probably not support the project without a third party. Indian or Chinese involvement would guarantee substantial profits for Iran. With China as a partner, Islamabad would be provided with important gas transit revenues and would gain sizeable political dividends through further strengthening its alliance with Beijing. From another perspective, however, Pakistan and Iran’s insistence on adding China in the project can be interpreted as a means of applying pressure on New Delhi to make a final decision on its involvement with the IPI proposal.

For Beijing the project bears both risks and opportunities. By becoming the main partner in the construction of the pipeline from Iran through Pakistani territory, or the main beneficiary of potential natural gas liquefaction shipped from the deep sea port at Gwadar in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, China would create an important energy axis that would enhance its energy diversification strategy — as well as helping it meet its ever growing domestic energy demand. Only political and social instability in restive Pakistani and Chinese regions might persuade China to pull out of the project. If it does not reach the port of Gwadar, where liquefied natural gas terminals will soon be built, the pipeline will pass through unstable regions such as the Pakistani province of Gilgit-Baltistan, the northernmost political entity within Pakistan, and the Xinjiang province in China, also known as Eastern Turkestan, where indigenous Uighur consistently make separatist noises. The project is made even riskier by possible sabotage of the pipeline by rebel groups.

According to another reading of China’s flirtation with Pakistan and Iran over the IPI project, it aims to influence Russia in the ongoing negotiations between the two countries over gas supply, prices, and pipeline routes linking East Siberia and China. Beijing could brandish gas supplies from Iran as a possible alternative to Russia’s. It’s no secret that China, like the EU, does not want to become too dependent on Russian energy sources. Closer participation in Asian energy projects would also do much to promote the Chinese objective of gradually increasing its influence in the area in order to create what is often called the “string of pearls” around the Indian Ocean. China’s covert objective in South and East Asia is to put on track a pipeline linking Iran, Pakistan, and China via the Karakorum Mountains, which span the border between the latter two countries. This would be part of a strategy to push for greater Sino-Pakistani cooperation in developing the Pakistani port of Gwadar into a Chinese-controlled energy hub that would be, according to Washington, protected by a Chinese naval base. In this way, Chinese involvement in a project to supply Iranian gas would render ineffective the international isolation of Tehran sponsored by Washington.

In order to prevent China’s participation in large pipeline projects in South Asia, the United States has proposed another option, consisting of substantially increasing the export of cheaper Saudi oil to China. A clear response to this offer has not yet been forthcoming.

Russian Interests

Although China may tap into various other energy sources, Russia welcomes the possible construction of the IPI pipeline. Moscow is determined to maintain a dominant position in gas supply within the European market and is continually looking for new mone-making opportunities. Much of its economic base is founded on energy companies and the infrastructure of the oil and natural gas industry. Russia is ready to help establish the IPI pipeline in order to divert Iranian gas to Eastern markets, rather than Western, thus removing a potential major competitor. Russia’s dominance in the transport of energy from the Caspian Sea area would thus be secured.

Moreover, Russia is very much interested in creating a north-south energy corridor and establishing closer commercial ties between South Asia and Europe via Russian territory. Moscow assumes Pakistan, India, and Iran are also interested in these energy and commercial plans. Moscow considers the IPI as a possible deterrent to Sino-Russian competition in Central Asia and, above all, a counterpoint to U.S. interests in the region.

Gazprom is heavily involved in the implementation of the IPI, and Russian investment could encourage the construction of the pipeline. Its involvement dates back to 1995, when a memorandum of understanding was signed between Gazprom and the Gas Authority of India Ltd for the construction of the IPI. The behemoth Russian energy company is now developing the South Pars fields in the Persian Gulf and wants to participate in projects intended to increase the production of LNG from Iran. Gazprom is also very much interested in the IPI project — even if China is included. The inclusion of Russia’s huge southeastern neighbor is a necessary step in the integration of the economic, energy, and commercial interests of Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Iran.

The geopolitical and geo-economic impact of the IPI and TAPI pipelines in Asia, the energy integration of East Asia with South Asia and West Africa, and the increasing role that Iran would play in these processes are all burning issues in the discussion of global energy supplies. Russia’s desire to maintain European gas supply dominance, the growing list of countries which need gas, and India and China’s interest in gaining greater authority in Asia are also important factors. All these issues, however, revolve around one undeniable catalyst: the construction of a pipeline, the consequences of which have yet to be fully understood.

U.S. Challenges

U.S. energy policy, and the major factors in maintaining U.S. national security and economic dominance, is based on secure access to energy, the continuity of supply, and maintaining relatively inexpensive oil prices. However, most of the world’s oil is concentrated in places that are hostile to U.S. interests, or vulnerable to political upheaval or terrorism. Regardless, oil remains on the cutting-edge of many immediate challenges faced by U.S. foreign policy makers and military planners. There will be no easy solutions until the U.S. government and American consumers develop an alternative infrastructure to its overwhelmingly oil-based economy. In the meantime, every effort will be made to secure existing oil supplies and guarantee the continuity of supply. Such efforts are the driving force for U.S. foreign policy and its accompanying military doctrine.

Most analysis dealing with U.S. foreign policy and the country’s expanding energy consumption suggest that oil imports will continue to increase in the coming decades. The United States will be forced to seek new sources of fossil fuels due to political and economic changes in regions where it currently receives its supplies. Until now, U.S. foreign policy has failed to adequately redirect its foreign policy focus toward regions well endowed with different types of energy resources.

The United States must establish bonds of trust with Central and South Asian countries to meet its future energy needs because its allies and its enemies alike will themselves have to obtain more energy from these regions. Washington must reflect on its policy direction and carefully rethink its relations with Russia if it still aspires to become an important partner in the exploitation and development of Siberian oil and gas fields. The Obama administration took the first step in this direction by hitting the “reset” button in U.S.-Russia relations. Moreover, the United States needs to develop deeper commercial ties with countries of Central and South Asia, even though some regional governments continue to ardently disapprove of current U.S. policy. Trade agreements must be concluded with some monopolistic state-owned producers that are adamant in preserving their absolute sovereignty over their strategic natural resources. Finally, Washington has to consider the option of negotiating agreements with other large energy consumers (China, India, Japan, and the EU) and Central and South Asian producers/exporters to avoid costly armed and diplomatic wars based on stiff competition for limited resources.

Richard Rousseau is a professor of international relations at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, and a contributor to Global Brief, World Affairs in the 21st Century.

About the author:

FPIF

Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) is a “Think Tank Without Walls” connecting the research and action of more than 600 scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the United States a more responsible global partner. It is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

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more Quarterly profits of Micron Technology fall 92%

San Francisco Chronicle June 24, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Friday, June 24, 2011

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92 percent

That's how much quarterly profit fell at Micron Technology, the largest U.S. maker of memory chips. Net income for the Boise, Idaho, company plunged to $75 million from $939 million a year earlier. The price of dynamic random access memory for personal computers dropped as inventories grew and demand for consumer laptops and desktops remained sluggish. Orders also are slowing for chips used in mobile phones, CEO Steve Appleton said. Micron shares fell 14 percent on the news.

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