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| India´s Marathon Trial |
AS the trial of the alleged lone survivor of the terror squad
behind last year´s Mumbai attacks finally began in earnest
last week, lawyers were already preparing to ask for yet further
delays. The proceedings have been plagued by hold-ups, but on
Monday, the first witness is due to be crossexamined. He has
already identified Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab as the man he saw
shoot dead a policeman trying to arrest him. The shooting came
at the end of a three-day rampage of co-ordinated violence. |
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| Colombia´s Dark Secret |
 The
toxic fallout of a grisly army scandal continues to spread in
Colombia, as more soldiers are arrested over their alleged roles.
In recent days another three colonels have been arrested, bringing
the total number of military personnel captured to at least
22. The "false positives" scandal has revealed that
the army murdered civilians, who were in turn dressed in rebel
uniforms or given guns. They were then presented as guerrillas
or paramilitaries killed in combat. |
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Gas supply through pipeline cost-effective, say experts
AMITABH JHA DOHA The growing demand of natural gas and its status as a transitional fuel in a world which endeavours to shift from fossil to renewable fuel sources ensures countries like Qatar an important place among players in the energy sector.
Moreover, gas producers as well as consumers should accord greater importance to trade of this commodity through pipelines than through LNG carriers. These were the basic conclusions at the Brookings Doha Center Policy discussion on the topic ‘Peace in the Pipeline? Prospects for Oil and Gas Cooperation in the Middle East and South Asia’ here on Sunday. Those who participated in the discussion were Turkish Ambassador HE Mithat Rende, Visiting Fellow at Brookings Doha Center Prof Saleem H Ali and General Manager of Dolphin Energy Limited, Qatar, Adel Ahmed Albuainain. The discussion was moderated by Hady Amr, director of Brookings Doha Center and Fellow of Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.
The experts said that the process of liquefying natural gas and then transporting it through LNG carriers was a cost effective model only for long distances. For example, the LNG route was best to supply gas from Middle East to the United Kingdom and Japan, they added. However, they argued that for short and medium distances the gas pipeline method was more economical.
The places that lie in the gas pipeline range include much of Europe — where natural gas demand is projected to rise 70 percent over the next couple of decades — and the energyhungry growing economies of Asia, including China and India. “A major benefit of the gas pipeline approach is that peace and cooperation is ensured among countries participating in these transnational pipeline projects,” Prof Saleem H Ali said. His assertion was supported by other experts.
Ali has just completed a paper on the role that oil and gas pipelines can play in fostering cooperation between adversaries, and the governance structure that would be needed to ensure such constructive conflict resolution. The Turkish envoy spoke on pipeline projects between Turkey and its neighbours as an example of regional cooperation. Albuainain discussed cooperative operations of Dolphin Energy and said that the Dolphin project was an example of economic and political partnership among the GCC member states.
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