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| A Pakistani Spring? |
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WHILE I was living in Washington on a research fellowship last year, Pakistanis often urged me to use the opportunity to promote Pakistan's "positive aspects" to Americans. |
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| WATCHING ELEPHANTS FLY |
| SOMEDAY I'd love to create a journalism course based on covering the uprising in Egypt, now approaching its first anniversary. |
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 | SADA MEETS PAKISTAN'S PETROLEUM MINISTER Minister of Energy and Industry HE Dr Mohammad bin Saleh al Sada with Pakistan's Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain,in Doha, on Monday. Talks during the meeting covered energy cooperation between Qatar and...
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| | Statoil makes large oil discovery in Barents Sea | | OSLO NORWEGIAN oil firm Statoil has made a second big oil discovery in the Barents Sea in less than a year and predicted more to come in the region, accelerating the global scramble to find and produce Arctic energy reserves.
The find was the latest in a series for Norway, the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, and may prompt intensified exploration in the Russian half of the Barents and elsewhere above the Arctic Circle, analysts said.
Statoil said the new oil find, Havis, could hold 200 to 300 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.
Combined with reserves from the nearby Skrugard field, discovered in April, the total comes to 400 to 600 million boe, Statoil said.
"This is extremely positive," said John Olaisen, an analyst at Oslo-based firm Carnegie.
"This is an important strategic asset in a new oil region, so this is very good ... One could expect more oil finds in the region after this." Finding oil in the western Barents Sea had proved very difficult.
Over the past 30 years oil companies have drilled 92 exploration wells but only a handful have proven to be hits - Skrugard, Statoil's Snoehvit gas field, Eni's Goliat oilfield and Total's Norvarg discovery.
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| | Merkel, Sarkozy to boost growth, jobs for eurozone | | BERLIN THE German and French leaders met on Monday to discuss how to boost growth in eurozone states struggling to tackle the sovereign debt crisis and rising unemployment, and to finalise a deal on closer budgetary ties within the currency union.
They may also broach a financial transaction levy, the "Tobin tax", being promoted by France but resisted by Britain unless adopted on a global scale, which could split the European Union at a summit at the end of the month.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy, aiming to align the two powerhouse partners that have driven European integration, were also expected to consider options for boosting employment against an unfavourable backdrop of harsh austerity and mounting funding tensions in the banking sector.
They were scheduled to hold a joint news conference at 1.30 pm local time (7:30 am EST).
Germany's economy keeps showing it can withstand the crisis, with a rise in exports reported on Monday and the labour market thriving.
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| | US gears up to take legal action against Swiss bank | | WASHINGTON US AUTHORITIES are moving toward taking legal action against Wegelin & Co, which could lead to an indictment of one of Switzerland's last pure private banks, on charges that it enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes, according to two persons with knowledge of the case.
Negotiations in the case have reached a critical stage, with an indictment possible though the bank is seeking a deferred prosecution agreement, which would be less damaging. The outcome depends on how prosecutors, the US State Department and the US Treasury Department agree to treat the matter, the sources said.
Founded in 1741, Wegelin is one of Switzerland's oldest banks. An indictment of it would be a blow to a national tradition of banking secrecy that dates back to the Middle Ages. It would be a step forward for a US crackdown on offshore tax evasion by Americans through Swiss banks.
The crackdown started around 2007 with an investigation of UBS AG, Switzerland's largest bank. It has since spread to the entire Swiss banking industry. Dozens of US clients and at least two dozen Swiss bankers have been charged, in moves that have strained US-Swiss relations.
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