The fuel supply contract was signed last week between U.S. Defense Logistics Agency and Gazpromneft Aero-Kyrgyzstan.

“The Americans have to be certain that we can deal with that volume of supplies. And maybe then [we] will start delivering more than 50 percent of the base’s needs,” said Tilek Isayev, head of the Gazpromneft-Aero Kyrgyzstan.

Former Soviet Central Asian nation authorities suspect the current supplier, Gibraltar-registered Mina Corp., of links to the family of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, overthrown last year — allegations it has denied. Mina’s contract as the sole supplier to the base expires in December, but it can bid to retain a piece of the business.

Fuel sales to the air base in this impoverished have been mired in controversy over lack of transparency. A Gibraltar-registered firm is currently the sole supplier of fuel, but that arrangement is terminating in December.

Manas Center provides logistical support for NATO in Afghanistan and is a major transit hub for U.S. troops flying in and out of the region. The company also supplies fuel to civilian aircraft at the international airport where the base is located.

The new supplier is Gazpromneft-Aero Kyrgyzstan, which is 51 percent owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom and 49 percent by Kyrgyzstan’s government.

U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Pamela Spratlen told journalists the two sides could sign another contract within 90 days of the initial shipment of fuel that would increase delivery to up to 50 percent of the base’s needs, the Reuters news agency said.

The arrangement could ease concerns about corruption involving fuel supplies to the Manas. The potential for significant revenue also could reduce Moscow’s incentive to seek closure of the U.S. base.

The U.S. Manas air base spends from US$300 million to US$400 million a year on aviation fuel.

“The money coming from fuel supplies to the [Manas] Transit Center will go into Kyrgyzstan’s state budget, and it will be hard to filch it,” Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Valentin Vlasov said to the Associated Press.

“Given the domestic consumption in the west of the country and gas supplies from there to Iran, we will have 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually for export, so that European countries do not have to worry,” Turkmenistan’s Deputy PM Baymurad Khodzhamukhamedov said at the Oil and Gas Turkmenistan-2010 Forum in Ashgabat.

This amount is larger than the projected capacity of 31 billion cubic meters of gas annually which Nabucco is supposed to transfer from the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Region through Turkey into Bulgaria and the rest of the European Union.

Nabucco is expected to cost about US$11 billion and come online with about 15 billion cubic meters of gas by the end of 2014, and would have to cross a disputed border between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – a conflict which has held up progress on Nabucco for years.

Khodzhamukhamedov pledged there would be an agreement on constructing a trans-Caspian pipeline along the bottom of the sea to transport Turkmen gas across the Caspian to Azerbaijan where it would be fed into pipelines linking up with the Nabucco pipeline.

In his words, a pipeline from gas fields in Eastern Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea was already under construction.

Turkmenistan is seeking to diversify exports from its traditional market, Russia, and has already boosted supplies to China and Iran.

It could potentially become a major supplier of gas to the European Union-backed Nabucco project to supply the fuel to European markets.

At the same time experts consider that in reality it will be very difficult to bypass Russia and Iran, two actual major gas players of the region.

“Russia and Iran want to undermine the investment case for the Nabucco pipeline and block Turkmenistan from selling gas to it,” ING bank’s energy analyst Igor Kurinnyy said to The Moscow Times.

The race between Nabucco and its rival, Russian-sponsored project South Stream, appears to be tightening after last week Bulgaria and Russia signed a key deal for the construction of the South Stream section on Bulgarian soil.

According to Sofia news agency novinite.com, Bulgaria, which is a crucial participant in both projects, has lent support for both Nabucco and South Stream.

“Europe is the world’s biggest spender on energy imports. Turkmenistan is ideally placed to catch a piece of the action,” said Wolfgang Peters, head of supplies for Caspian, Central Asia and Russia for RWE Supply & Trading.

“The question about building a pipeline under the sea is very difficult because it is not just economics involved. There is also ecological safety,” said Alexander Medikov, a maritime lawyer for Jurinflot.

“The decision to build a pipeline should be agreed upon by all parts, or else it could end quite badly. Iran, whose Caspian sector borders on the Azeri and Turkmen waters in the south, would suffer greatly from an accident there.”

Turkmenistan has not formally committed yet to any supplies for Nabucco even though its officials have mentioned the 3,300 kilometer-long pipeline as part of the country’s scheme to diversify its markets.

Still, today’s announcement marks a big step forward to the EU backed pipeline.

A draft bill requiring Eesti Gaas AS, an Estonian natural gas company which imports and sells natural gas, to split the ownership of sales and networks by Jan. 1, 2013 is “90 percent ready,” said Igor Grazin, a lawmaker with Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party, in a interview with Bloomberg.

The new bill would include the requirement of a forced sale for the Eesti Gaas transmission unit if a buyer is not found and a fine of US$44,622, Grazin said.

Eesti Gaas is owned by Gazprom (37.02 percent), Germany’s E.ON Ruhrgas (33.7 percent), Finland’s Fortum Oyj (17.72 percent), and Itera Latvija (9.9 percent).

The transmission division would be sold to a company based in the European Union.

Earlier this year, Lithuania announced a similar plan at Lietuvos Dujos AB, spurring criticism from Gazprom and Germany’s E.ON AG, which also has a stake in Eesti Gaas.

In order to connect Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to wider EU energy networks and to unify the Baltic electricity grid, the EU Commission and its Baltic members signed the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan in June 2009.

At present, Baltic countries pay the highest prices in the EU for Russian gas. Estonia bought Russian fuel in the first quarter at US$340 per 1000 cubic metres. At the same time, Gazprom was selling gas to Europe for an average of US$307 for the same volume. Prices for natural gas in Lithuania are US$100-150 above the gas prices in Western Europe.

“We can resist an uncontrolled rise of gas prices only by fighting the Gazprom monopoly,” said Rauno Veri, a spokesman for the junior government partner, Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit.

In an interview with Estonian business newspaper Äripäev, Raul Kotov, board member of Eesti Gaas, insisted that separation does not bring new suppliers, reduce the prices, nor reduce Gazprom’s importance in the gas that’s used in Estonia.

Kotov also argued that the ruling coalition’s allegation that Gazprom is barring newcomers from the market is wrong, as 63 percent of Eesti Gaas belongs to non-Russian enterprises, so Gazprom cannot decide on the destiny of the Estonian gas economy.

According to Kotov, gas prices aren’t more expensive in Estonia than in the rest of Europe. In July, the gas price in Estonia is 0.43 euros per cubic meter, while in Hamburg, Germany the price is 0.7 euros per cubic meter and in Finland 0.65 euros per cubic meter.

Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev warned the EU on October 14 that changes in pipeline ownership and a move away from long-term contracts may lead to a drop in supply and a shift in Russian gas exports to Asia.

Gazprom, which has traditionally accounted for about a quarter of Europe’s gas needs, supplied 140.6 billion meters of the fuel last year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attended a concert yesterday celebrating the 57th anniversary of the Korean War as the two main adversaries from that conflict conducted war drills off his country’s eastern coast.

The State Merited Chorus performed numbers such as “Our General is the Best” and “My Song in the Trench,” state-run Korean Central News Agency reported today. The audience gave “enthusiastic cheers” to Kim, the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, who “heartily congratulated them on the victory” in the Fatherland Liberation War.

As Kim took part in celebrations to mark the cease-fire that ended open hostility on the Korean peninsula, U.S. and South Korean forces were putting on a display of military might that included anti-submarine maneuvers intended as a deterrent to the North.

The four-day drills, which end today, are being held after a South Korean-led investigation team in May blamed North Korea for torpedoing the South’s warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors.

The three-year Korean War ended in a cease-fire after China’s entry pushed back the U.S. and United Nations forces. South Korea remains technically at war with the North, with the two sides separated by one of the world’s most-fortified borders.

This is the third try to pass the law on Casino through Ikh Khural. Two other drafts were rejected by the previous Parliament.

“Neighboring regions of neighboring countries don’t have any casinos or gambling centers, which allows such businesses to flourish in Mongolia,” deputies said to Business Mongolia. Law initiators believe that it will contribute to the Mongolian economy and revenue.

According to the draft document, one percent of casino income will be collected into the “Good Will” Foundation, a social welfare fund. The casino is going to be open only for foreigners and the government of Mongolia will own certain part of its asset.

The government of the country had signed a contract four years ago that will put a U.S. real-estate company, Winwheel Bullion, in charge of building a casino complex with hotels, shopping malls, banks and a modern airport to bring visitors across the vast distances needed to reach it. Neither the company nor the Mongolian side have provided any information about financial arrangements for the zone.

The government first awarded a contract to develop Zamyn Uud to a British Virgin Islands-registered company called Western Paradise, promising tax breaks and other incentives, but that deal fell through.

Zamyn-Uud FTZ is 900 hectares in size and located three kilometers east of the main town and three kilometers north of Erenhot city (usually shortened into Eriyen, Ereen or Erlian), Inner Mongolia, China.

A tiny town and railway depot, Zamyn Uud is about 350 miles northwest of Beijing, has a population of 10.000 inhabitants and is very much dependent upon the commercial activity generated by the neighboring Chinese city Erenhot.

The major employer in Zamyn-Uud is the Government of Mongolia, which employs approximately 700 people to manage and operate the Mongolian Railway. In this location, the railway is very important as it handles goods and products being transported from Russia to China (around 10 million tons per year), facilitates direct cross-border trade with China, and has a container loading and unloading facility (twenty wagons a day) to overcome the difference in rail gauge of the Mongolian and Chinese railway systems. Handling capacity of the transshipment facility is 60-80 wagons a day.

The city of Erenhot is experiencing fast economic growth. Its current population is estimated at almost two -hundred thousand residents while the per capita GDP of the city was at 14,000 Yuan in 2009.

Between Mongolia and China there presently is only one international port of entry operating on a permanent basis and nine bilateral ports of entry operating on a seasonal basis. Most prominent among these is the “Zamiin-Uud – Erenhot,” international port.Nine others, including “Bulgan” port in the province of Khobdo, “Gashuunsukhait” port in the province of South Gobi, and “Shiveekhuren,” also in South Gobi, are very crowded during the short season in which they operate.

According to the state’s statistic data 508.821 of Mongolian citizens traveled through the various ports of entry to Russia and China in 2000, but the majority – 266.221 passing through Zamyn Uud –Erenhot.

The agreement was signed in Vientiane on March 22 by the Laotian Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sitaheng Rasphone and T. Badamjunai, the Mongolian Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry.

“We are interested in trading agricultural and forestry products with Laos”, said Mongolian Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Mr. Badamjunia during his official visit to the country. He told local media, “this cooperation would increase relations between the two countries in the future.”

Under the agreement, the two sides agreed to formulate joint collaborative projects involving both the public and private agricultural sectors of the two countries and to set up joint venture companies in rice production and processing, said the newspaper.

According to signed agreement, Laos would export rice and sugar to Mongolia, as well as invest in wood processing and livestock breeding exchanges.

Laos contains more than 800.000 hectares of rice fields and produced about three million tones of rice last year, a figure which is set to rise to 3.3 million tons this year, said President of the Lao-Agro Processing Association, Mr Phouvong Korasack.

The country has sufficient rice for domestic consumption and also exports the crop to Vietnam and Thailand. Last year the country exported around 10.000 tones of sugar to Europe, said Mr Phouvong. The Laotian government plans to increase production of rice and sugar to ensure domestic supply is met and that exports can be increased.

Mongolia currently imports about 25.000 tons of sugar and 30.000 tons of rice a year, primarily from Vietnam and China.

On the basis of the cooperation agreement, Laos will consider a number of proposals by Mongolia including the transferring agricultural land use rights of 10.000 hectares in Laos to Mongolian companies to produce rice and other crops, the development of sheep farming in Laos and the establishment of a Mongolian agriculture cooperation center in Laos.

By Edith Balazs

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said countries in central and eastern Europe should join together and create a “triangle” of supply points for natural gas to reduce dependence on fuel from Russia.

“I’m proposing that countries in the region set up a gas supply triangle to boost the diversity and security,” Bajnai said at an energy summit in Budapest today, which was attended by heads of government from countries in the region. “We need to increase the number of independent suppliers.”

Countries in the region, dependent on Russian gas, have repeatedly suffered from fuel shortages because of pricing disputes between Russia and Ukraine, a transit country. Hungary gets about 80 percent of its gas from Russia and supports the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline aimed at bringing Caspian gas to Europe.

Nabucco would be the eastern tip of a triangle, which would include a planned liquefied natural-gas terminal in Poland in the north and an LNG terminal in Krk, Croatia, in the south, Bajnai said. The plan would secure supply of gas transported in the Baltic and Adriatic seas, he said.

“Our aim is to create a critical mass that can represent its interest more efficiently, a critical mass that simply can’t be passed by or overlooked,” Bajnai said.

What Dalai Lama has said and done in the past decades have fully shown that he is not a pure religious figure, but a political figure in exile who’s long engaged in activities to split China and undermine ethnic unity in China under the cover of religion. While claiming that his visits to foreign countries are aimed at spreading religious teachings, he has never stopped defaming the Chinese Government, selling “Tibet independence” proposals and undermining relations between China and other countries. This is well reflected in his remarks during his current visit, including those he made on CNN’s Larry King Live.

In addition, the talks between Dalai’s private representatives and the Chinese Government at the end of January have demonstrated once again that the Dalai group is still clinging to their separatist propositions, including the so-called “greater Tibet region” and “meaningful autonomy”, whose ultimate goal is to separate a quarter of Chinese territory from China. This is something that no sovereign country can allow to occur.

As Dalai Lama claimed on Larry King Live, he regards a foreign country other than China or its Tibetan Autonomous Region as his “home”, and Tibet is “not much concern” to him. Such a political figure is in no way qualified to represent the Tibetan people as self-claimed by him.

Tibet has never been a country in history, but an inalienable part of China from ancient times. Dalai Lama’s repeated calling Tibet a “country” explains nothing but his true mind of splitting Tibet from China. We urge the U.S. side earnestly abide by the U.S. Government’s committment of recognizing Tibet as part of China and not supporting “Tibet independence”, take measures to undo the damages caused by Dalai’s visit, stop providing convenience or platform for Dalai and pro-Tibet independence forces, take concret actions to maintain the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations. We sincerely hope American people see through Dalai’s true nature as a separatist and his ulterior motive of sabotaging China-U.S. relations, understand and support China’s just positions on Tibet-related issues.

“The United States has kept providing Taiwan with defensive weapons according to the Taiwan Relations Act, enabling Taiwan to be more confident in pressing for reconciliation with the Chinese mainland,” Minister Kao said.

“In the future, Taiwan will continue purchasing more weaponry from the United States… so as to build a smaller and leaner deterrent force.”

The US$6.8 billion arms sale between the U.S. and Taiwan in January infuriated Chinese officials who accused America of using “cold war logic.”

Speaking at a security conference in Munich last week, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said that the deal violated standards in international relations and provoked officials in Beijing.

According to the AFP, Taiwan’s Premier Wu Den-yih dismissed Yang’s allegations, saying Beijing’s continued missile buildup along the mainland coastline facing the island had prompted Taiwan to seek more self-defensive weaponry.

“It’s just like two people trying for reconciliation. If one of them sticks a gun in his waist, it would be weird, don’t you think so,” Wu said in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix satellite television Saturday.

“The people of Taiwan would feel better if China can withdraw its missiles…,” he said.

That’s not going to happen.

SEOUL (Reuters) – A senior Chinese envoy was in North Korea to prod the reclusive state back to stalled nuclear talks while the South sent a team across the border on Monday for talks to restart tourism projects halted due to political wrangling.

The North will also host the U.N.’s top political envoy later this week, with analysts saying this engagement may bode well for the dormant six-way disarmament-for-aid talks and could lead to Pyongyang reducing the security threat it poses to the region.

The destitute North is feeling pressure to return to the nuclear talks, where it can win aid to prop up its broken economy, due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in May 2009 and a botched currency revaluation that sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.

Analysts said there is a chance the North could launch military moves if the talks do not go well. Market players have said this would dampen sentiment and serve as a reminder of the dangers of investing in the troubled peninsula.

Chinese Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui flew to North Korea at the weekend. Wang met Kim Jong-Il last year, and received a denuclearization pledge from the North Korean leader.

Wang met senior officials other than Kim at the weekend. He is expected to stay four days and have discussions with Kim, the South’s Yonhap news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

China, the destitute North’s biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state. Kim Jong-il told the Chinese premier in October he could return to the nuclear talks if conditions were right.

In a move seen as bettering the mood with the United States, the North’s most important dialogue partner in the nuclear talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, Pyongyang at the weekend released a U.S. missionary it had held since late December for illegally entering the country.

North Korea is recent weeks has been reaching out to South Korea, which once was a major aid donor, but also threatening its neighbor and U.S. military ally by firing artillery near its neighbor on the troubled peninsula.

Analysts said the North wants to underscore the threat it poses to North Asia, which is responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, in a ploy to increase its bargaining leverage.

The Koreas were set to begin talks on joint tourism projects in the North run by an affiliate of the South’s Hyundai group.

The tours, suspended for more than a year, once earned the North’s leaders tens of millions of dollars a year and Kim Jong-il has appealed to have them restarted.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who took office two years ago, ended unconditional handouts to the North and linked aid to progress his neighbor makes in reducing the military threat it poses to North Asia.