Israel jittery about gas supply from Egypt - The Associated Press

Israel jittery about gas supply from Egypt(AP) – 1 hour ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — An explosion at an Egyptian gas terminal that disrupted the supply of fuel to Israel had Israeli officials pressing Sunday to speed development of a natural gas deposit that they say can make Israel energy independent.

Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau wants the government to back loans so financing can be obtained to develop the Tamar field, off Israel's coast in the Mediterranean Sea, a spokesman said. Landau also favors exempting the field's developers from a proposed windfall tax.

"We have to do everything to improve Israel's energy security," Landau told Israel Radio on Sunday. "It is Israel's obligation to remove as soon as possible every obstacle" to developing Tamar, he said.

Landau's spokesman, Chen Ben-Lulu, said the goal was to have gas from Tamar flowing into Israel by 2013. The explosion in Egypt on Saturday "just proves" the need to do so, he added.

"We want energy independence and to achieve it as soon as possible," Ben-Lulu said.

The explosion in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula on Saturday came amid a popular uprising against longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The blast set off a massive fire that was contained by shutting off the flow of gas to Jordan and Israel. Egypt's natural gas company said the fire was caused by a gas leak, but local officials said an explosive device was detonated inside the terminal.

Egypt is to sell Israel 1.7 billion cubic meters a year for at least 15 years under a deal that went into effect three years ago. Israeli industry analysts see that flow as important to diversifying Israel's fuel sources and for political relations.

At the same time, the turmoil in Egypt, which supplies up to half of the natural gas that Israel currently uses to power its electrical plants, has emphasized to Israelis the dangers of relying on other sources for fuel.

Israel's Tamar field is said to contain about 8 trillion cubic meters of gas. In December, gas exploration companies led by U.S.-based Noble Energy announced that another deposit in Israeli waters, Leviathan, contained some 16 trillion cubic meters.

The finds — which Lebanon says, without providing proof, lie partly in Lebanese waters — are enough to keep Israel energy self-sufficient for decades, Israeli experts say.

"Israel needs to achieve security of energy supply. This is one of the most fundamental security and economic aspects of a country," said Gina Cohen, an electricity and gas industry consultant based in Israel.

The notion of energy independence is a radical shift for Israel, a country that has had to haul oil from Mexico and coal from South Africa because its oil-rich Arab neighbors won't sell it fuel.

The supply of gas from Egypt has always been dogged by fears that the flow could be disrupted by saboteurs or political forces hostile to the deal and Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the government had been prepared for the possible disruption of Egyptian supplies and arranged for other sources to compensate.

"Because of these advance preparations, no disruptions in the gas supply to Israel are expected," he said.

Power supplied by state-run Israel Electric Corp., overwhelmingly the largest client for natural gas in Israel, will not be affected by the Egyptian cutoff, Israeli officials said.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Nepal gets new leader, but future still jittery - Christian Science Monitor

Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepal got a functioning prime minister after seven months of leadership vacuum on Thursday, but analysts refused to call it a breakthrough and remained jittery about the future of the country’s stalled peace process.

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Jhala Nath Khanal, the chief of a moderate communist party, Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), was elevated to the post after 16 rounds of voting. He got last-minute backing from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which fought a 10-year war against state forces until 2006.

While a step forward after months of embarrassing votes, the formation of a government is just a small step toward political stability in Nepal, which confronts the serious challenges of settling the future of some 19,000 Maoist combatants and drawing up a new constitution. And analysts say that the new coalition threatens to cause a left-leaning polarization and an escalation of ambitions of the Maoists, who are now in a position to oust the new prime minister at will.

The previous government was backed by the moderate Nepali Congress party and several ethnic parties, making it less receptive to Maoist demands. Those demands include radical land reforms, subservience of the judiciary to the legislature, and a constitutional provision of banning "antinationalist’" political parties.

Mr. Kanal is considered far more sympathetic to Maoist agendas.

“The coalition might trigger a fragmentation in Nepal’s politics,” warns Yubaraj Ghimire, political commentator and former editor of the Kathmandu Post. “Depending on how the Maoists behave, a tussle between Nepal Army and democratic forces on the one side, and the ruling coalition on the other side, is possible,” he adds.

Others are even gloomier in their assessment.

“The only achievement of Thursday’s election is that the parliament replaced a caretaker prime minister with a functioning prime minister,” says Bhimarjun Acharya, a columnist and constitutional lawyer. “I don’t expect the formation of a new government to inject any momentum into the constitution writing effort."

The Nepali Congress party said on Friday that it felt betrayed by UML forming an alliance with the Maoists. The previous government was supported by the Nepali Congress, which had expected UML to support to their prime ministerial candidate.

The future of ex-combatants and a new constitution was supposed to have been resolved by last May. But a power struggle that has gripped the country since a special assembly was elected in April, 2008, hindered progress.

The assembly’s life was extended, and just four months remain before the extended deadline expires. A UN mission that was monitoring the combatants, who are corralled in 28 camps, left the country Jan. 15.

Mr. Acharya, the lawyer, terms Thursday’s surprise coalition announcement unnatural. “It was just an expression of anger and frustration of the Maoists. After being unable to gather support for getting elected himself, Maoist chairman Prachanda wanted to teach India a lesson by elevating someone not favored by India to power,” he says.

Prachanda admitted while addressing the parliament on Thursday that he had decided to withdraw his own candidacy and support Khanal to prove that Nepal can make its own decisions, a clear reference to Indian influence (often termed here as interference) in Nepal’s politics.

His support could complicate Khanal's ability to function. Khanal's UML party leadership is dominated by liberal communists who do not want to promote the Maoist agenda. Khanal will face the twin challenge of tempering the liberals in his own party and continuing to get support of the Maoist party.

Narayan Wagle, editor-in-chief of Nagarik, a leading Nepali daily, echoed similar concerns in an opinion piece published Friday. “The success of the new government will depend on whether the Maoists use Mr. Khanal as their puppet," he wrote, "or help him complete the peace process and constitution writing.”

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