NJ mom gives birth to child on train to NYC (AP)

NEW YORK ? A New Jersey woman got the morning commute of her life when she gave birth to her first child on a PATH commuter train to New York.

The 31-year-old woman, Rabita Sarkar, of Harrison, N.J., said she had started feeling contraction-like pains but didn't think they were real because her baby wasn't due yet. She and her 30-year-old husband decided to travel into the city to have her checked out Monday.

They didn't want to drive and decided to take the train from Harrison into the city instead, thinking they could then take a taxi to Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital, where her doctors are.

"It's just that this guy had other plans, and he came out earlier," Sarkar said as she held her infant son in her arms in the hospital. The couple declined to reveal the boy's name or due date.

It was on the train ride that Sarkar started feeling her pains come more quickly, and she told her husband to check what was happening to her. He looked and saw that his son's head had already started to come out.

With guidance from another woman on the train, her husband, identified in published reports as Aditya Saurabh, was able to deliver the baby around 10 a.m. Fellow riders offered encouragement, and the couple said one little girl offered her jacket to keep the baby warm.

PATH officials turned the train into an express, bypassing most stops so that it would get to its final stop, 33rd Street in midtown Manhattan, as soon as possible. Emergency services personnel met the train and took the family to the hospital.

The responding police officers said it wasn't unusual for women to give birth in facilities run by the Port Authority.

The biggest issue was the winter temperature, around 30 degrees outside, and making sure the baby was warm, Sgt. Mike Barry said.

"That's our biggest concern," he said. "We know that baby's body temperature is going to drop like a rock."

For one of the responding officers, delivering a baby in these circumstances was something familiar ? because it happened to him.

Officer Atiba Joseph-Cumberbatch said his son didn't want to wait, either, and came out early ? so Dad had to deliver him.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_us/us_train_baby_birth

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Airbus takes record orders in 2011, beating Boeing

An Emirates A380 plane is mirrored at the entrance of Airbus in Hamburg, Germany, Tuesday Jan 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapdPhilipp Guelland)

An Emirates A380 plane is mirrored at the entrance of Airbus in Hamburg, Germany, Tuesday Jan 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapdPhilipp Guelland)

CEO of Airbus Tom Enders listens to a journalist's question during a news conference in Hamburg, northern Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapd, Philipp Guelland)

CEO of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, Louis Gallois, left and CEO of Airbus Tom Enders, right, pose prior to a news conference in Hamburg, northern Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapd, Philipp Guelland)

CEO of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, Louis Gallois gestures during a news conference in Hamburg, northern Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapd, Philipp Guelland)

CEO of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, Louis Gallois, left, arrives for joint a news conference with CEO of Airbus Tom Enders, right, in Hamburg, northern Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best fierce U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running. (AP Photo/dapd, Philipp Guelland)

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) ? Airbus took in a record number of orders for new commercial aircraft last year as strong demand for its revamped single-aisle plane helped it best U.S. rival Boeing Co. in the race for orders for the fourth year running.

The European jet maker said Tuesday that it took in 1,419 net new orders in 2011, worth $140 billion, well above Boeing's total of 805 aircraft. That topped the previous record of 1,413 net orders recorded by Boeing in 2007.

Airbus also delivered 534 aircraft last year, up from 510 a year earlier and keeping the title of world's biggest jet maker that it has held since 2003. Boeing delivered 477 aircraft in 2011.

For this year, Airbus targets around 570 jet deliveries, including about 30 of its A380 super jumbo, the world's largest commercial jet.

Louis Gallois, the CEO of Airbus parent company EADS, said 2011 revenue will be "nicely above" the euro45.8 billion recorded in 2010. EADS reports its 2011 earnings in early March.

Gallois is due to retire in May but the EADS executive declined to comment on his succession plans. He spoke more freely about the ongoing European financial crisis, saying that the credit downgrades of nine European countries including France by rating agency Standard & Poor's last week "is only making things more complex."

"We need stronger and faster European coordination to solve the crisis," Gallois said. He offered up Airbus and EADS as an example for European leaders to draw on. "We are more than a symbol of European integration. We are the part of Europe that works," Gallois said.

That comment will possibly strike some observers as ironic, given the group's history of Franco-German management tensions and the difficult development of its A380 super jumbo, which was delayed by years and massively over budget due to engineering problems between the group's French and German work forces.

Airbus' recent success has been based on its revamped single aisle jet the A320neo.

It's a modified version of the existing workhorse jet, the A320, with improved engines and modified wingtips to make it allegedly 15 percent more fuel-efficient than Boeing's 737.

The plane will only start delivering in 2015 but Airbus is using it now to cash in on airlines' need to reduce sky-high fuel costs and cut carbon dioxide emissions.

The jet maker took in 1,226 net orders for the A320neo in 2011, including a single order for 200 of the aircraft worth $18.5 billion from Malaysian budget airline AirAsia.

Airbus' top salesman John Leahy said that the jet maker expects total orders to fall to between 600 and 650 aircraft this year, including the A320neo, after Boeing responded with a new version of its best-selling 737 model with a new engine, which it calls the 737 max.

Southwest Airlines Co. will be the first recipient of Boeing's new plane, representing the biggest firm order in the company's history by number of planes ? 208 ? and by list-price value, at nearly $19 billion.

Leahy cautioned that competition from Boeing's revamped 737 could unseat Airbus from its leadership in the orders race this year. After a market share of new orders of 64 percent last year, "in 2012 we will be down around 50 percent or probably lower than that," Leahy told reporters at the company's annual New Year's news conference.

Airbus is by far the largest part of EADS, which also encompasses the Astrium satellite builder and Cassidian defence electronics contractor. Troubles in developing and launching new aircraft programs like the A350 wide-body long-range jet and the A400M military transporter have squeezed the group's profitability for years, but Gallois promised improving results starting this year.

"We will see significantly better profitability as soon as 2012," Gallois said, thanks to Airbus efforts to get its troubled programs back on track. Higher deliveries, stronger pricing and cost savings across all of EADS' divisions will also help lift the group's profitability, Gallois said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-17-EU-Airbus-Orders/id-0e966abaaefa482c969d48ae47cc0f7c

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Video: Who will win big in New Hampshire?

>>> more now as voters flock to the poll in new hampshires. candidates have trying to make one last pitch by sniping at each other. ed, obviously, we know these negative campaigns work in iowa. they're really going after mitt romney in the last 48 hours . what's your take?

>> i think there's no question that the guy that has take tennessen the big here is mitt romney . now you have newt gingrich spending $3 million in south carolina for negative ads coming up over the next ten days. mitt romney better be ready for what's going to hit him in south carolina . i just visited with chairman of conservative hq. he's a big wig. they want one candidate. they don't want anybody with mitt romney . they want to see a coalescing between gingrich, perry and santorum . one of those three would be just fine, but it isn't going to happen before south carolina . this is be real interesting. second place doesn't matter that much to the conservatives.

>> i was speaking with trey gow gowdy. he's not a member of the tea party but he supports the tea party in a big way. gingrich and perry will stop in his district on their way to south carolina . that will be first stop. he claim he's spoken with all these tea party members that say we don't have to coalesce around one or two people. they're still feeling the audience out and if it's mitt romney then they will get behind mitt romney in an effort to defeat president obama . you buy that?

>> i'm not hearing a lot of that. the governor of south carolina , everybody is making a big deal about how she ? is supporting mitt romn romney . her approval rating is 50%. that's not a huge endorsement. plus, her administration has been plagued by a number of different scandals in her first year. something's going to have to come together for the conservatives in south carolina . what that is remains to be seen. here is the one thing about romney . if you're 2-0, you're 2-0. if you're undefeated going to south carolina . they will have to make the case nationally that we won the first two, we're going to win this thing. fall in line. this is another reason why romney 's crowd just spent $1.7 million. this big buy by newt gingrich is big. a second place by possibly newt gingrich . the latest poll you mentioned in the first half hour is something to look at. new hampshire may play into this big time . we'll see.

>> what's happened to rick santorsan t toe santorum ? i know you spent time with him.

>> the social issues don't play as well in new hampshire as they do in the middle of the country if he is get in the high teens and get a respectable third place finish, it will only help him in south carolina amends he and help him with the social conservatives . santorum , it surprises me he hasn't ? played better in new hampshire . maybe it's because of the resources or the horrible campaign week that he had. be way he's been con fronted on the campaign trail. he did not have a very good debate on saturday night in sunday he was a lot better on nbc. he's been somewhat of a disappointment in new hampshire , but he still has time to recover.

>> he's been m.i.a. in new hampshire . i don't think he has an event planned. his campaign says they got a million dollars in donation right after iowa in just three days. i want to transition you to this line of attack regarding bain capital . perry 's team had an app that you can go on and you would hear mitt romney say i like firing peop people. his folks say it was taken out of context. he was talking about firing someone when a company not provietding good health care . it's coming from republicans. many people are saying the republicans have given a gift to president obama and he will deliver it straight to mitt romney if he secures the gop nomination.

>> we're the perfect people to explain what mitt romney is going through right now. sometimes in the media, we say something and you have to come back and explain it. for a politician, that's not a good place to be especially when you've got heated competition. you know they will jump on a certain line. the bad thing about that line, tamron, is there's a track record of him firing people that goes long with that? comment. it's easily picked up and re regurgita regurgitated. now can he be on the campaign trail so long and not have the political moxy to understand what he's saying in the moment. he wasn't smart enough to clarify. don't make a polimistake of what i'm saying here. he just said it so off the cuff that it didn't matter if people got fired. the way it's being interpreted leaves a gray area . it will the be a question mark for a lot of voters moving forward.

>> all right. i know you have a lot going on. thanks for joining us. greatly appreciate it.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/45946180/

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Overheard At CES: Magic Numpad Edition [Overheard At CES]

"They're basically selling transparent paper." More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/fI1es9Y79lM/overheard-at-ces-magic-numpad-edition

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GM, Ford Gain in China

January 10, 2012, 3:12 AM EST

By Bloomberg News

(Adds comment from GM executive in sixth paragraph.)

Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. reported record car sales in China last year, outpacing Japanese rivals hurt by production disruptions from the March 11 earthquake and Thailand?s floods.

Deliveries to Chinese dealers climbed 8.3 percent from a year earlier to 2.55 million vehicles, Detroit-based GM said in a statement yesterday. Ford said its sales grew 7 percent to 519,390 units. Toyota Motor Corp., Japan?s biggest carmaker, said last week that China sales rose last year at the slowest pace since at least 2004 and Honda Motor Co. yesterday reported its first ever annual decline in deliveries in the country.

GM, which received a $50 billion bailout from the U.S. government in 2009, sold an average of one car or truck every 12 seconds in the world?s largest car market last year as it started a five-year rollout of more than 60 new and upgraded models in China. Japan?s earthquake and tsunami affected suppliers for many Japanese automakers, with many also shutting plants in Thailand after the worst flooding in almost 70 years.

?It?s clear that Detroit is undergoing a resurgence even as the Japanese automakers grapple with a terrible 2011,? Ashvin Chotai, London-based managing director for Intelligence Automotive Asia, said in a telephone interview. ?In China, GM and Ford have been fairly aggressive with new models.?

China Sales

Industrywide deliveries for 2011 may have risen 3 percent to 5 percent, the least in 13 years, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which is scheduled to release annual figures this week. Sales growth slowed after the central bank raised borrowing costs to tackle inflation and the government phased out subsidies, rebates and a sales tax break on vehicle purchases.

GM expects growth in China this year to be similar to last year because the company has ?a lot of of launches,? Tim Lee, president of international operations, said today during an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Changes made by the government to influence automotive investment in China will probably be ?no big deal,? he said.

Last month, China said it will end a seven-year policy to encourage foreign investment in the automotive manufacturing industry on Jan. 30 to allow for ?healthy development.? The announcement comes two weeks after the country said it would impose anti-dumping duties on some vehicles imported from the U.S. after failing to block a U.S. tariff on Chinese tires.

Regaining Lead

The record China deliveries for the American carmakers add to the best year for U.S. industry auto sales since 2008, when GM and Chrysler Group LLC sought U.S. bailouts. GM, Ford and Chrysler all gained share in 2011, ending the year controlling a combined 47.1 percent of the U.S. market, up from 45.2 percent in 2010, according to Autodata Corp., a Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based research company.

GM also reclaimed the top spot in world vehicle sales from Toyota last year, which it fumbled away to the Japanese carmaker in 2008 as the Detroit giant careened toward bankruptcy.

The George W. Bush administration provided GM with cash, starting with $4 billion on Dec. 31, 2008, that kept the automaker solvent until the Obama administration could manage the 2009 bankruptcy.

GM?s stock has risen 13 percent this year in New York trading, compared with an 8.8 percent gain for Ford. Toyota has advanced 2.9 percent in Tokyo trading, while Honda?s shares are up 4.5 percent.

Doubling Deliveries

In China, GM aims to double deliveries to 5 million units by 2015, and plans to focus on expanding its luxury car brand Cadillac and its sport-utility vehicle lineup.

Shanghai GM, the U.S. carmaker?s sedan venture with SAIC Motor Corp. that produces Buick and Chevrolet-brand cars, boosted full-year sales 16 percent to 1.2 million vehicles. In 2010, GM sales in China climbed 29 percent to 2.35 million units.

?GM stayed ahead of the competition despite a slowdown in the growth of industry demand thanks to our broad portfolio of appealing vehicles,? Kevin Wale, GM?s China president, said in a statement.

In response to slowing demand for mini commercial vehicles, GM cut the price of its Wuling Sunshine light trucks, which retail at about $4,400, from May. The automaker also rolled out its local sedan brand Baojun to target first-time buyers in inland provinces and less developed cities.

Ford, which is adding four new plants in China with its partners, posted a 25 percent increase in sales of its Mondeo sedan last year, while deliveries of the Focus hatchback rose 10 percent in the country, according to a company statement. Sales at Jiangling Motors Corp., its commercial vehicle venture, rose 9 percent to 194,588 units in 2011.

?Sustainable Growth?

?Ford is on track to deliver on its promise to bring 15 new vehicles to China by 2015,? David Schoch, chairman and chief executive officer of Ford Motor China, said in the statement. ?Ford expects sustainable growth moving forward in China.?

Honda?s sales in China fell 4.5 percent last year to 617,764 units, the company said in a statement. The March earthquake in Japan resulted in a parts shortage that affected production in China, Zhu Linjie, a Beijing-based spokesman for the carmaker, said by telephone.

?The Americans capitalized on the setbacks suffered from the supply constraints of the Japanese and also benefited from the growing strength of their brand,? said Michael Dunne, head of Dunne & Co., a Hong Kong-based industry researcher.

--Liza Lin, with assistance from Siddharth Philip in Mumbai and Tim Higgins in Detroit. Editors: Chua Kong Ho, John Liu

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Liza Lin in Shanghai at llin15@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net

Source: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/xxhapPfBWzo/gm-leads-u-s-carmaker-gains-in-china-as-honda-sales-fall.html

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Orange power: Ford's attire helps inspire Cowboys win

---

OU blog: The final score might not reflect it, but this was a bad Bedlam loss for the Sooners.

Related Stories:

Bedlam: Sooners discouraged by effort, cold shooting

OU Basketball Notebook: Blair a bright spot

Bill Haisten's Big 12 Insider

OSU Basketball Notebook: Jacket-ology

---

Travis Ford wore the blazer Monday night to honor the memory of Kurt Budke, the OSU women's basketball coach who died in a plane crash last November.

Budke created a stir when he donned an orange blazer for a women's Bedlam game in 2008. On the night he made the fashion statement, his team ambushed a sixth-ranked OU team in Stillwater.

Ford told his players that story before tipoff and asked them to represent OSU in the right way.

"It was a special moment," senior guard Keiton Page said. "We were all pretty excited about it."

Then players made certain Ford was dressed for success, playing aggressively and leading almost from start to finish in a 72-65 OSU triumph. After the game, Ford said Budke's widow, Shelley, was brought into the locker room so she could be presented with a game ball.

Le'Bryan Nash, challenged by coaches to show the kind of athleticism that permitted him to win the slam dunk contest at the McDonald's All-America game, matched a career-high with 21 points in his Bedlam debut.

Only two OSU players (Keiton Page, Markel Brown) had ever played in a Bedlam game, so Ford had to get his team up to speed about the importance of the rivalry. Nash should have known plenty about it since he is the younger brother of former Cowboy point guard Byron Eaton.

And, staying with the brother subject, Nash said this: "You don't want to be the little brother (in a rivalry), so we came out here and played hard."

OSU (9-7, 2-1 in Big 12) led by 10 points midway through the first half and pushed the margin to 13 at halftime and to 17 in the second half.

It was accomplished with a combination of the usual (solid defense) and unusual (efficient offense).

In three Big 12 games this season, the Cowboys allowed opponents to shoot 39.6 percent (Texas Tech), 30 percent (Texas) and 32.4 percent (OU).

"(Defense) is something we take a lot of pride in," Ford said.

"In the past it has gotten overlooked. It's not now because we can't score. Everybody used to think all I did was offense and my teams have always scored a whole lot of points. ... But, the people who know us, we probably spend 70 or 80 percent of our time on defense every day. Our offense shows that at this point."

Ford said his team's offensive spacing was poor in a Saturday loss at Texas. His staff tweaked some things and it resulted in more cutting, 13 assists (third-highest total this season) and enough drives to the basket to help the Cowboys go to the free throw line 30 times (second-highest total this season).

OSU cracked the 70-point barrier for the first time in eight games. But the Cowboys' last field goal came with 7:20 remaining and OU rallied to get as close as five points with 33.7 seconds left.

Cezar Guerrero, Brian Williams (who finished with 13 points) and Page (who scored 18) combined to go 6-of-6 at the free-throw line to seal Ford's 50th homecourt win.

OU dropped to 10-5 and 0-3 despite getting 18 points each from Carl Blair and Romero Osby.

---

For more

OU players, coaches question the Sooners' effort. B4

OU notes: Reserve guard Carl Blair a rare bright spot. B4

OSU notes: Public address announcer loans Ford a blazer. B4

---

OU up next

vs. Kansas State

12:30 p.m. Saturday

Noble Center, Norman

TV: KTUL-8

Radio: KTBZ am1430

OSU up next

at Baylor

4 p.m. Saturday

Ferrell Center, Waco, Texas

TV: ESPN2-26

Radio: KFAQ am1170

Original Print Headline: Orange power

---

Jimmie Tramel 918-581-8389
jimmie.tramel@tulsaworld.com

Source: http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/articlepath.aspx?articleid=20120110_93_B1_CUTLIN896025&rss_lnk=2

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Afghanistan signs oil contract with Chinese giant

Home ? World News ? Afghanistan

By John Chan
10 January 2012

China?s state-owned National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a $700 million oil exploration contract with the Afghan government last week, the first foreign company to do so in many decades. Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani hailed the deal as ?historic,? saying it was ?the first time that Afghanistan has signed a great contract for the country?s oil exploration.?

The agreement will intensify geopolitical rivalries in Central Asia as the major powers compete for access to vast mineral and energy resources. It will draw Beijing closer into conflict with the ongoing US-led occupation of Afghanistan, as well as with China?s regional rival, India.

The CNPC will form a joint venture with Afghan partner Watan Group in the northern provinces of Sar-e Pul and Faryab to drill three oil blocks in the Amu Darya Basin. First surveyed by Soviet geologists in the 1960s, the basin has proven reserves of 87 million barrels of oil, although both the Chinese and Afghan sides believe that the actual deposits are much larger. In total, Afghanistan is estimated to have some 1.6 billion barrels of oil.

The project is expected to pay Kabul $5 billion over 10 years, with 70 percent of profits from oil and gas sales going to the Afghan government. In addition, the CNPC will pay 15 percent royalties, 30 percent corporate taxes and rents for using Afghan land.

The CNPC?s terms were considerably more generous than rival bidders such as British Tethys Petroleum, which said it was unable to compete with the Chinese corporation, because ?it is the representative of a government and it was able to offer terms that were non-commercial.?

The CNPC?s primary aim is to ensure oil supplies to China. The three oil blocks are only 640 kilometres from the border of China?s western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a staging base for Chinese companies to build pipelines throughout Central Asia.

With the backing of cash-rich state banks, other Chinese companies are pushing into Afghanistan, which according to a survey by Pentagon in 2010, holds mineral resources worth $1 trillion, including oil, copper, gold and lithium.

In 2007, the 44 percent state-owned China Metallurgical Group (CMG) paid $2.9 billion?the largest foreign investment in Afghan history?for the Mes Aynak copper mine, in Logar Province. The price was 70 percent higher than that offered by the second-placed bidder, Canada?s Hunter Dickinson Inc. Moreover, the CMG offered a 400-megawatt power plant, a coal mine to fuel it and a smelter for the copper, plus an 800-kilometre rail line, bringing the total investment to $3.5 billion. The Afghan government allocated 1,500 National Police officers to guard the mine.

The US has tacitly allowed China to establish a presence in Afghanistan, largely because such investments could improve the financial self-sufficiency. At present, 90 percent of Afghan government spending depends on foreign aid. After the Aynak copper mine deal, Taliban insurgents stepped up their activities in Logar province, prompting the US to send 2,000 troops to the region.

Because of the unstable security situation, progress on Chinese investment projects has been slow over the past few years. As a result, China is completely dependent on the US and allied forces to provide protection, which could change if relations with Washington worsen.

In 2001, China implicitly supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in the name of the ?war on terror,? in the hope that it would stifle the Islamic fundamentalists connected to separatist tendencies among Xinjiang?s Muslim minorities. However, China and Russia oppose a protracted US military presence in their ?backyard??a key strategic energy-rich region in the Eurasian heartland. In 2001, Beijing and Moscow also formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) with four Central Asian republics, purportedly to combat ?terrorism, extremism and separatism,? while in fact seeking to counter the US. The SCO has conducted joint military exercises in recent years.

A section of the US ruling elite has been critical of allowing Chinese corporations to ?freeload? in Afghanistan, relying on American military protection. Strategic commentator Robert D. Kaplan wrote in 2009: ?The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America?s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit.?

Kaplan also argues for US dominance over the Indian Ocean, so as to be able to cut off China?s shipping lanes for oil and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa. In order to respond to the threat of such a US naval blockade, China is seeking to expand access to oil and gas in Central Asia and the Middle East via land routes

China?s ?construction? assistance to Kabul of $200 million since 2001 is dwarfed by India?s $1.3 billion in aid, making New Delhi the biggest donor. Washington has backed India?s growing influence in Afghanistan, because India occupies an increasingly crucial position in Washington?s strategic calculations as a counterweight to China.

With Washington?s backing, India and Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership agreement last October. The pact will ensure that New Delhi plays a major role in safeguarding American interests in Afghanistan after the formal NATO withdrawal in 2014, paving the way for India to train and equip Afghan security forces.

Within weeks of signing the security agreement, Kabul granted rights to an Indian government-backed steel consortium to develop the Hajigak iron ore deposit between the Bamyan and Wardak provinces. With 1.8 billion metric tonnes of reserves, it is Asia?s largest untapped iron ore deposit. The consortium plans to spend $11 billion to develop the mine, including the construction of a steel mill, power plant and transport links. The group also proposes to build a 900-kilometre railway line from Bamyan to Zahedan, across the border in Iran, at a cost of $4.3 billion, from where ore will be transported back to India.

India?s growing presence in Afghanistan is fuelling tensions with its neighbouring rival Pakistan, as well as with China. India?s press last week revealed a supposedly ?secret? intelligence report warning that China, Islamabad?s key ally, plans to use or build military bases in northern Pakistan.

China?s quest to secure access to Afghanistan?s untapped oil resources will intensify the scramble for control over Central Asia. Given the reckless US escalation of what has become the AfPak war, the rivalry could evolve into a far more dangerous conflagration.

Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/afch-j10.shtml

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