South China Sea contains oil reserves that may total as much as 213 billion barrels

A Philippine warship is in a standoff in the South China Sea with Chinese vessels after they blocked the arrest of Chinese fishermen in the disputed waters.

Philippine personnel attempting to arrest fishermen aboard eight boats on the Scarborough Shoal were blocked by two Chinese surveillance ships, the foreign affairs department in Manila said in an e-mailed statement today. The Philippines summoned the Chinese envoy in Manila to seek a “diplomatic solution,” it said.

The latest tension follows a push by the Philippines for Southeast Asian nations to take a common position regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China used patrol boats last year to disrupt hydrocarbon survey activities in waters it claims, chasing away a ship working for Forum Energy Plc (FEP) off the Philippines and slicing cables of a survey vessel doing work for Vietnam.

The Chinese fishermen were first spotted in the area on April 8, according to the Philippine statement, which referred to the waters as “an integral part of Philippine territory.” Philippine Foreign Affairs SecretaryAlbert del Rosario asked China’s ambassador in Manila, Ma Keqing, to discuss the issue this morning, the statement said.

The South China Sea contains oil reserves that may total as much as 213 billion barrels, according to Chinese studies cited in 2008 by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. The Philippines said in January it’s ready to host a summit to help resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

The Scarborough Shoal is within the Philippines’ 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, today’s statement said.

US Coal Exports to China & India => you can feel it

Although the government's message about squeezing coal out of U.S. electricity production is loud and clear, coal producers will be able to ship their product abroad.

Even now, Congress is hinting at banning U.S. natural gas exports. They want to keep prices as low as possible for as long as they can — and that means limiting future LNG shipments.

Leading edge Carbon Capture Technology ..... U guessed it => Brought to you by China!!!

See the nice thing about being an Agnostic State like China is your politicians don't waste time and money talking about make believe friends and instead focus on real issues like ... hhmmmmm ... Climate Change!!!

It’s a tantalizing promise that one day “carbon capture” will remove greenhouse gases from the smoke made by coal-fired power plants. After all, these plants, which provide 45 percent of electricity in the U.S., account for more than a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. 

Small-scale experiments have been successful enough that, at this point, engineers have little doubt the technology can work. Yet efforts in the U.S. to advance it are stalled. What was to have been the nation’s first commercial-scale project -- at Mountaineer, a coal-burning electricity plant in New Haven, West Virginia -- has been put on hold.

Meanwhile, in China, carbon capture marches steadfastly ahead, as an article in the May issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine reports. A pilot project by China Huaneng Group Corp. has been able to remove carbon from coal-plant exhaust for about $39 per ton of captured CO2, which is a little more than a third of what it costs in the U.S. 

The work has been so impressive, as John Lippert and Chua Baizhen report, that Duke Energy Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, has signed a research agreement with Huaneng to study its technology. Duke wants to learn how much it would cost to retrofit its largest power plant, in Gibson County, Indiana, to capture carbon.

Hong Kong....time for a great leap forward => Democracy

Leung Chun-ying, a former property surveyor, pledged to address Hong Kong’s wealth gap and demands for universal suffrage as the city’s next chief executive after winning a poll in which only one in 5,900 people could vote. 

A 1,193-member panel of Hong Kong billionaires, academics and professionals chose Leung over two other candidates to lead the city for the next five years. Crowds outside the election venue protested the lack of democracy in the former British colony, with one waving the colonial-era flag and others holding signs opposing China’s ruling Communist Party. 

Leung, 57, will help shape the city’s economy and relationship with China through 2017, when Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kong to elect its own leaders. He must also address anger over rising living costs spawned by an influx of money from mainland China and surging property prices that have made Hong Kong the world’s most expensive place to buy a home. 

“Rule of law, human rights, integrity, lack of corruption and press freedom are all part of our life,” Leung told reporters after his selection. “This election has helped build a foundation for universal suffrage in 2017.”

It’s the greatest transfer of wealth in history

In November, 14 U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report describing a far-reaching industrial espionage campaign by Chinese spy agencies.

This campaign has been in the works for years and targets a swath of industries: biotechnology, telecommunications, and nanotechnology, as well as clean energy. One U.S. metallurgical company lost technology to China’s hackers that cost $1 billion and 20 years to develop, U.S. officials said last year. An Apple Inc. (AAPL) global supply manager pled guilty in 2011 to funneling designs and pricing information to China and other countries; a Ford Motor Co. (F) engineer was sentenced to six years in prison in 2010 for trying to smuggle 4,000 documents, including design specs, to China. Earlier this month, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration told Congress that China-based hackers had gained access to sensitive files stored on computers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As the toll adds up, political leaders and intelligence officials in the U.S. and Europe are coming to a disturbing conclusion: Fighting fair, expecting intellectual property rights to be honored is a farce; the time is now to simply write source code that if cloned will create time delayed death viruses to the perpetrators.  In essence a security system.

Another good reason why keeping jobs and technology at home is much like having your own military = certain things your outsource at your own peril.

Weaker Yuan = cheaper stuff for USA-EU = lower inflation = growth (or something like that)

China’s economic growth slowed in the first two months of the year, with both exports and domestic demand moderating faster than analysts had forecast, building the case for Premier Wen Jiabao to accelerate stimulus measures.

The world’s second-largest economy had the biggest trade deficit last month in at least 22 years, the weakest January- February factory-production gain since 2009 and retail sales below the median economist estimate, government data showed March 9 and 10.

Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said today that the nation has large scope in theory for lowering banks’ reserve requirements, and the yuan tumbled after officials weakened the reference rate. Moderating inflation and Europe’s faltering export demand may encourage the government to loosen credit and pause on currency gains, with the yuan down 0.5 percent this year against the dollar after climbing 4.5 percent in 2011.
“We are likely to see another cut sometime soon” in the required-reserves ratio, Brian Jackson, a Hong Kong-based economist with Royal Bank of Canada, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “If you look at the January and February numbers combined, whether it’s trade, whether it’s industrial production, it all shows a pretty clear picture of things continuing to slow down since the start of the year.”

The yuan fell 0.2 percent to 6.3239 as of 12:11 p.m. in Shanghai, the biggest decline since Jan. 20, after the central bank weakened the daily reference rate by the most since August 2010. The MSCI Asia Pacific index of stocks fell 0.6 percent as of 2:20 p.m. in Tokyo.

growth!!!!

Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada -- the states that were most hurt in the real estate collapse over the past five years -- are now leading the U.S. labor market expansion.

Copper Imports

Imports of copper by China last month were the second- highest on record, the data showed, after the weeklong holiday slowed customs clearance in January. 

Net crude oil imports increased to a record to meet rising demand as farmers prepare for the planting season and the government adds to emergency stockpiles. The average price of February’s crude imports was $112.39 a barrel, up from $92.28 in the same month last year, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Wen, in his state-of-the-nation work report to lawmakers at the National People’s Congress this week, said the government will “carry out timely and appropriate anticipatory adjustments and fine-tuning” of fiscal and monetary policies.

‘Powerful Recovery’

“The powerful recovery in earnings thus far has allowed market averages to rise without pushing the P/E higher,” David Joy, the Boston-based chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial Inc., said in a Feb. 21 e-mail. His firm oversees $600 billion. “Many investors are either not convinced that this price rally and earnings recovery are for real, or they simply do not care, having been burned too badly in the downturn.”
U.S. gross domestic product expanded an average 2.4 percent a quarter in the 2 1/2 years since the recession ended in 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The world’s largest economy hasn’t had a smaller post-recession recovery rate since at least the 1940s, the data show. In the 2003 bull market, GDP rose 2.7 percent on average, before the S&P 500 surged 102 percent. For the 1982 rally, the rate was 5.7 percent. Equities more than tripled in that cycle.

China is on Board...and now to Russia....

China backs international efforts to send humanitarian aid to Syria, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said, after Western powers proposed a United Nations resolution authorizing humanitarian aid. 

It was not clear whether Yang's remarks mean China will consider the proposed new U. N. Security Council resolution. China is one of the five permanent members of the Council which have the power to veto such resolutions. 

"The pressing task now is for all sides to cease violence in the Syrian conflict, and to launch as soon as possible inclusive political dialogue and together deliberate on a reform plan," Yang told Elaraby, who has previously said Beijing's veto lost it diplomatic credit in the Arab world. 

"The international community should create conditions for this, and extend humanitarian aid to Syria," added Yang.

Those Countries with a Natural Gas advantage WIN!!!

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA)’s $1.6 billion bid for Cove Energy Plc (COV) starts a race to develop natural-gas fields off Mozambique’s Indian Ocean coast that may hold more gas than Norway’s entire reserves.

Winning Cove would give Shell an 8.5 percent stake in a block where Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) has found 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. Italy’s Eni SpA (ENI) has discovered even more in a neighboring area. Together, there’s sufficient fuel for the development of two $20 billion liquefied natural gas plants to supply customers in Asia, according to Deutsche Bank AG.

“We’re a natural partner in that project,” Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said in an interview in The Hague yesterday. “We are the global leader in LNG, so this is an interesting province for us to actually further grow.”

East Africa’s fields offer a fresh source of gas supply for China and India, the world’s fastest-growing major economies. Demand for LNG in Asia is rising at almost 20 percent a year, outstripping the pace of production growth, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Prices in the region reached a record in November.
Shell won’t be the last company looking for a way into Mozambique. India’s Oil & Natural Gas (ONGC) Corp. was among Asian producers considering a bid for Cove and a counter-offer remains possible. At the same time, Eni and Anadarko have both said they’re willing to sell stakes in their discoveries.

Isn't it amazing what a country that saves and produces can do to stimulate its economy and the world => China (who btw didn't bring us the sub-prime crisis...)

European equity futures climbed, the euro advanced to a two-month high against the yen and commodities rallied as China said it will help Europe resolve the debt crisis. 

Asian stocks jumped the most in four weeks.

Euro Stoxx 50 Index futures added 0.8 percent as of 7:02 a.m. in London. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) advanced 1.8 percent and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures added 0.5 percent. German 10-year bund yields rose two basis points to 1.92 percent. The euro climbed 0.4 percent against the yen. Copper snapped a three-day losing streak, rising 0.7 percent. Oil increased 0.8 percent to $101.56 a barrel.
China, which holds the world’s largest currency reserves, can provide help through avenues including the central bank and its sovereign wealth fund, said People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan. The nation is willing to get “more deeply” involved in helping Europe deal with its debt crisis, Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday. The leaders of Greece’s two biggest political parties will provide written commitments to budget cuts, according to a government official in Athens.

“China could make Europe’s problems go away,” said Peter Jolly, head of market research at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Sydney. “They have the funds. To the extent that China will participate in the European solution, it takes away some of the flight to quality in Treasuries.”

al-Assad must go! NOW

The U.S. will “redouble efforts”and work with “partners outside the United Nations” to put“immense pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end bloodshed and step down, after the U.N. Security Council failed to deliver global condemnation of Syria giving the regime room to continue its 11-month crackdown on protesters, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Sofia today.

Even bacteria don't poop where they eat and drink...

A southern Chinese city contained a toxic metal spill that threatened water supplies for 1.5 million people and contaminated a tributary feeding rivers that run to Hong Kong and Macau. 

Crews in the city of Liuzhou used ships to spread canvas across the Longjiang River and stop the cadmium, China National Radio reported today. Tests done at 6 p.m. yesterday at Liuzhou’s water plants met national standards, it said.

The cadmium spill, first detected Jan. 15, killed fish and prompted panic buying of bottled water, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. Authorities dumped hundreds of tons of chemicals into the river to neutralize the cadmium, according to Xinhua.

Any cadmium in the water will be “greatly diluted” by bigger rivers and reservoirs downstream and levels of the metal won’t exceed safety standards in neighboring Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macau, China National Radio reported yesterday, citing Xu Zhencheng, a researcher involved in the spill cleanup.

Cadmium, used in batteries and paint pigments, may cause kidney dysfunction and cancer, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Liuzhou is prepared to discharge water from upstream reservoirs to help dilute the metal, today’s radio report said, citing Gan Jinglin, the city’s director of environmental protection.
Tests conducted Sunday evening found that cadmium concentrations at the Liuxi water plant were 0.0046 milligrams per liter, within national standards, the radio report said, citing local authorities.

Liuzhou may stop drawing water from the river and use reserve and ground water instead if the level of cadmium reaches double the normal rate, China National Radio said, citing Liuzhou Mayor Zheng Junkang.
All seven heavy-metal production plants located upstream have suspended operation in order to curb potential sources of pollution.

The Year of the Black Water Dragon brings a new province to China….Canada!

The value of Western Canadian crude is depressed for two reasons - so much oilsands production was being moved into the U.S. Midwest it forced down prices compared to WTI and the Keystone XL is the Spruce Goose of the 21^st Century splashed down for good. This "double discount" from world prices is costing oil companies and governments in Canada billions annually.

So goes the news for Canadian Natural Gas and shale gas.  On the convention al side FD&A costs more than $12/boe will make you unprofitable for the next decade and not to mention the creeping environmental litigation that will manifest itself as workers exposed to conditions the Canadian government didn’t protect them from produces its generation of early onset cancers and other terminal illnesses.  The forecast for natural gas for the next decade is likely to hold between USD $ 3-4 mmbtu (we’re at about USD $2.54 mmbtu).

Public discord over Drilling's fractured future is mounting an offensive: Growing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) erupted in 2011 with moratoriums now in place in Quebec and jurisdictions around the world. Using high-pressured, chemicallaced water and sand boosted North American gas production so much it's driven prices to uneconomic levels. Calgary's Encana Corp. found itself caught up in the issue late in the year when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency linked fracking to water issues in one Wyoming village.

Enter China's resourcefulness in Canada: China's state oil companies are buying up Canadian oil, natural gas and pipeline assets like never before. It's provided greater impetus for better oil and gas pipeline links to the Pacific Rim. Regulators approved a project by Athabasca Oil Sands Inc., which is controlled by PetroChina, whose $5.4-billion deal with Encana in the Horn River Basin collapsed earlier in the year. In October, Sinopec added to a position in Syncrude Canada, paying $2.2 billion for Daylight Energy. There are billions more invested in companies like OPTI, MEG Energy and Penn West Energy from a variety of firms ultimately accountable to the Beijing government. 

Canadian Bad business ethics will bring forward more of the corrupt to trial shortly: The dollars were bigger when Niko Resources was fined $9.5 million in June for paying bribes to a government official in Bangladesh in 2005, but Alberta Securities Commission's rulings against two Calgary investment firms, Concrete Equities Inc. and Wealthstreet Inc. this fall was signally the fate for many during 2012! The ASC ruled four principals with Concrete Equities "illegitimately" raised nearly $120 million from investors in 2009. One of the four, David Jones, who promoted investments regularly on local TV and radio, was also ruled to have illegally traded securities through Wealthstreet and was levied a $1.5-million penalty. Penalties in the case of Concrete, described by the ASC as "an accident waiting to happen," haven't yet been announced.

Suncor Energy: Two years after creating Canada's biggest oil and gas company with the takeover of Petro-Canada, Suncor Energy found itself caught up in the violence of the Arab Spring more than any other Calgary company. Suncor had to write down $514 million in Libya early in the year given the uprising that brought down dictator Moammar Gadhafi before returning in December just as it pulled out of Syria amid growing violence against the Assad regime. In addition, if the geopolitical challenges weren't enough, CEO Rick George announced his retirement.

TransAlta admitted in November it manipulated electricity prices a year earlier. After approving the Heartland power line, a critical decision is looming on whether to proceed with one or both controversial north-south power lines to be funded by billions of ratepayer dollars.

A lot of strong stories - notably the battle on the board of directors at both Canadian Pacific and grain-handler Viterra Inc. - didn't make the list and will largely play out this year.

Euro must survive or the USA fails then China fails and so forth.....but its still fun to trade around!!!

Refined-copper imports by China climbed to the highest since June 2009 last month, the General Administration of Customs said Dec. 21. Global oil demand will rise 1.4 percent next year, with China accounting for more than a 10th of the total, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

2011 the year governments woke up to the good money in oil spills!!! (oh yeah and they're bad for the environment/community too)

Brazil’s threatened indictment of Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Transocean Ltd. (RIG) executives after offshore oil leaks shows that regulators from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean are stepping up scrutiny after BP Plc’s 2010 disaster.



Brazilian authorities have said they may prosecute employees, shut operations and exact more than $10 billion in fines after the leaks at the Frade field 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The spill occurred 19 months after an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and triggered the biggest offshore U.S. oil spill.

Governments around the world are paying closer attention to how energy explorers drill into high-pressure deposits of crude and natural gas as much as 8 miles beneath the sea surface. Chevron’s Brazil incident took place after a ConocoPhillips (COP) leak in China and prior to what may be Nigeria’s biggest spill in a decade at a Royal Dutch Shell Plc facility.


“There’s been just such a rash of them that governments have got to act tough” with oil companies, Allen Brooks, a managing director at energy-investment bank PPHB LP in Houston and Chevron shareholder, said in a phone interview. Since the BP accident “every spill after that is heightened in terms of media attention and obviously government concern.”


ConocoPhillips was criticized by the People’s Daily, China’s Communist Party newspaper, for “negligence, cover-ups and cheating” in its handling of a June leak in Bohai Bay. Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a “thorough” investigation in September.

In Nigeria, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) shut its 200,000 barrel-a-day Bonga field this week after a tanker-loading accident caused less than 40,000 barrels of crude to leak.

A Financially Inclusive World...you may call us dreamers but we're not the only ones....come and join us!!!

Letter from the CEO of ACCION:


Fifty years ago this year, ACCION was founded on the belief that we can create a better world by helping people to help themselves. Half a century later, we continue to fulfill this mission by providing high-quality, affordable financial services with dignity to those who need it most – those living in poverty.



Our vision is to build a financially inclusive world with access to economic opportunity for all. Over the last year, your support has enabled us to advance our mission and vision in many ways, including the provision of loans and other key financial services to millions.


Despite this progress, more than 2.7 billion people remain excluded from the world’s financial systems and the opportunity such access can create. With your support we can continue to bridge this gap, bringing life-changing microfinance services to the poor.

This year, ACCION made significant progress in all three of our strategic focus areas.


First, we are building the next generation of top-tier microfinance institutions – enabling these institutions to deliver a range of high-quality, affordable financial services. Highlights include:

• Inaugurating ACCION Microfinanças in Brazil, in June – a new MFI in the heart of the Amazon, where half of the region’s 14 million inhabitants live in poverty.

• Creating microfinance services for rural clients in Latin America through a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank. Over 130,000 clients in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador have already been reached with rural credit products. Micro-savings programs that help clients recover from natural disasters and other unexpected events have been rolled out in Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
• Building and strengthening EB-ACCION Microfinance, a new microfinance institution in Cameroon, where more than 65 percent of the actively employed population lacks access to any form of secure, financial services.

• Providing secure savings accounts for more than 250,000 low-income people served by our partners in Tanzania, Nigeria and Cameroon, and proudly recognizing the achievement of both ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB) in Nigeria as ‘Microfinance Bank of the Year,' and EB-ACCION Savings and Loans in Ghana as African Banker’s ‘Microfinance Institution/Project of the Year 2011.’

• Strengthening our pioneering microfinance work in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China through partnership with the International Finance Corporation.

• Redoubling our commitment to the future of Indian microfinance, through equity investments and guarantees for our Mumbai- and Bihar-based partners, Swadhaar and Saija.

• Increasing opportunity here at home by working ever more closely with the ACCION U.S. Network – the largest microlending network in the country. Since inception, the Network has extended more than $300 million in small, working-capital loans.

• Continuing to explore un-served and underserved countries and regions of the world, such as Kenya, the Philippines, Pakistan and beyond, where our management, investment and governance skills can help foster financial inclusion.

Second, we are fueling innovation in financial inclusion, providing funding and technical assistance to promising start-ups and sustainable technologies beyond MFIs that serve people at the bottom of the pyramid:

• ACCION’s Frontier Investments Group continued to invest in ground-breaking financial services this year, such as mobile payments in Zambia, cashless payments in Peru, and a new technology services company in India staffed by people with disabilities.

• We are developing plans for the launch of a new venture capital fund that will provide patient capital to very small start-ups whose experimental but promising business models could catalyze the next leap in financial inclusion.

Third, we are proud to report that your support is helping us to build a strong microfinance industry with the highest possible standards:

• Through the Smart Campaign, ACCION’s Center for Financial Inclusion is helping to direct the industry’s first-ever, global consumer-protection initiative. With over 2,400 signatories serving more than 40 million clients in 130 countries, the Campaign is helping to ensure quality delivery of services, worldwide.

• We are helping to build industry capacity at training centers in India, Ghana and China, and in the last three years have taught more than 3,000 industry professionals new skills for delivering high-quality services.

• We continue to publish leading-edge, thought-provoking research on the industry, such as the recent reports on the state of client protection, and ‘opportunities and obstacles’ to financial inclusion.

• And we are expanding our collaboration with other industry leaders, including the ACCION Network of partners in Latin America and a working group of microfinance organization CEOs, on a common agenda to address key industry challenges. Our goal is to redouble the industry’s commitment to consumer protection, pricing transparency and meaningful measurement of social impact.

ACCION’s work has helped the microfinance industry to grow by orders of magnitude – from reaching tens of thousands of the world’s poor a few decades ago, to approximately 200 million today. Yet we know that much more remains to be done. That is why we are asking you for your continued support for our work around the globe.

As we look ahead to our next 50 years, we renew our pledge to build a truly financially inclusive world, where all of society can benefit from all that society offers. Thank you again for your participation. It has already made a difference; together, we can do so much more.

1 step forward; 1 degree warmer; and several billion tonnes of mercury later...

Developing nations led by China and India pledged they’d work toward an agreement that would limit their fossil fuel emissions for the first time, the biggest advance in the fight against global warming in 14 years.



Envoys from more than 190 nations also extended the Kyoto Protocol, the only ratified treaty limiting greenhouse gases. They will develop document with “legal force” by 2015 that would curb pollution for all nations, according to a text adopted today in Durban, South Africa.


The move breaks a division enshrined in the United Nations- led discussions since 1992 that allowed the poorest nations to escape commitments on burning coal and oil while requiring industrial nations to clean up the atmosphere. That rift prevented the U.S. from ratifying Kyoto, which is the heart of the international effort to protect the environment.

“Historic is the word,” Grenadian ambassador Dessima Williams, lead negotiator for a coalition of 42 island nations, said in an interview. “The idea that we got everybody to agree to take some form of legal commitment is a major outcome.”

If Exxon & others paid taxes; we'd have the $2 trillion to put into US infrastructure; and guess what... employment problem solved!!!

The United States is falling dramatically behind much of the world in rebuilding and expanding an overloaded and deteriorating transportation network it needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.


Burdened with soaring deficits and with long-term transportation plans stalled in Congress, the United States has fallen behind three emerging economic competitors — Brazil, China and India, the institute said.

“Over the next five to 10 years, public concerns will grow over evident declines in the condition of infrastructure,” the report says. “At some attention-getting point after infrastructure limps along, platforms for reinvesting in America could gain significant traction and public support.”

The report is the latest in a series of studies to conclude that the nation will face dire long-term consequences if major investment in transportation revitalization is postponed.

“Infrastructure should be part of the larger conversation about ‘what do you want government to do and how do you want to pay for it?’ ” said Jay Zukerman of Ernst & Young, which conducted the institute’s study.

The report lends global perspective to an issue addressed last fall by a panel of 80 experts led by former transportation secretaries Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel K. Skinner. That group concluded that as much as $262 billion a year must be spent on U.S. highways, rail networks and air transportation systems.

Congress has failed to approve the two major bills that allow for long-term funding and planning for aviation and transportation. The Federal Aviation Administration has been operating under a funding bill that expired in 2007 and has been extended 18 times. The surface transportation act, which provides the balance of federal transportation funding, expired in 2009 and has been extended seven times.

As Congress debates how much should be spent and where to find the money, China has a plan to spend $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways and other infrastructure in five years. India is nearing the end of a $500 billion investment phase that has seen major highway improvements, and plans to double that amount by 2017. Brazil plans to spend $900 billion on energy and transportation projects by 2014.

The United States, the institute report concludes, needs to invest $2 trillion to rebuild roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems and dams that are reaching the end of their planned life cycles.

The report says the desire of Congress to curtail spending will push costs onto “budget-busted” state and local governments. It points to highways and water treatment plants, built with federal funds 40 to 50 years ago, that will become financial burdens to local governments as the time comes for replacement.

“We’re seeing less federal support and less local revenues because of unemployment,” said Maureen McAvey, executive vice president of the institute, a non-profit group that analyzes policies and programs. “Some of the ambitions some growing cities had just a few years about are being cut back or put on hold.”

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped. -- Chinese Proverb

Most of the biggest solar equipment makers may disappear in the next few years as plunging prices erode margins and drive the weakest out of business, according to Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL), the fifth-largest supplier of solar panels.



“This is the decade of mergers and acquisitions,” Jifan Gao, chief executive officer of Changzhou, China-based Trina, said in an interview. “From now until 2015 is the first phase, when about two-thirds of the players will be shaken out.”


Three U.S. solar companies including Solyndra LLC have gone bankrupt this year and others led by First Solar Inc. (FSLR) and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. slashed sales and margin forecasts, reflecting slower demand growth and stiffer competition. SunPower Corp. (SPWRA) and Roth & Rau AG (R8R) of Germany agreed to takeovers.


Gao, who founded Trina in 1997, predicted that only about five companies may survive through 2020 in each of the three major manufacturing segments. He defined those as photovoltaic panels, ingots and wafers, and the raw material polysilicon.


“Globally, that would be stable and sustainable,” Gao said last week, without naming survivors or his expectations for his own company.


SunPower and First Solar, the largest U.S. solar-gear manufacturers, this month said they will reorganize after cutting their forecasts.

The five biggest makers of traditional crystalline silicon panels by factory capacity are China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co. and LDK Solar Co., Ontario-based Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ), Germany’s SolarWorld AG (SWV) and Trina, according to Bloomberg industry data.

Lack of Controls = certain death = in this for consumers and corporate share price

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) said its head of China operations and a top deputy resigned, as the company grapples with a pork-labeling investigation that shuttered 13 stores and led to the detention of at least 27 people.



Ed Chan’s resignation was for personal reasons and not connected to the pork-labeling probe in the southwestern city of Chongqing, Anthony Rose, a Hong Kong-based spokesman, said by phone today. Clara Wong, Wal-Mart China’s senior vice president for people, also resigned.

The world’s largest retailer’s 15-year expansion in China is under threat from the probe over the labeling of ordinary pork as organic in Chongqing, where Wal-Mart has faced 21 cases of false advertising and sales of expired or uninspected food since 2006. China has increased scrutiny of food retailers after cases including the sale of melamine- tainted milk and reprocessed cooking oil.

Scott Price, chief executive of its Asian operations, will replace Chan on an interim basis, the company said in an e- mailed statement today. Chan had held the post for almost five years. Rose would not comment on Wong’s reasons for stepping down.