The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, September 13, 2007 - 5A
Iraqi oil talks on
verge of collapse
TEXAS-SIZED WIND
Google lands a
rare, mostly
private airstrip
Conflict between
Iraq and Kurdish
North set backdrop
By JAMES GLANZ
The New York Times
BAGHDAD - A carefully con-
structed compromise on a draft
law governing Iraq's rich oil fields,
agreed to in February after months
of arduous talks among Iraqi politi-
cal groups, appears to have col-
lapsed. The apparent breakdown
comes just as Congress and the
White House are struggling to find
evidence that there is progress
toward reconciliation and a func-
tioning government here.
Senior Iraqi negotiators met in
Baghdad yesterday in an attempt
to salvage the original compro-
mise, two participants said. But
the meeting came against the back-
drop of a public series of increas-
ingly strident disagreements over
the draft law that has broken out
in recent days between Hussain al-
Shahristani, the Iraqi minister of
oil, and officials of the provincial
government in the Kurdish north,
where some of the nation's largest
fields are located.
Al-Shahristani, a senior mem-
ber of the Arab Shiite coalition that
controls the federal government,
negotiated the compromise with
leaders of the Kurdish and Arab
Sunni parties. But since then the
Kurds have pressed forward with
a regional version of the law that
al-Shahristani insists, much to the
irritation of the Kurds, is illegal.
Many of the Sunnis who sup-
ported the original deal have also
pulled out in recent months.
The oil law is one of several cru-
cial pieces of legislation and wider
political agreement that the Bush
administration has been pressing
for to show progress toward creat-
ing a functioning government and
healingthe country's divide.
One of the participants in yes-
terday's meeting, Deputy Prime
Minister Barham Salih, who has
worked for much of the past year to
push for the original compromise
said some progress had been made
at the meeting, but that he could
not guarantee success.
"This has been like aroller coast-
er. There were occasions where
we seemed to be there, where we
seemed to have closure, only to fail
at that," said Salih, who is Kurdish.
"Given the seriousness of the
issue, I don't want to create false
expectations, but I can say there is
serious effort to bring this to clo-
sure," he said.
The legislation has already been
presented to the Iraqi parliament,
which has been unable to take vir-
tually any action on it for months.
Contributing to the dispute over
the draft law is the decision by the
Kurds to begin signing develop-
ment and service contracts with
international oil companies before
the federal law is passed. The most
recent instance, announced last
week on a Kurdish government
Web site and first reported by The
Wall Street Journal, was an oil
exploration contract with the Hunt
Oil Co. of Dallas.
The Sunni Arabs who removed
their support for the deal did so,
in part, because of a contract the
Kurdish government signed ear-
lier with a company based in the
United Arab Emirates, Dana Gas,
to develop gas reserves.
The Kurds maintain that their
regional law is in fact consistent
with the Iraqi Constitution, which
grants substantial powers to the
provinces to govern their own
affairs. But al-Sharistani believes
that a sort of Kurdish declaration
of independence can be read into
the move. "This to us indicates
very serious lack of cooperation
that makes many people wonder if
they are really going to be working
within the framework of the fed-
eral law," al-Shahristani said in a
recent interview, before the Hunt
deal was announced.
Kurdish officials dispute that
contention, saying that they are
doing their best to work within
the constitution while waiting for
the Iraqi parliament, which always
seems to move at a slow pace, con-
tinues to consider the legislation.
"We reject what some parties
say - that it is a step towards sepa-
ration - because we have drafted
the Kurdistan oil law depending on
article 111 of the Iraqi constitution
which says oil and natural resourc-
es are properties of Iraqi people,"
said Jamal Abdullah, spokesman
for the Kurdistan Regional Gov-
ernment. "Both Iraqi and Kurdish
oil laws depend on that article,"
Abdullah said.
The other crucial players are the
Sunnis and Prime Minister Nouri
Kamal al-Maliki. The main Sunni
party, Tawafuq, which insists
on federal control of contracts
and exclusive state ownership of
the fields, bolted when it became
convinced that the Kurds had no
intention of following those set
guidelines.
But the prime minister's office
believes there is a simpler reason
the Sunnis abandoned or at least
held off the deal: Signing it would
have given al-Maliki a success that
they didn't want him to have.
"I think there is a political rea-
son behind that delay in order
not to see the Iraqi government
achieve the real agreement," said
Sadiq al-Rikabi, the senior political
adviser to al-Maliki. Al-Rikabi was
at yesterday's meeting.
Ali Baban, who as a senior mem-
ber of Tawafuqnegotiated the com-
promise, said that allegation was
untrue. "I have agood relationship"
with al-Maliki, Baban said.
"This is an issue of Iraqi unity,"
Baban said.
Al-Maliki has suggested return-
ing to the original language agreed
to in February and attempting once
again to push the law through the
parliament. Salih says that there
is basic agreement on returning to
that language, but conceded that
Sunni participants in Wednesday's
meeting might insist on a deal that
includes changes to the Iraqi Con-
stitution to safeguard their inter-
ests in the distribution of revenues.
A law on how the revenue should
be shared is being developed as a
critical companion piece of legisla-
tion to the draft law.
The central element of the com-
promise, known as the hydrocar-
bons law or more simply as the oil
law,was agreed to inFebruary after
months of difficult negotiations
among Iraq's political groups and
was hailed as a sign of reconcilia-
tion in a country riven along ethnic,
sectarian and regional lines.
The main parties in those
negotiations were Iraqi Kurds,
who were eager to begin signing
contracts with international oil
companies to develop their exten-
sive northern fields; Arab Shiites,
whose population is concentrated
around the country's vast southern
fields; and Arab Sunnis, with fewer
oil resources.
Somehow negotiators man-
aged to strike that balance, but
soon after, the agreement began to
unravel.
When the draft emerged from
that council, the members of some
parties, particularly the Kurdish
ones, thought that the careful bal-
ance struck in the draft had been
upset, and they accused al-Shah-
ristani of meddling. Then the law
languished in parliament and, said
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign
minister, the Kurds decided to send
a signal that they would not wait
indefinitely and they signed the
contract with Dana Gas.
"It served as a reminder: 'If you
keep stalling, life goes on,"' said
Zebari, who is Kurdish.
- Ahmad Fadam, Ali Hamdani
and Khalid al-Ansary and an Iraqi
employee of The New York Times
contributed to this report.
APPHOTO
Wilson Hardin, 3, reacts to the strong wind as his grandmother holds him while
they watch surfers in Galveston brave the choppy surf brought on by Tropical Storm
Humberto yesterday.
Japan shocked by
PM 's re signation
Amid long airport
trips, Google stays
close to home
By MIGUEL HELFT
The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO - In the
annals of perks enjoyed by Amer-
ica's corporate executives, the
founders of Google may have set a
new standard: an uncrowded, fed-
erally managed runway for their
private jet that is only a few min-
utes' drive from their offices.
For $1.3 million a year, Larry
Page and Sergey Brin get to park
their customized wide-body Boe-
ing 767-200, as well as two other
jets used by top Google executives,
on Moffett Field, an airport run by
NASA that is generally closed to
private aircraft.
It is a perk that is likely to turn
other Silicon Valley tycoons green
with envy as no other private jets
have landing rights there. But it
may not sit well with a commu-
nity that generally considers itself
proud to have Google in its midst.
How did the two billionaires get
such a coveted parking place for
the jet, which is unusually large
and rare by private jet standards?
Officials at the Ames Research
Center of the National Aeronau-
tics and Space Administration said
the agency signed a unique agree-
ment last month that allows it to
place scientific instruments and
researchers on planes used by the
Google founders. NASA gets to col-
lect scientific data on some flights
of those jets, which in addition to
the Boeing 767-200 includes two
Gulfstream V's.
"It was an opportunity for us to
defray some of the fixed costs we
have to maintain the airfield as
well as to have flights of opportu-
nity for our science missions," said
Steven Zornetzer, associate direc-
tor for institutions and research at
the Ames Center. "It seemed like a
win-win situation."
Moffett Field is nearly adjacent
to Google's Mountain View, Calif.,
headquarters, and the four-mile
drive between the two locations
takes just seven minutes, according
to Google Maps. Other Silicon Val-
ley executives have to fight traffic
to get to their large jets parked at
San Francisco or San Jose interna-
tional airports or even farther away
from the technology center.
The agreement is raising ques-
tions from local officials and com-
munity activists, who have a long
history of opposing the expansion
of flights at the aforementioned
MoffettField, ahistoric airport that
was once under the supervision of
the U.S. Navy, but was transferred
to NASA in 1994.
Lenny Siegel, director of the
Pacific Studies Center, a local non-
profit group that .over the years
has opposed various proposed
expansions of civilian flights at
Moffett Field, said he was hoping
NASA would provide clear answers
about the agreement. "If they are
doing science missions, that's OK,"
he said. "If they are doing it just
because they are rich and popular,
it is not OK."
Abe steps down
amid scandal, just
before questioning
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
The New York Times
TOKYO - Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe's abrupt announce-
ment yesterday afternoon that he
would resign upset what was to
have been an orderly end to the
nationalist leader's scandal- and
gaffe-prone government. The res-
ignation threw Japan's tense politi-
cal situation into further disarray.
The unpopular Abe had already
been written off by Japan's politi-
cal establishment and news media,
his political future measured in
months. The start of a new parlia-
mentary session on Monday had
been expected to initiate fierce
debatebetweenthegoverningparty
and the newly powerful opposi-
tion Democratic Party, followed by
probable deadlock over the Japa-
nese military's role in Afghanistan
and then by Abe's exit.
But his resignation's timing -
minutes before opposition leaders
were scheduled to question him for
the first time since the start of the
parliamentary session on Monday
- stunned Japan. Scrambling to
find a viable successor, Abe's gov-
erning Liberal Democratic Party
will on Sept. 19 choose a new party
leader who, given the LDP's control
of the lower house of Parliament,
will automatically become prime
minister.
Abe - who had described him-
self as a "politician who fights"
- apparently had no stomach for it.
As early as Monday, he had shared
his wish to quit with his closest
political confidant - Taro Aso,
the party's secretary-general, who
shares Abe's ideological views and
is now widely considered the front-
runner to succeed him.
"In the current situation, it will
be quite difficult to forcefully pur-
sue policies based on the people's
support and trust," Abe said, seem-
ing at one point on the verge of tears
and failing - television commenta-
tors and ordinary people alike said
critically - to bow or apologize
during his stunning news confer-
ence.
The timing of the resignation
was all the more puzzling because
Abe had steadfastly refused to
resign or to dissolve Parliament
and call a general election after his
party suffered a humiliating defeat
in an upper house election over
the summer. He also reshuffled his
Cabinet two weeks ago in what was
touted as a fresh start.
What is more, in a speech mark-
ing the start of the parliamentary
session on Monday, Abe had laid
out plans for the future.
"The way he resigned was
unprecedented," said Jun Iio, a
professor of government at the
National Graduate Institute for
Policy Studies in Tokyo. "Unfortu-
nately, even though Abe had some
successes as prime minister, he
will be remembered for the way he
resigned. Other prime ministers
resigned after putting up a good
fight and made the reasons for their
resignation very clear. But the way
Abe resigned suggests he lacked
the qualifications to be prime min-
ister in the first place."
Aso said that Abe had first men-
tioned to him directly his desire to
quit on Monday. Aso said he had
told Abe that "the timing" was not
appropriate, but that Abe repeated
his desire to resign on Tuesday and
then again yesterday.
"His intention did not change at
all over three days," Aso said in a
separate news conference, deflect-
ing questions about his plans to run
in the Sept. 19 election for party
leader.
Experts said that pressure to
sooncall ageneral election -which
must be held before September
2009 - was unlikely to diminish
with a change of leadership.
"A new prime minister will ben-
efit from a bounce in the polls, but
that is unlikely to be enough," said
Takeshi Sasaki, a political scientist
at Gakushuin University and a for-
mer president of the University of
Tokyo. "Since the last general elec-
tion was in 2005, this will be the
second government without the
voters' direct endorsement. So the
next prime minister will likely be
forced to dissolve Parliament and
call a general election, probably
late this year or early next year."
Possibly to deflect criticism of
the sudden resignation, party offi-
cials said that Abe, 52, the first
prime minister born after World
War II, was suffering from poor
health, though they provided no
details.
Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the
opposition Democratic Party, has
focused his attention on a conten-
tious law that allows Japan's naval
forces to refuel American and other
ships participating in the war in
Afghanistan. The law will expire
on Nov. 1 unless it is extended.
Opinion polls indiated that most
Japanese opposed extending the
law. And Ozawa tapped into a gen-
eral unease that, under Abe and his
predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi,
Japan has grown too close to the
United States militarily, even to the
point of possibly violating its paci-
fist constitution.
But it was Abe's mishandling of a
bookkeeping problem surrounding
the national pension system that
contributed the most to his party's
devastating loss in the upper house
election. While the problem had
existed for many years, Abe simply
kept quiet after learning about it.
1 in 5 U.S. residents don't
speak English at home
New Census data
shows far-reaching
effects of
immigration
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly
one in five people living in the
United States speaks a language at
home other than English, accord-
ing to new Census data that illus-
trate the wide-ranging effects of
immigration.
The number of immigrants
nationwide reached an all-time
high of 37.5 million in 2006,
affecting incomes and education
levels in many cities across the
country. But the effects have not
been uniform.
In most states, immigrants have
added to the number of those lack-
ing a high-school diploma, with
almost half of those from Latin
America falling into that category.
However, at the other end of the
education spectrum, Asian immi-
grants are raising average educa-
tion levels in many states, with
nearly half of them holding at least
a bachelor's degree.
"There is no one-size-fits-all
policy that you could apply for
all immigrant groups," said Mark
Mather of the Population Refer-
ence Bureau. "I think most of the
attention has been on low-skilled
workers coming from Mexico. But
we have 10 million immigrants
from Asia, a number that's grow-
ing."
The Census Bureau yesterday
released a host of demographic
data about the nation, including
statistics on immigration, housing,
education and employment.
The data come from the Ameri-
can Community Survey, an annual
survey of 3 million households that
has replaced the Census Bureau's
long-form questionnaire from the
once-a-decade census. It does not
distinguish between illegal immi-
grants and those who are in the
U.S. legally.
Mather analyzed the differ-
ences in education levels among
immigrants from Asia and those
from Latin America. Together, the
groups account for about 80 per-
cent of all immigrants.
About 48 percent of Asian immi-
grants held at least a. bachelor's
degree, compared with about 11
percent of immigrants from Latin
America. Among people born in the
U.S., about 27 percent were college
graduates.
"Driving this are people com-
ing from China and India," Mather
said. "They are either comingwith a
bachelor's degree, or they are com-
ing with visas and getting degrees
once they arrive."
At the other end of the spec-
trum, 47 percent of adult immi-
grants from Latin America lacked
a high school diploma, compared
with 16 percent of Asian immi-
grants and 13 percent of people
born in the U.S.
Those numbers are fuelingover-
all increases in the number of high-
school dropouts in four states:
Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and
Texas, said William Frey, a demog-
rapher at the Brookings Institution,
a Washington think tank.
"It used to be the poor southern
states that had low levels of edu-
cation and income. Now it is the
high-immigration states as well,"
Frey said. "But that isn't to say
that the second or third genera-
tion won't do better, because they
will," he added. "There is upward
mobility."
ONE ON ONE
woRKgt SPEIA
$159 for the 1t semester
129 for 3 or more students for 1St semeste
$279 for both semesters
Mon-Thurs: Open 24 hours
Fri until 10pm
Sat-Sun: 8am-8pm
www.loniclub.com
2875 Boardwalk Dr.
Welcomes UM Students and Faculty to a
Tailgate on Elbel Field, Saturday, September
15th, I Ia-3p, for the UM vs. Notre Dame game.
We want to meet you and invite you to come
talk to Googlers, enjoy some food and fun, and
get some free stuff!!
When: Saturday, September 15th, 1l a-3p
Where: Elbel Field
Why: A chance for UM students and faculty
and Google to get to know each other better
Who: All UM Students and Faculty are
welcome to attend.
**Please bring your UM Identification**
See you there! Go Blue!
A