Page 1 of 2

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:33 am
by admin
Pakistani Prime Minister Under FBI Lens in Stock Scam
by Times of India
May 29, 2007

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


KARACHI: Pakistan's who's who are being investigated for committing white-collar crimes under the US intra-trading legislation. According to sources, an FBI probe into a multi-million dollar insider-trading case involving a Pakistani banker may be looking at the involvement of some top Pakistani decision makers, including prime minister Shaukat Aziz, in the scandal.

The probe is also looking at some top bankers and government officials who are allegedly involved in money-laundering operations for Al Qaida, sources say.

The scam came to light recently when Hafiz Naseem, a Pakistani banker, was arrested in New York in the first week of May and charged with 26 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud. He is accused of leaking details about nine deals, including the record $32 billion leveraged buyout of Texas energy giant TXU.

A FBI team arrived in Pakistan recently to probe the case and interviewed many top Pakistani bankers, say sources. Among those the FBI wanted to talk to, according to sources, were the financial adviser to the Prime Minister, Salman Shah; president of National Bank of Pakistan, Ali Raza; Chief of House Building Finance Corporation, Zaigham Mehmood; chairman of Arif Habib Brokerage Houses, Arif Habib; chairman of Karachi Stock Exchange, Shaukat Tareen; and chairman of Pakistan International Airlines, Zafar Ali Khan.

The prime minister, formerly a senior official in Citi Group, has also been linked to the probe, sources claim.

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:36 am
by admin
Salman Shah
by Wikipedia
4/11/16

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Salman Shah (Urdu: سلمان شاہ) was the former caretaker Finance Minister of Pakistan.[1] He has also served as an advisor to the Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on finance, economic affairs, statistics and revenues. He is the son-in-law of former Chief of Army Staff General Asif Nawaz Janjua. He has two sons and three daughters.

Shah, a Lahore based Economist, holds a PhD in Finance and Economics from Indiana University, Bloomington's Kelley School of Business. He has 16 years of teaching experience at institutions such as University of Michigan, Indiana University, University of Toronto, and Lahore University of Management Sciences. He is one of the most highly educated and competent members of Shaukat Aziz's team. During his time as in charge of Pakistan's finance ministry (2004–2008), Pakistan's economy registered an average of 7% GDP growth per annum, one of the highest in the world. Prior to his current appointment as Finance Minister, he has served on following positions:

• Economic consultant, to different Pakistani governments including that of Nawaz Sharif.
• Chairman of Privatization Commission during the tenure of caretaker government of Prime Minister Malik Meraj Khalid.
• Member, Board of Governors - Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
• Member, Board of Directors - Pakistan International Airlines.
• Member, Central Board of Directors - State Bank of Pakistan (2002–2003)
• Member, of various government's task forces.

Shah was also appointed as a member of the task force on investment by Abdul Hafeez Sheikh which gave recommendations to the Board of Investment to increase investments in the country. Shah headed the regional task forces of Karachi and Lahore regions for the BOI under Hafeez Sheikh.
Dr. Salman Shah has also founded Bridge Asia Financial Services in 2009 by Dr. Salman Shah (former Finance Minister and Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, 2004–08) with the primary aim to establish a world class financial advisory firm in Pakistan and the South Asian region.

References

1. Relations with Iran in Pak interest: Salman". Pakistan Observer. 4 March 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2012.

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:37 am
by admin
Prominent Pakistan banker Rahim charged for conspiracy, insider trading
by Chad Bray
May 30, 2007

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- A prominent investment banker from Pakistan has been charged criminally in an alleged insider-trading scheme using leaked information about pending mergers, including TXU Corp.'s proposed buyout by a private-equity group, according to court documents.

According to a criminal complaint, Ajaz Rahim, country head of investment banking at Faysal Bank, has been charged with conspiracy and 25 counts of securities fraud. Rahim allegedly netted more than $7.5 million in improper profits in the scheme, including more than $5.1 million from trading prior to the TXU announcement.

Prosecutors have alleged that Rahim was tipped off about proposed acquisitions involving nine publicly traded companies between April 2006 and February 2007 by Hafiz Muhammad Zubair Naseem, a Credit Suisse Securities USA LLC (CS 42.31, -2.41, -5.39%) investment banker.

Naseem, a member of Credit Suisse's Global Energy Group in New York, was charged criminally with conspiracy and securities fraud earlier this month.

The transactions included Express Scripts Inc.'s (ESRX) failed bid for Caremark RX Inc. and the proposed buyout of TXU by a group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG Inc. Caremark was eventually sold to CVS Corp.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil insider-trading charges against Rahim.

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:38 am
by admin
Feds Charge Prominent Pakistani Banker In CSFB-TXU Insider Trading Case
by John Carney
May 30, 2007

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image

Federal prosecutors yesterday brought criminal charges against Pakistani banker Ajaz Rahim, who they allege traded on inside information leaked to him by a junior Credit Suisse banker. Rahim is a prominent figure in Pakistani investment banking, and until quite recently worked as the country head of investment banking of the Faysal Bank in Karachi.

The picture to the left appears to be of Rahim and Farook Bengali, the chief executive of Faysal. It was prominently placed on the bank's website until recently but has been removed. DealBreaker was not able to confirm that the picture is Rahim.

Earlier this month, federal prosecutors arrested Hafiz Mohammed Zubair Naseem, a junior associate in the energy group at Credit Suisse, on charges that he had leaked information on nine deals which his employer was involved with, including the buyout of Texas energy giant TXU. At the time of the arrest, prosecutors said that Naseem had leaked the information to a banker in Pakistan but did not name him. A little more than a week later, the SEC amended its civil complaint against Naseem and named Rahim as a defendant. The complaint alleges that in at least twenty-five instance, Rahim made trades several minutes after concluding phone calls with Naseem.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Rahim but his whereabouts are currently unknown. After the SEC named him as a defendant, Rahim’s lawyer, Spencer Barasch, had said that his client would not come to the US for a deposition in the suit unless he received guarantees that he would not be arrested. Naseem had also said he planned to call Rahim as a witness for the defense in his own trial.

Through his lawyer, Rahim is denying any wrong doing. “Mr. Rahim looks forward to vigorously defending himself against the charges,” Barasch told DealBook yesterday.

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:39 am
by admin
9/11 funds came from Pakistan, says FBI
by Mamoj Joshi
TNN
The Times of India
August 1, 2003

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


NEW DELHI: India played a key role in providing US authorities the information that funding for the September 11 attacks came from Pakistan. A top FBI counter-terrorism official told the US Senate governmental affairs committee on Thursday that investigators have “traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan.’’

John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, however, did not specify how those accounts in Pakistan were funded, or the role of Pakistani elements. The Times of India first reported on October 10, 2001 that India told the US that some $100,000 had been wired to the leader of the hijackers, Mahmud Atta, by British-born terrorist Ahmad Saeed Umar Sheikh.

Indian authorities also told the US that the trail led back from Sheikh to the then chief of ISI, Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad who was subsequently forced to retire by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf. The FBI had been provided with the details, including Sheikh’s mobile numbers. But Pistole’s testimony is silent on these issues. The FBI has estimated the September 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That money — which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses — flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Those associates reported to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who managed much of the planning for the attacks from Pakistan, US officials have said. The Bush Administration is being cagey about declassifying 28 secret pages in a recent report on the 9/11 incident which officials say outline connections between Saudi charities, royal family members and terrorism.

US authorities are silent about the role some Pakistanis may have played in the conspiracy. The role of Sheikh and Lt Gen Ahmad has yet to see the light of the day. Sheikh, wanted for kidnapping and terrorist conspiracy in India, has since been sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:42 am
by admin
Zbigniew Brzezinski
by Sourcewatch.org

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Zbigniew Brzezinski, born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1928, the son of a diplomat posted to Canada in 1938, serves as Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and is Professor of American Foreign Policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. Brzezinski is said to be a protege of both Nelson A. Rockefeller and Paul H. Nitze, his CSIS profile states. [1]

In the private sector, Brzezinski serves as an "international advisor of several major US/global corporations." He is a "frequent participant in annual business/trade conventions" and is President of Z.B. Inc. "(an advisory firm on international issues to corporations and financial institutions). Also a frequent public speaker and commentator on major domestic and foreign TV programs, and contributor to domestic and foreign newspapers and journals."[2]

Brzezinski's career with the U.S. Government spans several presidents: advisor to John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson; policy advisor to James Earl Carter, Jr.; and George Herbert Walker Bush's co-chair on the National Security Advisory Task Force (1988).[3]

He earned his B.A. (1949) and M.A. (1950) at McGill University and his Ph.D. at Harvard University (1953). He holds honorary degrees from several universities.[4]

• Honorary Trustee, Institute of International Education
• International Advisory Board, Journal of Democracy [1]
• Honorary Member, Academy of Political Science [2]
• Former Director (1992), National Endowment for Democracy [3]

Taliban-al Qaeda Machinator?

In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.

Interviewer: How did you interpret Soviet behavior in Afghanistan, such as the April revolution, the rise of... I mean, what did you think their long-term plans were, and what did you think should be done about it?

Brzezinski: I told the President, about six months before the Soviets entered Afghanistan, that in my judgment I thought they would be going into Afghanistan. And I decided then, and I recommended to the President, that we shouldn't be passive.

Interviewer: What happened?

Brzezinski: We weren't passive.

-- The National Security Archive, Interview with Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, for CNN's Coldwar Series, June 13, 1997


7 months after the interview for the CNN series, Brzezinski, in a interview for the French publication, Le Nouvel Observateur, was more forthright, and unapologetically claimed to be the mastermind of a feint which caused the Soviet Union to embark upon a military intervention to support their client government in Kabul, as well as training and arming extremists, which later became the Taliban government.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Le Nouvel Observateur, Interview with Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paris, January 15-21, 1998, translated by Bill Blum - [5]


Higher Educational Institution Affiliations

• 1949-50 - McGill University; B.A. and M.A.
• 1953 - Harvard University; Ph.D.
• 1953-60 - Harvard University, faculty
• 1960-89 - Columbia University, faculty

Public/Political Positions Held

• 1966-68 - Member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State
• 1968 - Hubert H. Humphrey presidential campaign, chairman of the Foreign Policy Task Force
• 1973-76 - Trilateral Commission, Director
• 1976 - James Earl Carter, Jr. presidential campaign, foreign policy advisor
• 1977-80 - James Earl Carter's NSA
• 1985 - Ronald Reagan's Chemical Warfare Commission, member
• 1987-88 - NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, member
• 1988 - George H. W. Bush National Security Advisory Task Force, member
• 1987-89 - President Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, member
Source for Timelines: Jeri Charles Associates, a speaker's booking agency; Brzezinski webpage

Published Works

• The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives
• The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century
• Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 20th Century
• Power and Principal: The Memoirs of the National Security Advisor

Affiliations

• Advisory Board, America Abroad Media
• Advisory Board, Partnership for a Secure America
• Chair, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
• Honorary Chairman, AmeriCares Foundation (also used by CIA to finance Solidarity in Poland in the eighties)
• Former Director, Amnesty International
• Honorary Council of Advisors, American Turkish Council
• Chairman, American-Ukranian Advisory Committee (organized by Brzezinski)[6]
• Former Director, Atlantic Council
• Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Director, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (1972 to 1977)[7]
• Trustee, Freedom House
• Chairman, International Advisory Board for the Yale Project on The Future Culture & Civilization of China
• Vice Chair, International Crisis Group
• Director, Jamestown Foundation
• Director, Polish-American Enterprise Fund, reputed CIA front
• Director, Polish-American Freedom Foundation, reputed CIA front
• Former Director, National Endowment for Democracy (Congressionally-funded organization)
• Governor, Smith Richardson Foundation
• Trustee, Trilateral Commission; Director (1973-1976)
• Advisory Board, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
• Advisory Committee, AmeriCares (at least in 2004)

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:44 am
by admin
Interview with Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
for CNN's Coldwar Series
June 13, 1997

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


(Preliminary talk)

INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much for being willing to do an interview. I'll start by asking about arms control: what were the Administration's arms control objectives when they came into office?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: It was essentially to limit, first of all, the arms race, and then, if possible, to scale it down. I remember vividly how committed the newly elected President was to the idea of a significant cut in the nuclear weapons on both sides. That was kind of a central goal of his.

INT: How were these ambitions received by the Soviets?

ZB: Hah, with some ambiguity. They, I suspect in retros...

INT: Can you say "the Soviets" in your answer, because you'll never hear my question?

ZB: All right. And the Soviets received these proposals with some ambiguity and indeed suspicion. I suspect myself that they felt that Carter was not sincere, that he was merely trying to put them on the defensive, and that he was trying to back out of the earlier Vladivostok agreement that had been concluded between President Ford and Mr. Brezhnev. This, incidentally, was not Carter's intention) - he really was very sincere; if anything, he was over-ambitious.

INT: Can you describe Brezhnev's response to the proposals, the letter that he sent in February of 1977, what your own reaction was to that?

ZB: I thought Brezhnev's letter was excessively negative, close to hostile, somewhat patronizing.

INT: The next thing I want to ask you about is SS-20s, and how much of a threat to the security of Europe was the Soviet deployment of SS-20s.

ZB: The Soviet deployment of the SS-20s worried the Europeans - frankly, initially more than us. I remember being somewhat startled when Chancellor Schmidt started making a big issue out of the SS-20s, but then I came to realize that in a sense he was right: namely that the SS-20, while perhaps not a decisive military weapon, posed the risk of de-coupling Europe's security from America's; namely, of posing before us the dilemma that maybe Europe was threatened by nuclear devastation, but that we were not, and therefore, should we risk the devastation of our own people and our own cities in order to protect Europe? That was the element of potential de-coupling involved in the Soviet deployment, and in that sense it posed a serious challenge to NATO, to which we had to respond, and to which we did respond.

INT: How?

ZB: By deploying the Pershings and the ground-launch cruise missiles, which put the Soviets very much on the defensive, and the Pershings particularly gave us the capacity to devastate the Soviet command and control centers in the very first few minutes of any conflict.

INT: What was your response to Chancellor Schmidt when he accused the Americans of not taking sufficient account of the Europeans' fears?

ZB: I think it's an exaggeration to say he accused us. I think he posed the dilemma, the possibility of a de-coupling of American and European security. And as I said earlier, after initially thinking that perhaps this was not a real issue, we came to the conclusion that indeed it was and that we should respond to it seriously. So we did. The President sent me to Europe; I talked to Chancellor Schmidt at length, and we came up with a formula: namely, that we would deploy the Pershings, which were theatre missiles, shorter range but very fast, very accurate, and the ground-launch cruise missiles - slower, but extraordinarily accurate: we could put one right through a window in the Kremlin, and if it had a nuclear tip on it, it would make a bit of a bang.

(Request in b/g re: next question)

INT: Yes. Could you reflect on the dual-track policy of NATO for us?

ZB: Well, essentially our position was that if the Russians want to discuss it, we will discuss; if not, we'll deploy.

INT: The neutron bomb - why did President Carter decide to cancel the project of the neutron bomb?

ZB: The President decided to cancel the neutron bomb, I think for two reasons, though one was emphasized. First, there wasn't sufficient support in Europe for it, and there was a great deal of reluctance in Europe to it. But secondly, I think the President personally found it morally abhorrent.

INT: SALT II - there was a lot of opposition to SALT II. Can you explain why opposition built up to SALT II?

ZB: The opposition in the United States to SALT II was the result both of serious concerns over some of the technicalities, specifics of the agreement - it was a very complicated agreement - and therefore some feeling that perhaps we weren't getting as good a bargain as we should; and maybe also of a more pervasive suspicion within some quarters that President Carter wasn't tough enough with the Russians. So these two things kind of coalesced and built up a degree of opposition to SALT II that shouldn't have been there. Now, in addition to that, before too long there was a third factor at play: namely, the Soviets started acting in a way that made movement forward on SALT II very difficult, culminating eventually in the occupation, invasion of Afghanistan.

INT: That leads on to the Soviet expansionism. How far did you believe the Soviets were becoming an expansionist threat and were undermining American influence, really from '77 onwards?

ZB: The Soviets at that time were proclaiming over and over again that the scales of history were tipping in the favor of the Soviet Union: the Soviet Union would outstrip us in economic performance, the Soviet Union was getting a strategic edge, the Soviet Union was riding the crest of the so-called national liberation struggles. The Soviet Union was moving into Africa, it had a foothold in Latin America; it was using that foothold, and particularly Castro himself, to see if something couldn't be done on the mainland of [the] Southern hemisphere. So all of that made it quite essential, in my view, to demonstrably show that these analyses were false: that the scales of history were not tipping, that Soviet assertiveness will not pay, that we can compete effectively, eventually put the Soviets on the defensive, if necessary.

INT: What was your view, particularly in Africa...? I'm thinking of the arc of crisis and your response to that.

ZB: My view of Soviet activities in the arc of crisis in Africa, so to speak, was that it was incompatible with the notion of détente to which we were subscribing, to which we thought the Soviets had subscribed in the course of their negotiations with Presidents Nixon and Ford; that you can't have your cake and eat it too. And that if that's what they were going to be doing, then clearly we are entitled to play the same game, wherever we can, to their disadvantage. But then we'll not have détente: we'll have competition across the board. So there is a real choice: either détente across the board, or competition across the board, but not détente in some areas and competition in those areas in which we were vulnerable.

INT: Moving on to Poland, what support you could give to Solidarity from 1980 onwards?

ZB: We gave them a great deal of political support. We encouraged Solidarity as much as we could. We made it very clear as to where our sympathies are. We of course had certain instruments for reaching Poland, such as Radio Free Europe; we had a very comprehensive publication program; we had other means also of encouraging and supporting dissent. And when the critical moment came in December of 1980, when the Soviets were poised to intervene in Poland, we did everything we could to mobilize international opinion, to galvanize maximum international pressure on the Soviets, to convince the Soviets that we will not be passive. And by then we had some credibility, because the Soviets knew that already for a year we were doing something that we had never before been done in the entire history of the Cold War: we were actively and directly supporting the resistance movement in Afghanistan, the purpose of which was to fight the Soviet army. So the notion that we wouldn't be passive, I think had somcredibility by then.

INT: How important was the Iran hostage crisis to Carter's prestige?

ZB: I think it was devastating. I think the Iran hostage crisis was one of the two central regions for Carter's political defeat in 1980, the other reason being domestic inflation. Iran and inflation - both were politically devastating.

INT: The downfall of the Shah and the Iranian hostage crisis - how much did they influence Americans' reaction to Soviet policy in Afghanistan?

ZB: I think the crisis in Iran heightened our sense of vulnerability in so far as that part of the world is concerned. After all, Iran was one of the two pillars on which both stability and our political preeminence in the Persian Gulf rested. Once the Iranian pillar had collapsed, we were faced with the possibility that one way or another, before too long, we may have either a hostile Iran on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf facing us, or we might even have the Soviets there; and that possibility arose very sharply when the Soviets marched into Afghanistan. If they succeed in occupying it, Iran would be even more vulnerable to the Soviet Union, and in any case, the Persian Gulf would be accessible even to Soviet tactical air force from bases in Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was viewed by us as of serious strategic consequence, irrespective of whatever may have been the Soviet motives for it. Our view was the objective consequences would be very serious, irrespective of what may or may not have been the subjective motives for the Soviet action.

INT: Before the actual invasion, how much do you think the exit of the Shah affected Soviet plans for that area of the world?

ZB: The collapse of the American position in Iran had to have a rather strikingly reinforcing impact on Soviet expectations. This was a major setback for the United States. There's no doubt that from the standpoint of the Soviet analysis of the situation, the collapse of the regime in Iran meant that the position of the United States north of the Persian Gulf was disintegrating.

INT: How did you interpret Soviet behavior in Afghanistan, such as the April revolution, the rise of... I mean, what did you think their long-term plans were, and what did you think should be done about it?

ZB: I told the President, about six months before the Soviets entered Afghanistan, that in my judgment I thought they would be going into Afghanistan. And I decided then, and I recommended to the President, that we shouldn't be passive.

INT: What happened?

ZB: We weren't passive.

INT: But at the time...

(Interruption)

INT: Right, describe your reaction when you heard that your suspicions had been fully justified: an invasion had happened.

ZB: We immediately launched a twofold process when we heard that the Soviets had entered Afghanistan. The first involved direct reactions and sanctions focused on the Soviet Union, and both the State Department and the National Security Council prepared long lists of sanctions to be adopted, of steps to be taken to increase the international costs to the Soviet Union of their actions. And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again - for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the Czechoslovak communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt.

INT: How united or divergent were the views in the Carter Administration, responding to the invasion of Afghanistan?

ZB: They were surprisingly uniform. That is to say, I remember that the State Department, which earlier had opposed taking a very tough stand on Afghanistan, and certainly didn't want us to be issuing any public warnings directed to the Soviet Union, came in with a long list of something like 26 or 28 proposed sanctions against Soviet Union, including the most severe ones that subsequently were adopted by the United States. So once the Soviets had acted, some of the hesitations and reticence regarding how we should respond to the Soviet challenge, dissipated almost instantly.

INT: But you managed to increase the powers of the National Security Council?

ZB: Well, I didn't increase the powers of the National Security Council, but obviously what the Soviets did confirmed what we were arguing for some time: namely, that if we don't draw the line clearly enough, we're going to get an escalation in Soviet misconduct, that simply acquiescence was not good enough. And in that sense, yes, I suppose one could say the political scales within the US Government were somewhat tipped in the favor of the NSC.

(B/g talk)

INT: How tough was President Carter's approach to the Cold War?

ZB: I think, on balance, it was much tougher than most people realize. Not only did he take some historic decisions which no other president had before - such as the decision to aid directly the Mujaheddin against the Soviet army - but he took a very tough position in December 1980, when the Soviet Union was poised to invade Poland. He took that decision, and it was a very tough decision, and we did all sorts of things to convince the Soviets that we wouldn't be passive. In addition to it, he took the decision to engage in a strategic relationship with the Chinese, and it was again directed at Soviet expansionism. But what is even less known is that even in the early years, when he was generally perceived as being soft and overly accommodationist, he took some very tough-minded decisions which were simply not known publicly. Robert Gates, the subsequently director of the CIA, and at that time a member of my staff, reveals in his book that as early as 1978, President Carter approved proposals prepared by my staff to undertake, for example, a comprehensive, covert action program designed to help the non-Russian nations in the Soviet Union pursue more actively their desire for independence - a program in effect to destabilize the Soviet Union. We called it, more delicately, a program for the "delegitimization of the Soviet Union". But that was a rather unusual decision. He took some others along these lines, too. So his public image to some extent was the product of his great emphasis on arms reductions and a desire to reach an agreement on that score with the Russians. But it didn't quite correspond to the reality, and it certainly didn't correspond even to the public reality in the second half of the Carter Administration.

INT: Could you summarize the reasons for the shift that seems apparent from the 1977 détente and co-operation, inordinate fear of communism, through to the Carter doctrine in 1980?

ZB: Well, that question was prepared before my answer to the previous question. (Laughs)

INT: Can you give me a summary?

IN BACKGROUND

The reasons for it.

ZB: I don't think there was a shift. As I said, I think even prior to the public realization that he was much tougher than most people had assumed, he was taking some decisions privately in the first two years of his presidency which were quite tough-minded. The reason he was perceived by a lot of people as not being tough enough, was rooted largely in his passion for arms control, for arms reductions, and that I think created an image that was somewhat one-dimensional and not entirely accurate.

INT: Well, following on that, how successful was Carter at laying the foundations for increased defense and security which the next administration inherited?

ZB: Any answer by me in that respect is inevitably self-serving. But I think you would find a good answer tothat question in the book written by the Republican head of the CIA, Robert Gates, who says that Carter deserves enormous credit in responding assertively, energetically and in an historically significant fashion, to the kind ochallenge that the Soviets -erroneously - thought they were ready to pose before us, when they assumed in the mid-Seventies that the scales of history were really tipping in their favor and they could now act assertively in keeping with that shift. It was our response in those years which provided the basis for what subsequently was done by Reagan, and this is what is being said by Robert Gates and not by me.

INT: But in your own book, you do stress that Carter laid good foundations for strengthening ...

ZB: Well, as I think is evident from my answer, I don't disagree with Robert Gates, but I think...

INT: Tell me (Overlap) from your own point of view...

ZB: ... but I think Robert Gates may be a better judge and more dispassionate judge of that than I, because obviously I would be accused of engaging in a self-serving diagnosis.

INT: OK.

(Request in b/g re: next question)

INT: Why was the Horn of Africa so important to America?

ZB: The Horn of Africa was not important to America as of itself, but it was important as a measure and a test of how the Soviets were interpreting détente; and it seemed to us, given the strategic location of the Horn of Africa, that the Soviets were engaged in activities which they should know would be a sensitive concern to us. And if they were, notwithstanding that, doing precisely that, then obviously they were exploiting détente to try to attain some significant geopolitical gains, and that we simply could not tolerate.

INT: Did America underreact to start with to the activities of the Soviets in Africa?

ZB: Absolutely, I think we underreacted, and that's why they gradually escalated, and eventually, as I have said earlier, SALT was buried in the sands of Ogaden, the sands that divide Somalia from Ethiopia, and eventually led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which then precipitated a very strong, overtly so, American response. I would have preferred us to draw the line sooner, and perhaps some of the things that subsequently happened wouldn't have happened.

INT: Just to follow on to that, is how events in Afghanistan affected the US relationship with Pakistan.

ZB: There was a certain coolness and distance in the American-Pakistan relationship prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After that invasion, we collaborated very closely. And I have to pay tribute to the guts of the Pakistanis: they acted with remarkable courage, and they just weren't intimidated and they did things which one would have thought a vulnerable country might not have the courage to undertake. We, I am pleased to say, supported them very actively and they had our backing, but they were there, they were the ones who were endangered, not we.

INT: Reflecting on that whole situation in Afghanistan, do you think it was worth all the suffering that was involved?

ZB: I think the Soviets made a tragic mistake, and therefore it wasn't worth their while to go in. I think it would have been a tragedy if we had allowed them to overrun the Afghans.

INT: Well, I would like to ask about détente. ... By 1980, the principle of détente was dead. Can you explain why détente died, how it died, and for what reasons?

ZB: Détente of the kind that existed in the mid-Seventies was really undermined by the Soviets, who thought that they could have détente and a fundamental shift in the balance of power at the same time. Instead of accepting détente as a relationship designed to stabilize the relationship between the two major countries, they viewed détente essentially as an umbrella under which a fundamental shift in the correlationship of power could be effected, and they thought they could do so both on the strategic level and on the geopolitical level, via their activities in the Third World. This is what contributed to the collapse of détente. I fail to see how anyone can argue that it was up to us to maintain détente at a time when the Soviets were very reluctant to accept any reductions in strategic arms, and felt themselves free to engage in military activities in the Third World, ranging from Africa through to Central America, and eventually culminating in Afghanistan. That is not the definition of détente in my book.

INT: The Vance mission in March 1977 - was that a turning point in any way on that route that you've just been describing?

ZB: The Vance mission in 1977, the March mission to the Soviet Union in order to conclude an arms control agreement, was a big disappointment to us, and it's not well understood, because most people assume that Vance went to Moscow all of a sudden confronting the Russians with a proposal for deep cuts in the strategic arms relationship, and that the Russians, annoyed by this sudden development, turned him down. The fact of the matter is, he went there with that proposal, but also with another one: namely, "If you're not prepared to have deep cuts, then let's have essentially the kind of deeps cuts - but less deep, much less deep - that were agreed to in Vladivostok," with two issues yet to be resolved, which in our view had not been resolved: the question of the cruise missiles and of the long-range new Soviet bomber called the Backfire, and these two issues we had to resolve. And the Russians took the position: "We don't accept deep cuts, but we also don't accept your fall-back position, unless you accept our definition of what the agreement ought to be regarding the cruise missiles and the Backfire." And of course, we couldn't do that, because that would have placed in jeopardy our own strategic position, and I doubt very much that Congress would have approved any such agreement. So the Russians adopted a very intransigent attitude, and that was a disappointment to those who thought that perhaps we could start a new administration, the Carter Administration, with some wide-ranging agreement with the Russians. It became clear that this would be much more difficult, and that in fact perhaps the Russians have a very one-sided, distorted, self-serving definition of what détente really ought to be.

INT: One side only.

(A bit of discussion)

INT: Why did President Carter take up the issue of human rights, especially on the Soviet Union, and what effect did this have on Soviet-American relations?

ZB: The President should really speak for himself on that, but President Carter, in my view, was deeply committed to human rights as a matter of principle, as a matter of moral conviction, and he was committed to human rights across the board. I mean, he felt very strongly about human rights in Argentina, as well as in the Soviet Union. I was deeply committed to human rights; I felt this was important, but I will not hide the fact that I also thought that there was some instrumental utility in our pursuit of human rights vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, because at the time the Soviet Union was putting us ideologically on the defensive. They saw themselves as representing the progressive forces of mankind, marching toward some ideologically defined future; and raising the issue of human rights pointed to one of the fundamental weaknesses of the Soviet system: namely, that it was a system based on oppression, on mass terror, on extraordinary killings of one's own people. Focusing on human rights was in a way focusing on a major Soviet vulnerability. So, while I was committed to human rights - and I am committed to human rights - I do not deny that in pushing it vis-à-vis the Soviets, I saw in this also an opportunity to put them ideologically on the defensive at a time when they saw themselves rightfully on the offensive.

INT: Thank you very much.

(End)

Re: The Pakistan Connection, by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:49 am
by admin
Shaukat Aziz
by Wikipedia

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Aziz at the 2007 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Shaukat Aziz (Urdu: شوکت عزیز), (born March 6, 1949 in Karachi, Pakistan) was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2004 to 2007. He became Finance Minister in November 1999 and was named by the Pakistan Muslim League for the position of Prime Minister after the resignation of Zafarullah Khan Jamali on June 6, 2004. He became Prime Minister on August 28, 2004 and served until November 15 2007. He became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to complete a full term in office. He is a rare high-level government leader of a major power with a strong background as a successful businessman and financier.

Education

Aziz attended Saint Patrick's High School, Karachi and Abbottabad Public School, Abbottabad. He passed his Intermediate from Saint Patrick's College, Karachi. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Gordon College, Rawalpindi, in 1967. He obtained an MBA Degree in 1969 from Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi, one of the premier business schools in Pakistan. It was during his studies at the IBA that he secured an internship at Citibank and began his banking career.

Pre-politics

In 1969 he joined Citibank, serving in various countries, including Pakistan, Greece, the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Philippines, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. He served as Citibank's head of Global Wealth Management & Private Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking for the Asia Pacific region and the CEEMEA region (Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa); as Corporate Planning Officer, Citicorp; as Managing Director, Saudi America Bank; as Citibank's Chief Country Officer in Malaysia and, later, in Jordan. He has been a board member of Citibank subsidiaries, including Saudi American Bank, Citicorp Islamic Bank, and of several non-profit organizations[1].

Finance Minister

On 26 November 1999, while addressing a gathering of PakPAC, a political lobbying sub-body of the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA), Musharraf stated that Shaukat Aziz has come to Pakistan with forty other financial experts who have offered free service to revive the Pakistani economy. Then he asked Shaukat Aziz to stand up and introduce himself to the audience.

In November 1999 Aziz became the government's Finance Minister with responsibility for Finance, Economic Affairs, Statistics, Planning and Development, and Revenue Divisions. As Minister of Finance Aziz also headed the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet, the Cabinet Committee on Investment, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, and the Cabinet Committee on Privatization.

In 2001 Aziz was declared 'Finance Minister of the Year' by Euromoney and Banker's Magazine.

By October 2007, at the end of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s tenure, Pakistan raised back its Foreign Reserves to $16.4 billion. Pakistan's trade deficit was at $13 billion, exports were $18 billion, revenue generation was $13 billion and attracted foreign investment was $8.4 billion. [2]

Pakistan's fiscal performance was praised by IMF and World Bank.[3] The World Bank further reiterated that Pakistan's Economic growth bolstered International confidence.[4]

World Bank Praises: World Bank President Mr Wolfensohn said, ""The progress has been terrific. Now Pakistan must stay the course until the benefits of its achievements reach the vulnerable sections of the society including the very poor, women, children and the disabled,".[5]

IMF Praises: IMF's new Middle East director Mr. George Abed, said he was "very pleased with the record of Pakistan in the past three years of continued macroeconomic and financial stabilisation and we have begun to think of Pakistan as a country of promise and a country of potentially high rate of growth."[6]

Asian Development Bank also praised Pakistan's Micro-Finance [7]

Media Recognition: In 2001, Mr. Aziz was also named "Finance Minister of the Year" by the prestigious Euromoney and Bankers Magazines.

Prime Minister

Image
Shaukat Aziz at the White House with US president George W. Bush, 24th January, 2006.

Aziz was named by the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) as the next Prime Minister after Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned on June 6, 2004.

The post was held by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain while Aziz fulfilled the constitutional requirement of securing a seat in the lower house of parliament. Aziz ran from two constituencies, Tharparkar-I in Sindh, and Attock District.[8] While campaigning on July 29, 2004 Aziz survived an assassination attempt in the small town of Fateh Jang in Attock District. A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a car in which Aziz was travelling, killing his chauffeur and eight others. However, Aziz continued campaigning and won from both constituencies. Since he could retain only one seat, he immediately vacated his Tharparkar seat, preferring to represent Attock, where he had won by 76,156 votes to 29,497.

Aziz was elected Prime Minister by parliament on August 27, 2004, by a vote of 191 to 151 in the National Assembly of Pakistan, and was sworn in on August 28, 2004. He retained his position as Minister of Finance, and he presided over an unprecedented boom in the Pakistani economy as well as broad based structural reforms.

Aziz left office on November 16, 2007, at the end of the parliamentary term and became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan who left seat after completion of parliamentary term of five years.[9]

Assassination attempts

While campaigning on July 29, 2004 Aziz survived an assassination attempt in the small town of Fateh Jang in Attock District. A suicide bomber blew himself up next to a car in which Aziz was travelling, killing his chauffeur and eight others.

Nuclear Policy and Energy Policy

Shaukat Aziz, as Prime Minister of Pakistan, played an important role in establishing of both military and civilian purpose nuclear power plants within Pakistan. Aziz launched work on the 325-megawatt plant in Chashma, which is the second to be built at the site with Chinese help. He also met with then-PAEC Chairman Mr. Parvez Butt, who, together with fellow scientists and engineers, submitted a long-term nuclear power plants and nuclear technology plan. On December, 28, 2005, Aziz inaugurated Chasma nuclear power plant along with PAEC Chairman Parvez Butt, where both Chinese and Pakistani nuclear scientists attended. In an inauguration, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said "a milestone" in the history of nuclear technology in Pakistan"[10]. He also allowed PAEC to upgrade its nuclear laboratories and Karachi nuclear power plant. He also sat up funds of PAEC to established more nuclear power plants within the country. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz allowed PAEC to designed another heavy water power plant in Khushab district of Punjab.

Aziz played a pivotal role in hydroelectric power plants project in Pakistan. He also assisted President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf in the Diamer-Basha Dam project. On January, 17,2006, he announced the decision of Government to construct 5 multi-purpose storages in the country during next 10 -12 years. Diamer Basha Dam Project will be undertaken in the first phase. His efforts were heavily involved in launching of wind power plants in Pakistan. Aziz also set up Solar Power plants in different cities of Pakistan]. Heis also credited with establishing particle accelerators in the universities of Pakistan. He, along with known Pakistani chemist and research scientist, Atta ur Rahman, worked closely to establish particle accelerators at Quaid-i-Azam University and many other universities of Pakistan. He also alloted funds of Riazuddin National Center for Physics, also at Qau.

Aziz chaired a meeting of WAPDA's and KESC scientists on 2006. He was briefed by the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr. Muhammad Akram. He issued directions to the concerned ministries and departments to focus on energy requirements of the country with a view to sustaining the tempo of development. He would also convene a meeting soon to draw up a plan for the purpose[11]. Dr. Akram said in the Press Conference that the "Prime Minister has given special directives to meet the energy demand in the country. He said that Prime Minister will be convening a meeting of WAPDA, its transmission and distribution departments and petroleum sector in next two weeks to discuss with officials the energy issues to ensure future requirements and not to affect industrial and agricultural growth in the country.

Involvement in Pakistan's Astronautics and Aerospace Program

On March 2007, Aziz met with PAF Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed, where he discussed him about the Pakistan's JF-17 Thunder program. He also set up an separate fund for JF-17 Thunder program. On April of 2007, Aziz visited the People's Republic of China, where he met with high government and military officials. Aziz signed a deal with Chinese to deliver Chengdu J-10 fifth-generation aircrafts.

On August 2006, Aziz visited People's Republic of China. He sought Chinese cooperation in rocket science and space technology. China can help Pakistan in developing and launching satellites[12]. In a joint statement of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that "both countries are determined to elevate their friendship and strategic partnership".

In 2007, after a visit to China, the Prime Minister said in a press conference held in Islamabad that serial production of JF-17 Thunder would soon start in 2008 and Pakistan would like to sell fourth generation JF-17 Thunder multirole combat aircraft to those interested. The Prime Minister also confirmed that the JF-17s in Pakistan had completed 500 combat missions/sorties.

The same year, he met with chairman of SUPARCO, the leading Pakistani space agency, where he was briefed by the chairman on the status of Pakistan's Space Program. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz gave green signal SUPARCO to developed PAKSAT-IR and Satellite Launch Vehicle to be developed. However, the status of SLV are remained unclear.

Shaukat Aziz's credentials and Economic Policy

Shaukat Aziz is a banker by training and extensive experience in New York. His credentials are similar to those of the successful US treasury secretaries such as Bob Rubin and Nick Brady who did well under Clinton and Reagan administrations. He understands the role of banking, finance, investment and consumer credit in economic growth of a nation. He focused on building strong banking, investment and finance sectors in Pakistan to underpin its economy. He strengthened capital availability, an essential and increasingly important economic input, in addition to labor and land improvements. With higher education budget up 15-fold and overall education spending up 36% in two years, he focused on education to improve the availability of skilled labor to fill new jobs. He pushed land development and public and private construction spending to improve infrastructure and facilities to attract greater business investment. Aziz was largely successful in his efforts. He was regarded as a reformer, with Pakistan's structural reforms ranking high amongst emerging economies. Aziz co-chaired the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on the United Nations System-wide Coherence in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment.[13]

• Pakistan’s economy grew by 100% — to become $ 160 billion[14][15]
• Revenue grew by 100% — to become $ 11.4 billion
• Per Capita Income grew by 100% — to become $ 925
• Foreign Reserves grew by 500% — to become $ 17 billion
• Exports grew by 100% — to become $ 18.5 billion
• Textile exports grew by 100% — to become $ 11.2 billion
• Karachi Stock Exchange grew by 500% — to become $ 75 billion
• Foreign Direct Investment grew by 500% — to become $ 8.4 billion[16]
• Annual Debt servicing decreased by 35% — to become 26%
• Poverty decreased by 10% — to become 24%
• literacy rate grew by 10% — to become 54%
• Public development Funds grew by 100% — to become Rs 520 billion.[17]

In 2008, Aziz participated in the Global Creative Leadership Summit, organized by the Louise Blouin Foundation. As a delegate, he delivered a keynote speech for the panel entitled “Economic Crisis, Economics of Change: Credit, Commodities, and Trade.”

References

1. Profile: Shaukat Aziz - BBC NEWS
2. Foreign Reserves Phenomenon
3. [1]
4. Pak economic growth has bolstered int’l confidence: WB
5. World Bank President praises Pakistan's recent economic achievements
6. IMF praise for Pakistan - BBC News
7. ADB praises micro-finance in Pakistan
8. Shaukat takes oath as MNA, Retains Attock Seat - Pakistan Times
9. "Soomro takes oath as Pakistan's caretaker PM", Xinhua News Agency, November 16, 2007.
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4565212.stm
11. http://www.pakdef.info/forum/showthread.php?t=7131
12. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ID26Df01.html
13. Economic Indicators
14. http://economicpakistan.wordpress.com/2 ... 007-beyond Economic Indicators
15. http://www.pakboi.gov.pk/eco-ind.htm
16. http://dailymailnews.com/200903/28/news ... age10.html
17. [2]

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:51 am
by admin
Walter B. Wriston
by Answers.com

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Walter Wriston (August 3, 1919 – January 19, 2005) was a banker and former chairman of Citicorp. As chief executive of Citibank / Citicorp (later Citigroup) from 1967-1984, Wriston was widely regarded as the single most influential commercial banker of his time.

Personal information

Walter Bigelow Wriston was born in Middletown, Connecticut to Ruth Bigelow Wriston, a chemistry teacher, and Henry Merritt Wriston, a history professor at Wesleyan University who was later president of Lawrence College and Brown University.

Reared as a traditional Methodist in Appleton, Wisconsin, Wriston was not allowed to listen to the radio or go to the movie theater on Sundays.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University in 1941 where he was a member of the Eclectic Society and received the "Parker Prize" (awarded to the Wesleyan sophomore or junior who excels in public speaking). He also received a Master's Degree from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1942.

After graduate school, Wriston became a junior Foreign Service officer at the State Department in which position he helped negotiate the exchange of Japanese interned in the United States for Americans held prisoner in Japan. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, he served in the U.S. Army for four years, being with the Signal Corps on Cebu in the Philippines during his service.

In 1942, Walter Wriston married his first wife, Barbara Brengle Wriston, with whom he had one daughter. Two years after Barbara’s death in 1966, he married lawyer and businesswoman Kathryn Dineen.

He kept himself trim, playing tennis regularly and acting as a carpenter, electrician, plumber, backhoe operator, front-end loader operator and chain-saw-wielding tree farmer on his Connecticut retreat. During the July 1977 New York City blackout, he walked down 23 flights from his high-rise apartment, hiked to corporate headquarters, then climbed 15 flights up to his office.

Wriston was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.[1]

Wriston died in January 2005, aged 85. Wriston's papers, including the text of hundreds of speeches and articles spanning his lengthy career, are at Tufts University's Digital Collections and Archives.

Politics

From 1982 to 1989, Wriston was chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board, and in June 2004 awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil honor, by President George W. Bush.

Wriston admitted he was twice offered the job of Secretary of the Treasury, in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. He turned down the offers, but said it was not because of the public scrutiny he was sure to face. "I've been living in Macy's window for 20 years," he said. One report is that Wriston declined the offers because these were not made to him personally by the-then President. Wriston also would have had to take a substantial pay cut had he accepted the government position.

In 1987, the Manhattan Institute of Policy Research initiated a lecture series [1] in honor of Mr. Wriston, and in 2004, the Idea Channel organized a seven-part series of interviews with him as well.

Quotes

• Capital goes where it's welcome and stays where it's well treated. (Discovery)--Walter B. Wriston
• Information about money has become almost as important as money itself
• Countries don't go bust

Books

• The Twilight of Sovereignty (1992)
• Risk and Other Four-Letter Words (1986)
• Bits, Bytes and Balance Sheets (2007)

References

1. "Wriston, Walter B.". Paid Notices: Deaths. The New York Times. 2005-01-25. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9639C8B63. Retrieved on 2006-09-08.
2. Washington Post Obituary
3. Forbes obituary

Re: The Pakistan Connection , by Michael Meacher

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 5:52 am
by admin
John S. Reed
by Answers.com

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


John Shepard Reed (born 1939) is the former Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He previously served as Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, Citibank, and post-merger, Citigroup.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Argentina and Brazil. Reed earned his undergraduate degrees in a 3-2 program from Washington and Jefferson College and MIT, earning an B.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1961. He was also a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity while at W&J and MIT. He served two years in the U.S. Army before returning to get his master's degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1965. [1]

Reed was heavily responsible for pushing for the adoption of the ATM around the USA, and led Citicorp through a perilous period in the early 1990s. He was approached by Sandy Weill to merge with Travelers Group after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932), allowing banking and insurance companies to merge. The result was Citigroup, where Reed was later ousted in a management shakeup with Weill. Reed's departure was announced in a February 28, 2000 press release. In the aftermath of the November 2008 federal bailout of Citigroup, Reed was described as deeply skeptical of the "Wall Street financial engineering" that led to its collapse and "committed to consumer banking and sound commercial underwriting."[1]

Reed was asked to be interim CEO of the New York Stock Exchange after the Richard Grasso over-compensation scandal. He accepted the job for a $1 salary and set up new governance rules as the NYSE became a public corporation.

Reed is on the board of directors at Altria Group.

References

1. Pearlstein, Steven (2008-11-24). "Too Big to Succeed?". The Washington Post (The Washington Post Company). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews. Retrieved on 2008-11-24.