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Revealing excerpts from Benazir's memoirs. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] As Mr Asif Zardari, the widower of Ms Benazir Bhutto, becomes the new President of Pakistan, We look back into his wife's autobiography, Daughter of Destiny , to find out just how he became Pakistan's First Husband. So, here is the story of how Pakistan's most famous woman got attracted to a rich man's son who would, due to his connections to her , would one day lay claim to his nation's top post. In Ms Benazir Bhutto's own words: Family pressure My personal life had taken a dramatic turn on July 29, 1987, when I agreed to an arranged marriage on the prompting of my family. First whispers started earlier Soon before the family was to gather in Cannes in July 1985, my mother and Auntie Manna approached me with a proposal from the landowning Zardari family on behalf of their son, Asif. Old crush? When we were teenagers, he'd watched me enter and leave the movie theater his father owned. A...

Ban refrains from comment on Obama's hot pursuit statement November 6th, 2008 - 12:53 am ICT by IANS United Nations, Nov 5 (IANS) UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday refrained from commenting on US president-elect Barack Obama's election campaign statements about hot pursuit of terrorists inside Pakistan ." I would refrain from making any positions on the part of the United Nations on any specific issues involving the questions that you have raised, " Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York when specifically asked about the world body's position on Obama's statements. During his campaign Obama said if the US had any actionable intelligence on the presence of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan, his administration would go ahead and strike out such places inside Pakistani territories with or without Pakistani consent. The UN secretary general hoped that the president-elect would engage various leaders of the world and also parti...

Posted by Teeth Maestro May 18, 2008 | I just came across this write up found on Chowk published on November 7th 2007, its definitely worth reading. In addition to Mr. Shaukat Aziz, current Prime Minister of Pakistan, numerous former Citibankers occupy highly influential positions in the government and the private sector in Pakistan. Citibank is one of the largest banks, and operates one of the largest private banks in the US and globally. Of the 40 private banks reviewed by the Federal Reserve during its industry wide examination of private banking in the 1990s, only one — Citibank — was reviewed in detail by Federal Reserve examiners three years in a row. It is a private bank that has struggled with a wide range of anti-money laundering issues. Although Citibank, under Shaukat Aziz's leadership (from May 1997 to October 1999) and his successors' has done much to tighten controls, it was beset by numerous scandals during the 1990s. A 1999 US Congress investigation (exac...