Big Power Game By Fyodor Lukyanov

Posted by Dr. Salman in CURRENT EVENTS on December 2nd, 2016

Big 20 to Big Game: Power Politics Are Returning, Which Suits Russia

State leaders take part in a group photo session for the G20 Summit held at the Hangzhou International Expo Center in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Sept. 4, 2016. Ng Han Guan / AP

The G20 meeting in China was a milestone in international relations. Until only recently, world leaders were certain that the global economy and increased connectivity had helped stabilize and define the new world order. Now, however, the pendulum has turned back towards a classic game between the great powers, and Russia is again feeling right in its element.

Two years ago, when arriving at the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, President Vladimir Putin was met at the airport by a low-level clerk from the local Foreign Affairs Ministry. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot publicly promised to grab the Russian president by his lapels and throw him to the floor. While shaking Putin’s hand during a formal greeting, then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told him to “Get out of Ukraine.” Commentators gloated over a photo of Putin sitting at an empty lunch table. In the end, the Putin cited urgent business back in Moscow and left the meeting before the official closing.

This year’s meeting in China’s Hangzhou has demonstrated that the key players have not forgotten about the Ukrainian crisis, but are concerned about other things. This time, the controversy concerned not Putin, but U.S. President Barack Obama, who was forced to disembark from the rear exit of Air Force One after the Chinese failed to provide a rolling staircase to the main door.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called Obama a “son of a wh*re,” and then, after learning that the U.S. president had canceled their scheduled meeting, became frightened and began apologizing.

Putin was very much in demand. This was primarily due to the Middle East, where another turning point is approaching. But that is not the only reason. The global focus is shifting — not only geographically, but also in terms of content.

The Group of 20 was originally created as an economic forum, first at the ministerial level, as a response to the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, and later at the level of heads of state, in the middle of the global economic panic of 2008. The role of global “Politburo” went to the G8 — a venue that also began with an economic focus before switching to politics once Russia joined.

With the world changing so rapidly, it made little sense to discuss anything within the framework of a club in which Russia was the only non-Western power. At the very least, such discussions should include China, and preferably, a range of countries prepared to play a role in world affairs.

As a result, every year the agenda of the G20 becomes more politicized and economic issues take on an increasingly formal importance. Although China announced that the official theme of this year’s summit would be innovations and their role in economic growth, speakers addressed almost every subject but innovation — halts in oil production, the consequences of Brexit, the crisis in Aleppo and territorial conflicts connected with China.

This is perfectly natural. Since the start of the financial crisis in the late 2000s, the division between politics and the economy has vanished, with politics gaining the upper hand. That process began when governments started “nationalizing losses” by using taxpayer money to bail out private banking institutions. That changed the balance of power between corporations and governments in favor of the latter. The growing chaos in the Middle East and the related terrorist threat in Europe made security a priority, and the Ukrainian and Syrian crises have spawned a new rivalry between the major powers. What is most surprising is that China has become involved, despite previous careful avoidance.

The actual results of this G20 summit will become apparent later. Did Putin and Obama “reach an understanding of each other and the problem we face” in Syria, as the Russian president said? Are Moscow, Washington, Ankara and Riyadh making progress toward engineering a new Syria based on the de facto division of the spheres of influence there? Will Moscow and Tokyo compromise on territorial issues? Is China ready to switch from interdependence with the United States to political competition? How can all sides extricate themselves the Minsk process with minimal loss of face?

Now, 25 years after the curtain had seemingly fallen for the last time in the struggle between the world’s major powers, that drama has returned to center stage.

Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs

Big Power, G20 Summit, Global Game

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Panamagate hearing: Third offshore company of Sharifs crops up by By Hasnaat Malik The Express Tribune,Pakistan: December 1st, 2016.

Posted by Fiona in CURRENT EVENTS on December 2nd, 2016

Panamagate hearing: Third offshore company of Sharifs crops up

By Hasnaat Malik

Published: December 1, 2016

ISLAMABAD: Until now we knew that Premier Nawaz Sharif’s children owned two offshore companies — Nescol Ltd and Nielsen Enterprises Ltd — but now a third company, Coomber Group, has cropped up while the Sharif family is struggling to prove the money trail for the purchase of luxury flats in London.

In the documents submitted to the Supreme Court in the Panamagate case, the Sharif family has attached two different deeds where Maryam Safdar is a trustee of her brother’s companies.

London flats were bought through Qatari investments, Sharif family tells SC

On February 2, 2006, Premier Sharif’s daughter signed a declaration with her brother Hussain Nawaz as a trustee in his two companies Nescol and Nielsen. The same day, she signed a similar declaration with him for another company, Coomber Group, in which he owns 49% shares.

This third company is likely to be the focus of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s legal team in the next hearing scheduled for December 6.

After a two-week hiatus when a five-member bench of the apex court resumed hearing on Wednesday, the PTI legal team raised more than 10 questions to establish their case.

Agreeing to some of the arguments put forward by PTI’s lead counsel Naeem Bukhari, some judges observed that the Sharif family was ‘hiding’ facts about the ownership of the offshore companies as some necessary documents still seem to be missing in their replies.

The judges also raised questions on the money trail the Sharif family has so far submitted before the court and pointed out missing links. The missing details included banking transactions or any other channels through which money had been transferred from Dubai to Qatar and then to London to acquire the expensive property in an upscale neighborhood of London.

One of the judges also pointed out that there were two contradictory descriptions on the part of the Sharif family. One was narrated by the prime minister on the floor of parliament, claiming his family had set up a factory in Jeddah in 1999 using money from the Gulf Steel Mills it had established in Dubai, and later the Saudi factory had been sold to buy London properties.

Panama leaks case: PTI submits ‘evidence’ against Sharif family

Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan, agreeing with Bukhari’s contention, said that the other narrative came from the written replies the Sharif family has submitted before the court in which the Jeddah factory has no mention and the money trail has been directly established from selling the UAE factory to investments with the Qatari royal family.

An affidavit submitted on behalf of a Qatari prince claims that the London flats had been given in the ownership of Hussain Nawaz in 2006 as part of a business deal against investments made by his late grandfather with his family in the real estate business in the early 1980s.

To substantiate this account, the Sharif family had submitted another affidavit from Tariq Shafi, a cousin of Premier Nawaz who actually owned the business in Dubai in the 1970s. According to him, he was working on behalf of his uncle, the late father of Premier Nawaz. All shares in those businesses in Dubai were sold in 1980, generating 12 million UAE dirhams. The bench observed that Shafi’s signature on the affidavit did not match with the signature on the agreement.

Bukhari contended that despite having a liability of 14 million dirhams to Bank of Credit & Commerce International Dubai (BCCI), the Sharif family had invested 12 million dirhams in Qatar in 1980. He went on to state that there was not a single document produced by the Sharif family to establish how the money had been sent from Pakistan to Dubai, Qatar, Jeddah, and London.

Justice Asif Khosa observed that there was no banking trail of transfer of money from Dubai to London. He, however, asked the PTI counsel to establish that the Sharif family was the owner of these flats prior to 2006.

Nawaz family used offshore firms to own UK properties

“If you establish a connection with this property prior to 2006, then the burden of proof will be shifted to other side. Show us the connection as this is your entire case,” Justice Khosa observed. However, he said Premier Nawaz in his speeches talked about the trail of the money as he may forget.

Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh, who has expertise in white-collar crimes, raised several questions about the money trail of the Sharif family’s London flats. No explanation has been given about how the family had cleared liability to the BCCI. He also observed that there was no explanation from the Sharif family that how had they gotten the money to set up Jeddah Steel Mills.

He was also surprised how the respondents had hidden the name of the owner of the Minerva Officer Limited, which was a shareholder of Nielsen and Nescol in 1994.

“No supportive document has been submitted to establish the ownership of Minerva. Why this information is being hidden from the bench,” Justice Azmat remarked. The judge also observed that the bench was conducting the inquisitorial proceedings in this matter.

Earlier, Bukhari pointed out that Premier Sharif has made contradictory statements regarding the ownership of the London flats. He also stated that the prime minister has evaded tax, adding that Marriam Nawaz Sharif was a dependent and remain a dependent. The Qatari prince’s letter has totally negated the prime minister’s earlier stance.

The case was adjourned until next Tuesday.

Courtesy:

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2016.

Bad Governance by Nawaz Sharif, Nawaz Corruption, Panamagate