Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson and SFBBL AG Comment on Projects in Pakistan

Presently, opportunities abound in a variety of industries for many companies and organizations interested in sound, long term investments. Pakistan offers attractive choices for businesses that involve expertise in areas such as  power, banking, mining, natural resources exploration / exploitation, agriculture, infrastructure and telecommunications.

POWER

Pakistan is in dire need of adequate energy development to service a sizable sector not addressed, resulting in only 80% of the country’ energy requirements being met. Lord Neil B. Gibson, www.lordneilgibson.com, and SFBBL AG, www.sfbblag.com have received international attention for their continued work with the many of the world’s energy producers, and have set clear intention to with Pakistan’s banking system in starting to satisfy the county’s power needs.

SFBBL AG’s financial and development partners are well versed and retain extensive backgrounds in advising companies within the United States and abroad concerning projects related to energy production and distribution. As one of the critical components to achieving success for projects of these involves interacting with in-country key decision makers, SFBBL AG, as are its partners, currently maintain the right relationships and positions to effectively close in a timely manner.

EXPLORATION

Abundant sources of minerals, such as limestone, coal, gypsum, sulfur, crude oil and natural gas are well within Pakistan. As such, the Pakistani government has been making efforts to enhance its mining operations through modernization of their procedures and processing, including development of large production plants for large quantities of gypsum plaster, a material often used in construction.

Lord Neil Gibson and SFBBL AG are able to offer significant assistance with the financial and operational structures for the investments into the project, laying base for the mechanical functions for the project itself.   

INFRASTRUCTURE

Industrial growth has placed high demands and new pressures on virtually all facets of Pakistan’s air, sea, rail and road infrastructures. While the country has successfully been able to double the number of roads over the last 10 years, it is still far below meeting the needs of varying industries positive growth. Construction of roads and bridges remain a continual challenge, and are thus seeking extensive privatization and direct foreign investment,

Neil Gibson and SFBBL AG understand the crucial importance in keeping on pace with the expansion of economic growth of the country, while furthering transportations systems spreading throughout Pakistan. In response to this boom, Lord Gibson brings a team of experts with enormous management, economic and financial resource knowledge to address the matter in such a way as to begin curbing development problems.

AGRICULTURE

Pakistan boasts a significant agricultural economy, presently the country’s largest producer. Most investments are geared toward increasing productivity and furthering profitability in many related areas including crops, dairy, forestry, irrigation, land management and seed production.

The United States is presently one of the largest export markets for Pakistani agricultural goods.

Lord Gibson and SFBBL AG have strong histories in commodities, futures contracts and agricultural products in general. Through the years, Lord Neil B. Gibson has gained enormous relationships to help reach significant milestones in leveraging agricultural products, including enhancements and directly attributable skills from members of SFBBL AG.

PETROCHEMICAL

Deregulation of oil and gas has created a far more competitive market, which is also the most significant are of foreign investment in Pakistan. The need for oil and gas, however, has continued to become greater, as the transportation industry demand has increased substantially.

As the Pakistani government provides fair and equal treatment for foreign and local investors within the industry, the country is making notable strides in harnessing its domestic production of crude oil.

Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson and SFBBL AG are very familiar and knowledgeable with petrochemicals, having worked closely with a number of the world’s largest oil producing companies and families. Lord Neil B. Gibson’s approach will be one from a tactical, market responsive and, most importantly, relationship based strategy, keeping in mind the desire for Pakistan to first rectify its country’s demand for gas and oil.

OPPORTUNITIES OPEN IN PAKISTAN FOR THE BENEFIT OF LORD NEIL B. GIBSON AND SFBBL AG

Lord Neil Benjamin Gibson and SFBBL AG have teamed up with local business men, including advisors and various partners adept in Pakistan legal affairs for proper guidance..

An advantage that Lord Gibson maintains in bringing the business opportunities from concept to reality is access to local and national Pakistani and European government officials, agencies and decision makers.

With foreign investments having increased well over tenfold to approximately $4 billion annually, the desire and importance in these investments being successful is enormous, and as such, are in need of professionals such as Lord Neil Gibson  and SFBBL AG.

Consequently, the Pakistani and foreign governments have collectively been working to foster increased liberalization, deregulation and privatization of Pakistan’s financial, commercial and other business markets.

New, non-military aid packages to support such financial endeavors in both domestic and international businesses have been deployed by a number of additional foreign governments. Pakistan, as confirmed by the World Bank, offers an excellent, high rate of return for projects in the country, and remains one of the top growing economies in the Asian continent.

Multilateral lending and export credit agencies, such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); including local and international chambers of commerce are among the vast and notable experience Lord Neil B. Gibson and SFBBL AG have and Pakistan will benefit from.

The conceptual and practical ideas of industry, energy, construction, finance, international tax and private equity are among the core principals that is the Lord Gibson and SFBBL AG project development arrangement, conjointly guiding the partners in Pakistan through the full project cycle, including tactical solutions to optimize operations and appropriately target otherwise missed business opportunities. 

INDIA EVACUATES IRAQ

NEW DELHI: India's operation in strife-torn Iraq is fast taking the shape of a full-scale evacuation of all Indians. Evacuation is being carried out not only from Sunni-controlled troubled areas, but also from Shia-dominated areas that are relatively peaceful, indicating that New Delhi now believes that the situation in Iraq is fast spinning out of control. 

This week, over 600 Indians will leave their workplaces and jobs and fly back to India, helped by the Indian government. Many of these people do not have their papers in order. The Indian embassy is quickly putting their documents in place and planning to put these Indians on commercial flights from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities from where flights are still taking off.
Already two ships have been sent to Iraq to evacuate stranded Indians. It is reliably learnt that cargo ships have also been sent to Basra to carry Indians to the nearest safe port from where IAF or Air India planes will carry them back home.

READ ALSO: Govt rushes officials to Iraq to set up evacuation camps for Indians, military 'ready'

With ISIS declaring the establishment of a caliphate, the reading here is that the Sunni-Shia battle will get more bitter. As there's no one really with a line to ISIS, the sense of foreboding has only grown. Meanwhile, it is believed here that the 40 kidnapped Indians are being used as captive labour by ISIS.

Describing the transportation of Indians back home as a "proactive approach", MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told journalists that Indian diplomats are seeking out Indian nationals at their homes and places of work in Iraq to deliver the message that they should leave while the going is good and the airports are still open. 


Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj (second from left) meets family members of workers abducted in Iraq. 

The MEA has dispatched over 25 officials to the key Iraq cities outside the conflict zone to facilitate the repatriation of Indian workers by helping them with documentation and air tickets.



With Air India, military transport aircraft and naval vessels on standby, India is, for the time being, making use of the commercial flights that are still operating from Iraq's main cities — Najaf, Kerbala, Basra and Baghdad. MEA officials are refusing to describe the exercise as an "evacuation" which evokes memories of Libya.


A relative of an Indian trapped in Iraq wipes her tears in Punjab. 

Officials here no longer rule out the possibility of Iraq, as the modern world has known it, disintegrating. For its part, the Iraqi government, now armed with Russian Sukhoi fighter aircraft, has started air strikes on Tirril and other ISIS positions. 

Is this Iraq's Last Chance?

"Today is a great day in Iraq," declared Maj.-Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq.


He announced that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the Jordanian-born militant who was the head of the murderous al-Qaeda in Iraq — had been killed in a U.S. airstrike a day earlier.

Responsible for countless suicide bombings and attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqis (especially Shia Muslims), Zarqawi, dubbed the "Emir of al-Qaeda" in the region, had been so wanted that the U.S. had offered a $25 million dollar reward for his capture.

The second piece of good news that Caldwell presented was that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had finally announced his choices for the key ministries of defence, interior and national security — a decision that had been repeatedly delayed by internal squabbling.

"Today, Iraq takes a giant step forward — closer to peace within, closer to unity throughout, and closer to a world without terror," Caldwell said, hopefully.

How long ago 2006 seems.

Maliki, the prime minister the U.S. favoured in forging Iraq's fledgling democracy, grew increasingly authoritarian over the years, consolidating his hold on power to the point where he alone held the key portfolios of defence, interior and national security for the past four years — a vice-grip on power that roiled lawmakers from all of Iraq's sects.

As for the so-called emir the U.S. invasion helped create, Zarqawi left behind an organization that many thought would wither without him, but which instead has morphed into a grotesquely potent force known as ISIS, which now claims to run an Islamic state straddling Syria and Iraq.

It is a force that is now fundamentally changing Iraq's always fragile alignments.

Another 'emir'

Since its fearsome landing in northern Iraq two months ago — nearly eight years to the day after its former leader was killed — ISIS has upended Iraq’s admittedly sorry status quo, as well as the calculus of its foes and allies alike.

For one, it forced a U.S. president loath to get militarily involved in Iraq to reconsider that reluctance.

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Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community, a Kurdish speaking group with their own distinct religion, shelter in the mountains of Shikhan near Dahuk, about 430 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, fleeing the Sunni extremists known as ISIS. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed) (Khalid Mohammed / Associated Press)

This past week, the group's violent campaign against Christians and Yazidis prompted Barack Obama to order both humanitarian aid drops and airstrikes, in the first significant U.S. operation in Iraq since its soldiers left in 2011.

The U.S. has also just reversed its reluctance to arm the Kurdish Peshmerga military directly, and announced yesterday it would provide heavy weapons to the only force in Iraq currently squaring off with the militant group.

In what has been described as perhaps the most telling sign of the overall U.S. failure in Iraq, Obama's limited campaign may be the first time U.S. warplanes have had to target U.S. equipment, stolen by ISIS from fleeing Iraqi forces in June.

Perhaps equally frustrating for the U.S. military is that ISIS today is light-years beyond that nascent group led by Zarqawi, which the U.S. managed to persuade many Iraqi Sunni communities to spurn just a few short years ago.

It is also vastly richer and more battle hardened than it was when it implanted itself in the midst of Syria's civil war — in spite of al-Qaeda's objections.

It is slicker, better at recruitment and is also now led by its own self-appointed "caliph," Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi national who was once, reportedly, a U.S. prisoner, held for four years in a holding centre in southern Iraq and then released.

A few years later, he became the new self-styled "emir" of ISIS. And in 2011, Washington announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture or killing.

A last chance?

The welcome ISIS seems to have received among some Sunni Iraqis, alienated by Maliki's government, has also prompted what many believe is a much-needed political shakeup.

Earlier this summer, Washington hinted — and many Iraqis of all sects agreed — that it was time for a more inclusive prime minister to replace Maliki, even though his Shia party had won the largest share of votes in the recent election.

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Haidar al-Abadi, once Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's close ally, is now the man set to replace him, if only Maliki will step aside. (Associated Press)

Yesterday, the country's new president nominated Haidar al-Abadi, the deputy speaker and a former ministerial ally of Maliki, to be the next PM, infuriating Maliki, who was bent on serving a third term.

Maliki isn't likely to go quietly. Neither will ISIS.

But the fast-changing fortunes of both in recent days may present the best opportunity since 2003 for Iraq to try to right itself.

It will now be up to Iraqis themselves to contain any problems brought on by Maliki's refusal to cede power. And in the face of the ISIS threat, Iraq's feuding sects will be expected to return to a unity government, in what could well be a one last effort to keep the country together.

As for ISIS, the Kurds — indeed even the Iraqi forces — cannot fight them alone, at least in the short term. And likely not even if they unite.

So unless he's willing to leave a country that the U.S. has consistently failed to revive in the hands of a group that the U.S. has repeatedly failed to neutralize, Obama — loath or not — may well find his forces increasing drawn into this battle.

ROBIN WILLIAMS THE ALL TIME GREAT

The news of his death sent shock waves through Hollywood and the nation, and prompted an outpouring of grieving tweets and statements from everyone from the president of the United States to the Sesame Street gang.

"Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between," President Obama said in a statement. "But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most – from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets. The Obama family offers our condolences to Robin's family, his friends, and everyone who found their voice and their verse thanks to Robin Williams."

CNN reported a statement from Pam Dawber, Williams' co-star in the wacky Mork & Mindy of the late 1970s, which introduced Williams to an amazed nation. "I am completely and totally devastated. What more can be said?!" Dawber said.

"We mourn the loss of our friend Robin Williams, who always made us laugh and smile," the Sesame Street tweet read.

"I saw him on stage the very first time he auditioned at The Improv in Los Angeles," said Jay Leno in a statement. "And we have been friends ever since. It's a very sad day."

Williams' last tweet and Instagram was on July 31, when he wished his daughter, Zelda Rae, a happy 25th birthday and posted a picture of himself with her as a child. "Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl," he captioned the photo.

In San Francisco, where Williams for a while lived in the fog-shrouded oceanside Sea Cliff neighborhood, residents were shocked and saddened.

"He seemed like a good San Franciscan," said Griff Behncke, 35, who was waiting to take the ferry ride back to Sausalito, near Tiburon. He remembers Williams donating blood after the 9/11 terror attacks, and then entertaining the long line of people waiting to donate.

Williams will reprise his role as Theodore Roosevelt in the third Night at the Museumfilm. Fox issued a statement, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"There really are no words to describe the loss of Robin Williams. He was immensely talented, a cherished member of our community, and part of the Fox family. Our hearts go out to his family, friends and fans. He will be deeply missed."

Williams, who won an Oscar for his supporting role in Good Will Hunting, also recently signed on to reprise his beloved role as Mrs. Doubtfire in a sequel to be directed by Chris Columbus, according to EW.

Williams has battled health problems and struggled with substance abuse for decades. Only last month he went into rehab at Hazelden Addiction Treatment Center in Minnesota, and was expected to stay there for several weeks.

THANK GOD CEASEFIRE IN GAZA

Israel is willing to extend a ceasefire that ended a month of fighting in Gaza beyond a Friday deadline, an Israeli official has said, but Hamas has denied that a new deal has been reached.

The official, quoted by the Reuters news agency, said: "Israel has expressed its readiness to extend the truce under its current terms," referring to the 72-hour deal brokered by Egypt that took effect on Tuesday.

But Hamas deputy leader Musa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, part of the Palestinian delegation holding talks in Cairo, denied on Wednesday night that there was yet any agreement for an extension.

"There is no agreement to extend the ceasefire," he wrote on Twitter.

"Any news about the extension of the truce is unfounded," added Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his country's military actions during the four-week-long assault, blaming Hamas for the fatalities in Gaza.



In a news conference in West Jerusalem, Netanyahu said: "Israel deeply regrets every civilian casualties. The people of Gaza are not our enemy, our enemy is Hamas".

"Every civilian casualty is a tragedy, a tragedy of Hamas's own making."

His comments came as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the deaths in Gaza "have shocked and shamed the world".

The UN chief has also called for investigation into bombing of UN facility in Gaza.

"Attacks against UN premises, along with other suspected breaches of international law, must be swiftly investigated," he added.

'Senseless cycle of suffering'

Netanyahu said Israel's intense bombardment of Gaza was a necessary response to Hamas attacks.

"It was justified. It was proportionate," he said.

The prime minister said also that "Hamas is using tactics adopted by other terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group".

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army told news agency AFP that 27,000 reservists called up for the conflict had been sent home, leaving a force of 55,000 still on active duty, in another sign of growing hopes for long-term quiet.

The UN has called on all parties in the Middle East to find a lasting peaceful solution to the conflict in Gaza.

In a special meeting of the UN General Assembly convened at the request of Arab countries, Ban Ki-moon said: "The senseless cycle of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Israel, must end.

"We will build again but this must be the last time to rebuild. This must stop now," he told the 193-nation assembly.

Ban called for an end to rocket fire from Gaza and weapons smuggling as well as lifting an Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza and bringing the besieged territory back under one Palestinian government.

The Palestinians have demanded an end to the eight-year Israeli blockade of Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel has resisted those demands.

The Egyptian-mediated 72-hour ceasefire that went into effect on Tuesday has brought relief to both sides after fighting that erupted on July 8 killed 1,875 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side.

In Gaza, where about a half-million people have been displaced by a month of bloodshed, some residents left UN shelters to trek back to neighbourhoods where whole blocks have been destroyed by Israeli shelling and the smell of decomposing bodies fills the air.

Streets in towns in southern Israel, which had been under daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, were filled again with playing children.

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