Name	World Economic Forum
Formation	1971, as European Management Forum1987, name changed to World Economic Forum
Type	Non-profit organization
Status	Foundation
Headquarters	Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland
Region served	Worldwide
Leader title	Chief Executive Officer
Leader name	Klaus Schwab
Website	weforum.org}}

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland.

The meeting brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment.

Beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives.

It also organizes the "Annual Meeting of the New Champions" in China and a series of regional meetings throughout the year. In 2008, those regional meetings included meetings on Europe and Central Asia, East Asia, the Russia CEO Roundtable, Africa, the Middle East, and the World Economic Forum on Latin America. In 2008, the foundation also launched the "Summit on the Global Agenda" in Dubai.

The 2011 annual meeting in Davos has been held from 26 January to 30 January.

History

The foundation was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva. Originally named the European Management Forum, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision further to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.

In the summer of 1971 Schwab invited 444 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the Davos Congress Centre under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, where Schwab sought to introduce European firms to American management practices. He then founded the WEF as a non-profit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January.

Schwab developed the "stakeholder" management approach which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests: not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but also employees and the communities within which the firm is situated, including governments. Events in 1973, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the annual meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues, and political leaders were invited for the first time to the annual meeting in January 1974.

As the years went by, political leaders began to use the annual meeting as a neutral platform to resolve their differences. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, helping them turn back from the brink of war. In 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached a draft agreement on Gaza and Jericho. In 2008, Bill Gates gave a keynote speech on creative capitalism, a form of capitalism that works both to generate profits and solve the world's inequities, using market forces to better address the needs of the poor.

Organization

Headquartered in Cologny, the foundation opened, in 2006, regional offices in Beijing, China; and New York City, New York, United States. It strives to be impartial, and is not tied to any political, partisan or national interests. The foundation is "committed to improving the State of the World", and has observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Council. The foundation's highest governance body is the Foundation Board consisting of 22 members.

During the five-day annual meeting in 2009, over 2,500 participants from 91 countries gathered in Davos. Around 75 percent (1,170) were business leaders, drawn principally from its members, 1,000 of the world's top companies. Besides these, participants included 219 public figures, including 40 heads of state or government, 64 cabinet ministers, 30 heads or senior officials of international organizations and 10 ambassadors. More than 432 participants were from civil society, including 32 heads or representatives of non-governmental organizations, 225 media leaders, 149 leaders from academic institutions and think tanks, 15 religious leaders of different faiths and 11 union leaders.

Membership

The foundation is funded by its 1,000-member companies, the typical company being a global enterprise with more than five billion dollars in turnover, although the latter can vary by industry and region. In addition, these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. As of 2005, each member company pays a basic annual membership fee of CHF 42,500 and a CHF 18,000 annual-meeting fee which covers the participation of its chief executive officer at the annual meeting. Industry Partners and Strategic Partners pay CHF 250,000 and CHF 500,000, respectively, allowing them to play a greater role in the foundation's initiatives.

In addition, these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country (generally based on turnover in millions of U.S. dollars; for financial institutions, the criteria is based on assets) and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region, as judged by the foundation's selection committee.

Industry Partners come from a broad range of business sectors, including construction; aviation; technology; tourism; food and beverage; engineering; and financial services. These companies are alert to the global issues that most affect their specific industry sector.

Activities

Annual meeting in Davos

The flagship event of the foundation is the invitation-only annual meeting held every year at the end of January in Davos, bringing together chief executive officers from its 1,000-member companies as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia, NGOs, religious leaders and the media in an alpine environment. The town is small enough to enforce participants to meet anywhere off the sessions and allows them to attend the most possible receptions organized by companies and countries. Informal meetings may have led to as many ideas and solutions as the official sessions. Around 2,200 participants gather for the five-day event and attend some of the 220 sessions in the official programme. The discussions focus around key issues of global concern (such as international conflicts, poverty and environmental problems) and possible solutions. In all, about 500 journalists from online, print, radio and television take part, and are furnished with access to all of the sessions in the official program, some of which are also webcast.

All plenary debates from the annual meeting are also available on YouTube, pictures are available for free at Flickr and key quotes are available on Twitter. In 2007, the foundation opened pages on social-media platforms such as MySpace and Facebook. At the 2009 annual meeting, the foundation invited the general public to participate in the Davos Debates on YouTube allowing one user to attend the annual meeting in person. In 2008, the Davos Question on YouTube allowed YouTube users to interact with the world leaders gathered in Davos who were encouraged to reply from a YouTube Video Corner at the congress centre. In 2008 press conferences are live streamed on Qik and Mogulus allowing anyone to put questions to the speakers. In 2006 and 2007, selected participants were interviewed in, and the closing session was streamed into Reuters' auditorium in Second Life.

Participants

thumb|President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines at the World Economic Forum in 2009 In 2008, some 250 public figures (head of state or government, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, heads or senior officials of international organization) attended the annual meeting, including: Abdoulaye Wade, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Ban Ki-moon, Condoleezza Rice, Ferenc Gyurcsany, François Fillon, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Gordon Brown, Hamid Karzai, Ilham Aliyev, Jan Peter Balkenende, Lee Bollinger, Lee Hsien Loong, Pervez Musharraf, Queen Rania of Jordan, Ruth Simmons, Salam Fayyad, Sali Berisha, Serzh Sargsyan, Shimon Peres, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Tukufu Zuberi, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, Valdas Adamkus, Yasuo Fukuda, Viktor A. Yushchenko and Zeng Peiyan.

Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Michael Wolf, Bono, Paulo Coelho and Tony Blair are also regular Davos attendees. Past attendees include Angela Merkel, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Dmitry Medvedev, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela, Raymond Barre, Julian Lloyd Webber and Yasser Arafat.

The participants at the annual meeting were collectively described as "Davos Man" by American scholar Samuel Huntington, referring to a global elite whose members view themselves as completely international.

Annual Meeting of the New Champions

In 2007 the foundation established the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also called Summer Davos), held annually in China and alternating between Dalian and Tianjin, bringing together 1,500 influential stakeholders of what the foundation calls Global Growth Companies, primarily from rapidly growing emerging countries such as China, India, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, but also including fast movers from developed countries. The meeting also engages with the next generation of global leaders, fast-growing regions, competitive cities and technology pioneers from around the globe. Premier Wen Jiabao has delivered a plenary address at each annual meeting.

Regional meetings

Every year ten regional meetings take place, enabling close contact between corporate business leaders, local government leaders and NGOs. Meetings are held in Africa, East Asia, Latin America and the Middle East The mix of hosting countries varies from year to year, but China and India have hosted consistently over the past decade.

To commemorate 20th anniversary of the World Economic Forum on East Asia meeting will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia on June 12 and 13, 2011 with topic "Responding to the New Globalism". Some of the participants have confirmed attendance such as World Customs Organization Secretary General from Brussels, Unilever CEO from London and PricewaterhouseCoopers chairman from the US. Currently, many investors in advanced economies are shifting investments to the rapidly growing economies in Asia. 624 participants had registered with the forum organizing committee which it is the largest amount in the history of the WEF.

Young Global Leaders

In 2005 the foundation established the community of Young Global Leaders, the successor to the Global Leaders of Tomorrow, consisting of under-forty-year-old leaders from all around the world and a myriad of disciplines and sectors. The leaders engage in the 2030 Initiative, the creation of an action plan for how to reach the vision of what the world could be like in 2030. Among the Young Global Leaders are: Shai Agassi, Anousheh Ansari, Maria Consuelo Araujo, Lera Auerbach, Cenk Aydin, Fatmir Besimi, Ian Bremmer, Sergey Brin, Tyler Brûlé, Patrick Chappatte, Olafur Eliasson, Roger Federer, Jens Martin Skibsted, Rahul Gandhi, Kenneth Griffin, Kelly Chen, Scott J. Freidheim, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Abdulsalam Haykal, Silvana Koch-Mehrin, Irshad Manji, Felix Maradiaga, Princess Mathilde of Belgium, Aditya Mittal, Euvin Naidoo, Gavin Newsom, Larry Page, Lewis Gordon Pugh, Senator Mar Roxas of the Philippines, Christopher Schläffer, Anoushka Shankar, Aaron McCormack, Premal Shah, Josh Spear, Peter Thiel, Jimmy Wales, Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Stephan Morais, Kimmie Weeks, Gazmend Haxhia and Niklas Zennström. New members are selected on a yearly basis and the Forum of Young Global Leaders will count 1,111 members.

Social Entrepreneurs

Since 2000 the foundation has been promoting models developed by the world's leading social entrepreneurs in close collaboration with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. The foundation highlights social entrepreneurship as a key element to advance societies and address social problems. Selected social entrepreneurs are invited to participate in the foundation's regional meetings and the annual meetings where they have a chance to meet chief executives and senior government officials. At the Annual Meeting 2003, for example, Jeroo Bilimoria met with Roberto Blois, deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, an encounter that produced a key partnership for her organization Child Helpline International.

Research reports

The foundation also serves as a think tank, and publishes a wide range of reports focusing on issues of concern and importance to Forum communities. In particular, Strategic Insight Teams focus on producing reports of relevance in the fields of competitiveness, global risks and scenario thinking.

The Competitiveness Team produces a range of annual economic reports (first published in brackets): the Global Competitiveness Report (1979) measures competitiveness of countries and economies; The Global Information Technology Report (2001) assesses their competitiveness based on their IT readiness; the Global Gender Gap Report (2005) examines critical areas of inequality between men and women; the Global Risks Report (2006) assesses key global risks; the Global Travel and Tourism Report (2007) measures travel and tourism competitiveness and the Global Enabling Trade Report (2008) presents a cross-country analysis of the large number of measures facilitating trade between nations.

The Global Risk Network produces a yearly report assessing those risks which are deemed to be global in scope, have cross-industry relevance, are uncertain, have the potential to cause upwards of US$ 10 billion in economic damage, have the potential to cause major human suffering and which require a multistakeholder approach for mitigation.

The Scenario Planning team develops a range of regional, industry-focused and issue-specific scenario reports designed to challenge readers' assumptions, raise awareness of critical underlying factors and stimulate fresh thinking about the future. Recent reports include a major publication on possible near- and long-term impacts of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, and scenarios on the impact of demographic shifts on pension and healthcare financing.

Initiatives

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) was launched by Kofi Annan at the Annual Meeting in 2002. The GHI's mission is to engage businesses in public-private partnerships to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and health systems.

The Global Education Initiative (GEI), launched during the Annual Meeting in 2003, has brought together international IT companies and governments in Jordan, Egypt and India which has resulted in new personal computer hardware in the classrooms and more local teachers trained in e-learning. This is having a real impact on the lives of children. The GEI model which is scalable and sustainable is now being used as an educational blueprint in other countries including Rwanda.

The Environmental Initiative covers Climate Change and Water. Under the Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, the U.K. government asked the World Economic Forum at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to facilitate a dialogue with the business community to develop recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This set of recommendations, endorsed by a global group of CEOs, was presented to leaders ahead of the G8 Summit in Toyako/Hokkaido held in July 2008.

The Water Initiative brings together different stakeholders like Alcan Inc., the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, USAID India, UNDP India, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Government of Rajasthan and the NEPAD Business Foundation to develop public-private partnerships on water management in South Africa and India.

In an effort to combat corruption, the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) was launched by CEOs from the Engineering and Construction, Energy and Metals and Mining industries at the Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2004. PACI is a platform for peer exchange on practical experience and dilemma situations. Some 140 companies have signed.

Deals

Rosneft-ExxonMobil and Rosneft-BP

On 27 January 2011, Rosneft and ExxonMobil signed a deal at the forum to establish a joint venture for the purpose of prospecting and extracting oil from the Tuapse Trough deepwater area in the north-eastern continental shelf of the Black Sea, near the coast of the Krasnodar Krai. The value of the deal is unknown, but ExxonMobil is expected to invest $1 billion in the project. The venture will be shared 50-50 between the companies during prospecting phase, and 66-33 in Rosneft's favour during the extraction phase. The Tuapse Trough is estimated to contain 7.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The first well could be drilled in 2012. The joint venture will benefit from ExxonMobil's innovative technology and Rosneft's resources and experience in the region, enabling production from the difficult-to-develop offshore area. The deal also contains the possibility for additional cooperation, such as extended exploration and production, deliveries to Rosneft's oil refinery in Tuapse as well as development of transport infrastructure and research on offshore oil production technologies.

At the same January 2011 edition of the WEF, Rosneft also signed a deal on the strategic partnership with BP and revealed details of the joint Rosneft-BP project on the development of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic (earlier in the same month, Rosneft and BP exchanged 9.5% and 5% of their shares respectively, and set up a joint venture on the giant East-Prinovozemelsky field development). Currently, there is no active offshore oil industry both on the Russian Arctic shelf and in the Black Sea, and Rosneft-BP and Rosneft-ExxonMobil ventures are among the very largest and pioneering projects in these areas.

Awards

Technology Pioneers Programme

The Technology Pioneers Programme recognizes companies all over the world designing and developing new technologies. The award is given to 30–50 companies each year. As of 2008, 391 companies have been so recognized. The award was first given in 2003.

In line with the foundation's commitment to improving the state of the world, the Tech Pioneers are integrated into its activities with the objective to identify and address future-oriented issues on the global agenda, in proactive, innovative and entrepreneurial ways. By bringing these executives together with scientists, academics, NGOs, and foundation members and partners, the foundation's goal is to shed new light on how technologies can be used to, for example, find new vaccines, create economic growth and enhance global communication.

Public Eye Awards

The Public Eye Awards have been held every year since 2000. It is a counter-event to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Public Eye Awards is public competition of the world's worst corporation. In 2011 more than 50,000 voted for companies acted irresponsibly. At a ceremony at a Davos hotel the "winners" in 2011 were named as Indonesian palm oil diesel maker Neste Oil in Finland and mining company AngloGold Ashanti in South Africa.

Criticism

In the late 1990s the foundation, along with the G7, World Bank, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund, came under heavy criticism by anti-globalisation activists who claimed that capitalism and globalization were increasing poverty and destroying the environment. 10,000 demonstrators disrupted the World Economic Forum in Melbourne, Australia, obstructing the passage of 200 delegates to the meeting. Demonstrations are repeatedly held in Davos ''(see Anti-WEF protests in Switzerland, January 2003)'' to protest against the meeting of "fat cats in the snow", as rock singer Bono tongue-in-cheek termed it.

American linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky thinks that globalization in the sense of investors and privileged elites or some participants of the World Economic Forum is a propaganda term.

Chomsky said in an interview,

In January 2000, 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of Davos and smashed the window of the local McDonald's restaurant. The tight security measures around Davos have kept demonstrators from the Alpine resort, and most demonstrations are now held in Zürich, Bern or Basel. The costs of the security measures, which are shared by the foundation and the Swiss cantonal and national authorities have also been frequently criticised in the Swiss national media.

Starting at the annual meeting in January 2003 in Davos, an Open Forum Davos, co-organized by the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, was held in parallel, opening up the debate about globalisation to the general public. The Open Forum has been held in the local high school every year, featuring top politicians and business leaders, and is open to all members of the public free of charge.

The annual meeting has also been decried as a "mix of pomp and platitude", and criticized for moving away from serious economics and accomplishing little of substance, particularly with the increasing involvement of NGOs that have little or no expertise in economics. Instead of a discussion on the world economy with knowledgeable experts alongside key business and political players, the annual meeting now features the top media political causes of the day, such as global climate change and AIDS in Africa.

Davos Man

Davos Man is a neologism which refers to the global elite of wealthy men whose members view themselves as completely international. Davos is an Alpine city in eastern Switzerland which became famous in the 1990s for hosting the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of international politicians and financiers who represented a transnational elite. It is similar to the term ''Masters of the Universe'' attributed to influential financiers on Wall St.

Davos Men supposedly see their identity as a matter of personal choice, not an accident of birth. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who is credited with inventing the phrase "Davos Man", they are people who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the élite's global operations". In his 2004 article "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite," he argues that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the nationalist majority of the people.

John Fonte of the Hudson Institute has suggested that the transnational ideology of ''Davos Man'' represents a major challenge to Francis Fukuyama's assertion that liberal democracy represents the fulfillment of The End of History and the Last Man.

Hernando de Soto Polar of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy attributes a similar concept to Henri Braudel, referring to it as the "bell jar". Although internationally connected, each country's elite lives in a bell jar in the sense of being out of touch with its own populace. Their isolation fosters a tendency to be oblivious to the fate of their fellow citizens.

See also

anti-globalization movement

globalization

world economy

Istanbul World Political Forum

World Knowledge Forum

World Social Forum

Public Eye Awards

International Transport Forum

References

Reference books

Bornstein, David (2007). ''How to Change the World — Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas''. Oxford University Press (New York City, New York). ISBN 978-0-19-533476-0. 358 pages.

Kellerman, Barbara (1999). ''Reinventing Leadership — Making the Connection Between Politics and Business''. State University of New York Press (Albany, New York). ISBN 978-0-7914-4071-1. 268 pages.

Moore, Mike (2003). ''A World Without Walls — Freedom, Development, Free Trade and Global Governance''. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England; New York City, New York). ISBN 978-0-521-82701-0. 292 pages.

Pigman, Geoffrey Allen (2007). ''The World Economic Forum — A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Global Governance''. Routledge (London, England; New York City, New York). ISBN 978-0-415-70204-1. 175 pages.

Rothkopf, David J. (2008). ''Superclass — The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York City, New York). ISBN 978-0-374-27210-4. 376 pages.

Schwab, Klaus M.; Kroos, Hein (1971). ''Moderne Unternehmensführung im Maschinenbau''. Verein Dt. Maschinenbau-Anst. e.V.. Maschinenbau-Verl (Frankfurt om Main, Germany). .

Wolf, Michael (1999). ''The Entertainment Economy — How Mega-Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives''. Random House (New York City, New York). ISBN 978-0-8129-3042-9. 336 pages.

External links

Davos 2011 - Welcome to the Risk Response Network's Lounge with Kevin Steinberg

weforum.org World Economic Forum's official website

"Behind the Scenes at Davos" broadcast 14 February 2010 on ''60 Minutes''

Category:20th century in economics Category:20th-century establishments in Switzerland Category:21st century in economics Category:Davos Category:Economics organizations Category:Economy of Switzerland Category:Foundations based in Switzerland Category:Globalization Category:Graubünden Category:Organisations based in Geneva Category:Organizations established in 1971

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name	George Soros
birth date	August 12, 1930
birth place	Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
alma mater	London School of Economics
occupation	Entrepreneur, currency trader, investor, philanthropist
networth	$14.5 billion (2011)
spouse	Twice divorced (Annaliese Witschak and Susan Weber Soros)
children	Robert, Andrea, Jonathan, Alexander, Gregory
nationality	Hungarian
website	georgesoros.com
footnotes	}}

George Soros (; or , ; born August 12, 1930, as Schwartz György) is a Hungarian-American financier, businessman, and notable philanthropist focused on supporting liberal ideals and causes. He became known as "the Man Who Broke the Bank of England" after he made a reported $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crises. Soros correctly speculated that the British government would have to devalue the pound sterling.

Soros is Chairman of the Soros Fund Management. In July 2011, Soros announced that he was returning outside investment money (valued at $1 billion) and will only invest his own $24.5 billion family fortune because of new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure rules. Soros is also the chairman of the Open Society Institute and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. He played a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary (1984–89) and provided Europe's largest-ever higher education endowment to Central European University in Budapest. Later, the Open Society Institute's programs in Georgia were considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial in the success of the Rose Revolution. In the United States, he is known for donating large sums of money in an effort to defeat President George W. Bush's bid for re-election in 2004. In 2010, he donated $1 million in support of Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana in the state of California. He was an initial donor to the Center for American Progress, and he continues to support the organization through the Open Society Foundations. The Open Society Institute has active programs in more than 60 countries around the world with total expenditures currently averaging approximately $600 million a year.

In 2003, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in the foreword of Soros' book ''The Alchemy of Finance'':

George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but – more important – tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.

Family

Soros was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, the son of the Esperantist writer Tivadar Soros and Elizabeth Soros. Tivadar (also known as Teodoro) was a Hungarian Jew, who was a prisoner of war during and after World War I and eventually escaped from Russia to rejoin his family in Budapest.

The family changed its name from Schwartz to Soros in 1936, in response to growing anti-semitism with the rise of fascism. Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because of its meaning. Although the specific meaning is left unstated in Kaufman's biography, in Hungarian, ''soros'' means ''next in line'', or ''designated successor''; and, in Esperanto, it means "will soar". Tivadar taught George to speak Esperanto from birth. Soros later said that he grew up in a Jewish home and that his parents were cautious with their religious roots.

Married and divorced twice, Soros has three children with Annaliese Witschak (Robert, Andrea, Jonathan) and two with Susan Weber Soros (Alexander and Gregory). His elder brother, Paul Soros, also a private investor and philanthropist, is an engineer, who headed Soros Associates and established the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for Young Americans. Soros' nephew Peter Soros, a son of Paul Soros, married the former Flora Fraser – a daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser and the late Sir Hugh Fraser and a stepdaughter of the late 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. Fraser and Soros separated in 2009.

His son Alexander Soros is also gaining prominence for his donations to social and political causes. Alexander led the list of student political donors in the 2010 election cycle.

Early life

Soros was thirteen years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. Soros took a job with the Jewish Council, which had been established during the Nazi occupation of Hungary to carry out Nazi and Hungarian government anti-Jewish measures. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:

The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper...It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 am...And I was given this list of names. I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, "You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported."

Later that year, at age 14, Soros lived with and posed as the godson of an employee of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture. On one occasion, the official was ordered to inventory the remaining contents of the estate of a wealthy Jewish family that had fled the country. Rather than leave the young Soros alone in the city, the official brought him along. The following year, Soros survived the Battle of Budapest, in which Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city.

Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and, as an impoverished student, lived with his uncle, an Orthodox Jew. His uncle paid his living expenses while he attended the London School of Economics, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy in 1952. While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, Soros worked as a railway porter and as a waiter. A University tutor requested aid for Soros, and he received £40 from a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) charity. He eventually secured an entry-level position with London merchant bank Singer & Friedlander.

Emigration

In 1956, Soros moved to New York City, where he worked as an arbitrage trader with F. M. Mayer (1956–59) and as an analyst with Wertheim & Co. (1959–63). Throughout this time, Soros developed a philosophy of ''reflexivity'' based on the ideas of Karl Popper. Reflexivity, as used by Soros, is the belief that the action of beholding the valuation of any market, by its participants, affects said valuation of the market in a procyclical "virtuous or vicious" circle.

Soros realized, however, that he would not make any money from the concept of reflexivity until he went into investing on his own. He began to investigate how to deal in investments. From 1963 to 1973, he worked at Arnhold and S. Bleichroder, where he attained the position of Vice-President. Soros finally concluded that he was a better investor than he was a philosopher or an executive. In 1967, he persuaded the company to set up First Eagle, an offshore investment fund for him to run; and, in 1969, it founded the Double Eagle hedge fund for him.

In 1973, when investment regulations restricted his ability to run the funds as he wished, he resigned his position and established a private investment company, which evolved into the Quantum Fund. He has stated that his intent was to earn enough money on Wall Street to support himself as an author and philosopher – he calculated that $500,000 after five years would be possible and adequate.

He also once had a small stake in the Carlyle Group.

Business

In 1970, Soros founded Soros Fund Management with Jim Rogers. In 1973, he left Arnhold and S. Bleichroder to set up his own hedge fund with $12 million from investors. Christoper Ink was also involved, and other partners have included Victor Niederhoffer and Stanley Druckenmiller. Rogers retired from the fund in 1980.

Initially called the Soros Fund, it was eventually renamed the Quantum Fund. In 2000, the Quantum Group of Funds was reorganized, and the flagship Quantum Endowment Fund was established. Soros Fund Management LLC is the principal advisor to the Quantum Endowment Fund. Soros is the Chairman of Soros Fund Management. The firm's day-to-day operations are managed by Soros's two elder sons and the firm's Chief Investment Officer Keith Anderson. The fund has assets of approximately $27 billion. Recent investments include the 2010 purchase of a 20% stake in BNK Petroleum.

In 2007, the Quantum Fund returned almost 32%, netting Soros $2.9 billion.

In August 2010, Soros bought a 4 per cent stake in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for about $35 million. Soros’s Quantum hedge fund bought the stake from Dubai Financial, a part of the state-run Dubai Holdings, for an estimated Rs. 380 per share. Over 5,000 companies are listed on the exchange.

In July 2011, Soros closed his Quantum hedge fund to outside investment, running the hedge fund as an investment vehicle for his family's fortune.

Currency speculation

On September 16, 1992, Black Wednesday, Soros's fund sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds, profiting from the UK government's reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency.

Finally, the UK withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, devaluing the pound sterling, earning Soros an estimated $1.1 billion. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England". In 1997, the UK Treasury estimated the cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4 billion.

On Monday, October 26, 1992, ''The Times'' quoted Soros as saying: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell."

Stanley Druckenmiller, who traded under Soros, originally saw the weakness in the pound. "Soros' contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position."

In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, the Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir bin Mohamad accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for welcoming Myanmar as a member. Following on a history of antisemitic remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros's Jewish background ("It is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge") and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterwards stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis. In 1998's ''The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered'' Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:

The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity.... By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai Baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing the crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline – we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.)

The nominal U.S. dollar GDP of the ASEAN fell by $9.2 billion in 1997 and $218.2 billion (31.7%) in 1998.

''New York Times'' columnist Paul Krugman is critical of Soros's effect on financial markets.

"[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi.'"

Public predictions

Soros' book, ''The New Paradigm for Financial Markets'' (May 2008), described a "superbubble" that had built up over the past 25 years and was ready to collapse. This was the third in a series of books he has written that have predicted disaster. As he states:

He ascribes his own success to being able to recognize when his predictions are wrong.

In February 2009, Soros said the world financial system had effectively disintegrated, adding that there was no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. "We witnessed the collapse of the financial system[...]It was placed on life support, and it's still on life support. There's no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom."

Insider trading conviction

In 1988, he was asked to join a takeover attempt of the French bank Société Générale. He declined to participate in the bid but later bought a number of shares in the company. French authorities began an investigation in 1989, and in 2002 a French court ruled that it was insider trading, a felony conviction as defined under French securities laws, and fined him $2.3 million, which was the amount that he made using the insider information.

Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing and said news of the takeover was public knowledge.

His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006. In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing.

Sports

In 2005, Soros was a minority partner in a group that tried to buy the Washington Nationals, a Major League baseball team. Some Republican lawmakers suggested that they might move to revoke baseball's antitrust exemption if Soros bought the team. In 2008, Soros' name was associated with AS Roma, an Italian football team but the club was not sold. Soros was also a financial backer of Washington Soccer L.P., the group that owned the operating rights to Major League Soccer club D.C. United when the league was founded in 1995, but the group lost these rights in 2000.

Philanthropy

Soros has been active as a philanthropist since the 1970s, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa, and began funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain.

Soros' philanthropic funding includes efforts to promote non-violent democratization in the post-Soviet states. These efforts, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, occur primarily through the Open Society Institute (OSI) and national Soros Foundations, which sometimes go under other names (such as the Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland). As of 2003, PBS estimated that he had given away a total of $4 billion. The OSI says it has spent about $500 million annually in recent years.

''Time'' magazine in 2007 cited two specific projects – $100 million toward Internet infrastructure for regional Russian universities; and $50 million for the Millennium Promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa – while noting that Soros has given $742 million to projects in the U.S., and given away a total of more than $7 billion.

Other notable projects have included aid to scientists and universities throughout Central and Eastern Europe, help to civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, and Transparency International. Soros also pledged an endowment of €420 million to the Central European University (CEU). The Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and his microfinance bank Grameen Bank received support from the OSI.

According to ''National Review'' the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who has defended alleged terrorists in court and was sentenced to 2⅓ years in prison for "providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy" via a press conference for a client. An OSI spokeswoman said "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support."

In September 2006 Soros pledged $50 million to the Millennium Promise, led by economist Jeffrey Sachs to provide educational, agricultural, and medical aid to help villages in Africa enduring poverty. The New York Times termed this endeavor a "departure" for Soros whose philanthropic focus had been on fostering democracy and good government, but Soros noted that most poverty resulted from bad governance.

He received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research (New York), the University of Oxford in 1980, the Corvinus University of Budapest, and Yale University in 1991. Soros also received the Yale International Center for Finance Award from the Yale School of Management in 2000 as well as the Laurea Honoris Causa, the highest honor of the University of Bologna in 1995.

Political donations and activism

United States

In an interview with ''The Washington Post'' on November 11, 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, "if someone guaranteed it." Soros gave $3 million to the Center for American Progress, $2.5 million to MoveOn.org, and $20 million to America Coming Together. These groups worked to support Democrats in the 2004 election. On September 28, 2004 he dedicated more money to the campaign and kicked off his own multi-state tour with a speech: ''Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush'' delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The online transcript to this speech received many hits after Dick Cheney accidentally referred to FactCheck.org as "factcheck.com" in the Vice Presidential debate, causing the owner of that domain to redirect all traffic to Soros's site. Asked in 2006 about his statement in ''The Age of Fallibility'' that "the main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States", Soros responded that "it happens to coincide with the prevailing opinion in the world. And I think that's rather shocking for Americans to hear. The United States sets the agenda for the world. And the rest of the world has to respond to that agenda. By declaring a 'war on terror' after September 11, we set the wrong agenda for the world. [...] when you wage war, you inevitably create innocent victims."

Soros was not a large donor to US political causes until the 2004 presidential election, but according to the Center for Responsive Politics, during the 2003–2004 election cycle, Soros donated $23,581,000 to various 527 groups dedicated to defeating President Bush. A 527 group is a type of American tax-exempt organization named after a section of the United States tax code, 26 U.S.C. § 527.

After Bush's re-election, Soros and other donors backed a new political fundraising group called Democracy Alliance, which supports progressive causes and the formation of a stronger progressive infrastructure in America.

In August 2009, Soros donated $35 million to the state of New York to be ear-marked for under-privileged children and given to parents who had benefit cards at the rate of $200 per child aged 3 through 17, with no limit as to the number of children that qualified. An additional $140 million was put into the fund by the state of New York from money they had received from the 2009 federal recovery act.

On October 26, 2010, Soros donated $1 million, the largest donation in the campaign, to the Drug Policy Alliance to fund Proposition 19, that would have legalized marijuana in the state of California if it had passed in the November 2, 2010 elections.

Eastern Europe

According to Neil Clark in the ''New Statesman'', Soros's role was crucial in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. From 1979, as an advocate of 'open societies', Soros financially supported dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union donating $3 million a year according to Clark. In 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements and independent media. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Soros' funding has continued to play an important role in the former Soviet sphere. His funding of pro-democratic programs in of Georgia was considered by Russian and Western observers to be crucial to the success of the Rose Revolution, although Soros has said that his role has been "greatly exaggerated." Alexander Lomaia, Secretary of the Georgian Security Council and former Minister of Education and Science, is a former Executive Director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation (Soros Foundation), overseeing a staff of 50 and a budget of $2,500,000.

Former Georgian Foreign Minister Salomé Zourabichvili wrote that institutions like the Soros Foundation were the cradle of democratisation and that all the NGOs which gravitated around the Soros Foundation undeniably carried the revolution. She opines that after the revolution the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power.

Some Soros-backed pro-democracy initiatives have been banned in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Ercis Kurtulus, head of the Social Transparency Movement Association (TSHD) in Turkey, said in an interview that "Soros carried out his will in Ukraine and Georgia by using these NGOs...Last year Russia passed a special law prohibiting NGOs from taking money from foreigners. I think this should be banned in Turkey as well." In 1997, Soros had to close his foundation in Belarus after it was fined $3 million by the government for "tax and currency violations". According to ''The New York Times'', the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has been widely criticized in the West and in Russia for his efforts to control the Belarus Soros Foundation and other independent NGOs and to suppress civil and human rights. Soros called the fines part of a campaign to "destroy independent society".

In June 2009, Soros donated $100m to Central Europe and Eastern Europe to counter the impact of the economic crisis on the poor, voluntary groups and non-government organisations.

Africa

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa is a Soros-affiliated organization. Its director for Zimbabwe is Godfrey Kanyenze, who also directs the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), which was the main force behind the founding of the Movement for Democratic Change, the principal indigenous organization promoting regime change in Zimbabwe.

Drug policy reform

Soros has funded worldwide efforts to promote drug policy reform. In 2008, Soros donated $400,000 to help fund a successful ballot measure in Massachusetts known as the Massachusetts Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative which decriminalized possession of less than 1 oz (28g) of marijuana in the state. Soros has also funded similar measures in California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada and Maine. Among the drug decriminalization groups that have received funding from Soros are the Lindesmith Center and Drug Policy Foundation. Soros donated $1.4 million to publicity efforts to support California's Proposition 5 in 2008, a failed ballot measure that would have expanded drug rehabilitation programs as alternatives to prison for persons convicted of non-violent drug-related offenses.

In October 2010, Soros donated $1 million to support California's Proposition 19.

According to remarks in an interview in October 2009, it is Soros's opinion that marijuana is less addictive but not appropriate for use by children and students. He himself has not used marijuana for years.

Death and dying

The Project on Death in America, active from 2001 to 2003, was one of the Open Society Institute's projects, which sought to "understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement." In 1994, Soros delivered a speech in which he reported that he had offered to help his mother, a member of the Hemlock Society, commit suicide. In the same speech, he also endorsed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, the campaign which he helped fund.

Philosophy

Education and beliefs

His philosophical outlook is influenced by Karl Popper, under whom he studied at the London School of Economics (LSE). His Open Society Institute is named after Popper's two volume work, ''The Open Society and Its Enemies'', and Soros's ongoing philosophical commitment to the principle of fallibilism (that anything he believes may in fact be wrong, and is therefore to be questioned and improved) stems from Popper's philosophy.

Reflexivity, financial markets, and economic theory

Soros' writings focus heavily on the concept of reflexivity, where the biases of individuals enter into market transactions, potentially changing the perception of fundamentals of the economy. Soros argues that such transitions in the perceptions of fundamentals of the economy are typically marked by disequilibrium rather than equilibrium, and that the conventional economic theory of the market (the 'efficient market hypothesis') does not apply in these situations. Soros has popularized the concepts of ''dynamic disequilibrium'', ''static disequilibrium'', and ''near-equilibrium'' conditions.

Reflexivity is based on three main ideas: # Reflexivity is best observed under special conditions where investor bias grows and spreads throughout the investment arena. Examples of factors that may give rise to this bias include (a) equity leveraging or (b) the trend-following habits of speculators. # Reflexivity appears intermittently since it is most likely to be revealed under certain conditions; i.e., the character of the equilibrium process is best considered in terms of probabilities. # Investors' observation of and participation in the capital markets may at times influence valuations ''and'' fundamental conditions or outcomes.

A current example of reflexivity in modern financial markets is that of the debt and equity of housing markets. Lenders began to make more money available to more people in the 1990s to buy houses. More people bought houses with this larger amount of money, thus increasing the prices of these houses. Lenders looked at their balance sheets which not only showed that they had made more loans, but that their equity backing the loans – the value of the houses, had gone up (because more money was chasing the same amount of housing, relatively). Thus they lent out more money because their balance sheets looked good, they were guaranteed by the Federal Government, and prices went up more.

This was further amplified by public policy. Many governments see home ownership as a positive outcome and so first home owners grant and other financial subsidies – or influences to buy a home such as the exemption of a primary residence from capital gains taxation – mean that house purchases were seen as a good thing. Prices increased rapidly, and lending standards were relaxed. The salient issue regarding reflexivity is that it explains why markets gyrate over time, and do not just stick to equilibrium – they tend to overshoot or undershoot.

View of potential problems in the free market system

Despite working as an investor and currency speculator, he argues that the current system of financial speculation undermines healthy economic development in many underdeveloped countries. Soros blames many of the world's problems on the failures inherent in what he characterizes as market fundamentalism. His opposition to many aspects of globalization has made him a controversial figure.

Victor Niederhoffer said of Soros: "Most of all, George believed even then in a mixed economy, one with a strong central international government to correct for the excesses of self-interest."

Soros claims to draw a distinction between being a participant in the market and working to change the rules that market participants must follow. According to Mahathir bin Mohamed, Prime Minister of Malaysia from July 1981 to October 2003, Soros – as the hedge fund chief of Quantum – may have been partially responsible for the economic crash in 1997 of East Asian markets when the Thai currency relinquished its peg to the US dollar. According to Mahathir, in the three years leading to the crash, Soros invested in short-term speculative investment in East Asian stock markets and real estate, then divested with "indecent haste" at the first signs of currency devaluation. Soros replied, saying that Mahathir was using him "as a scapegoat for his own mistakes", that Mahathir's promises to ban currency trading (which Malaysian finance officials hastily retracted) were "a recipe for disaster" and that Mahathir "is a menace to his own country".

In an interview regarding the late-2000s recession, Soros referred to it as the most serious crisis since the 1930s. According to Soros, market fundamentalism with its assumption that markets will correct themselves with no need for government intervention in financial affairs has been "some kind of an ideological excess". In Soros' view, the markets' moods – a "mood" of the markets being a prevailing bias or optimism/pessimism with which the markets look at reality – "actually can reinforce themselves so that there are these initially self-reinforcing but eventually unsustainable and self-defeating boom/bust sequences or bubbles".

In reaction to the late-2000s recession, he founded the Institute for New Economic Thinking in October 2009. This is a think tank composed of international economic, business and financial experts, mandated to investigate radical new approaches to organising the international economic and financial system.

Views on antisemitism

At a Jewish forum in New York City, November 5, 2003, Soros partially attributed a recent resurgence of antisemitism to the policies of Israel and the United States, and the role of wealthy and influential individuals:

There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that. It's not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I'm critical of those policies... If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish. I can't see how one could confront it directly... I'm also very concerned about my own role because the new anti-Semitism holds that the Jews rule the world... As an unintended consequence of my actions... I also contribute to that image.

In a subsequent article for ''The New York Review of Books'', Soros emphasized that

I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

Views on China

Soros has expressed concern about the growth of Chinese economic and political power. "China has risen very rapidly by looking out for its own interests ... They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well." Regarding the political gridlock in America, he said, "Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States".

Wealth

In 2010, ''Forbes'' lists Soros as the Forbes list of billionaires 35th richest person in the world, and the 14th richest person in America, with a net worth estimated at $14.2 billion. Soros has given away $7 billion to various causes since 1979.

Relation to Hungarian politics

In the 1980s Viktor Orbán, Chairman of Fidesz (1994–2000, 2000–) and Prime Minister (1998–2002, 2010–) and László Kövér, Chairman of Fidesz (2000), Secret Service Minister (1998–2002) and Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary (2010–), were Soros scholarship recipients. Furthermore the Orban cabinet's Deputy Prime Minister István Stumpf – now member of the Constitutional Court – was a member of the Soros Foundation's Board of Trustees between 1994 and 2002.

See also

George Soros conspiracy theories

Books

Authored or co-authored

''The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means'' (PublicAffairs, 2008). ISBN 1-58648-683-7

''The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror'' (PublicAffairs, 2006) ISBN 1-58648-359-5

''The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power'' (PublicAffairs, 2003) ISBN 1-58648-217-3 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2004; ISBN 1-58648-292-0)

''George Soros on Globalization'' (PublicAffairs, 2002) ISBN 1-58648-125-8 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2005; ISBN 1-52648-278-5)

''Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism'' (PublicAffairs, 2001) ISBN 1-58648-039-7

With Mark Amadeus Notturno, ''Science and the Open Society: The Future of Karl Popper's Philosophy'' (Central European University Press, 2000) ISBN 963-9116-69-6 (paperback: Central European University Press, 2000; ISBN 943-9116-70-X)

''The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered'' (PublicAffairs, 1998) ISBN 1-891220-27-4

''Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve'' (John Wiley, 1995) ISBN 0-471-12014-6 (paperback; Wiley, 1995; ISBN 0-371-11977-6)

''Underwriting Democracy: Encouraging Free Enterprise and Democratic Reform Among the Soviets and in Eastern Europe'' (Free Press, 1991) ISBN 0-02-930285-4 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2004; ISBN 1-58948-227-0)

''Opening the Soviet System'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990) ISBN 0-297-82155-9 (paperback: Perseus Books, 1996; ISBN 0-8133-1205-1)

''The Alchemy of Finance'' (Simon & Schuster, 1988) ISBN 0-671-66338-4 (paperback: Wiley, 2003; ISBN 0-471-44549-5)

Biographies

''Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire'' by Michael T. Kaufman (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) ISBN 0-375-40585-2

''Soros: The World's Most Influential Investor'' by Robert Slater (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009) ISBN 978-0-07-160844-2

Journalism

Authored

George Soros, "Why I support legal marijuana", ''The Wall Street Journal'', October 26, 2010.

George Soros, "The Crisis and the Euro", ''The New York Review of Books'', August 19, 2010.

George Soros, "On Israel, America and AIPAC", ''The New York Review of Books'', April 12, 2007.

George Soros, "The Bubble of American Supremacy", ''The Atlantic'', December 2003.

George Soros, ''The Bubble of American Supremacy'', audio recording of ''The Atlantic'' article via ''Assistive Media'', read by Grover Gardner, 18 minutes.

George Soros, "Soros on Brazil", ''Financial Times'', August 13, 2002.

George Soros, "Bitter Thoughts with Faith in Russia", ''Moskovskiye Novosti'' (''Moscow News''), translated from the Russian by Olga Kryazheva, February 27, 2000.

George Soros, "The Capitalist Threat", ''The Atlantic Monthly'', February 1997.

George Soros, "Paulson Cannot be Allowed a Blank Cheque", ''Financial Times'', September 24, 2008

About

Stephen Adams "Furious George" on Citizen – Family Issues in Policy and Culture

John Authors, Book Review, "A successful prophet of the markets," Financial Times, May 19, 2008.

Laura Blumenfeld, ''Billionaire Soros Takes On Bush'', MSNBC, November 11, 2003

Connie Bruck, Abstract of New Yorker profile of Soros "The World According to Soros", The New Yorker, January 23, 1995

Neil Clark Analysis of Soros' role in Eastern Europe from "New Statesman"

Malcolm Gladwell, "Blowing Up," The New Yorker, April 22 & 29, 2002, at gladwell.com.

John Horvath The Soros Effect on Central and Eastern Europe

Matt Welch, ''Open Season on 'Open Society': Why an anti-communist Holocaust survivor is being demonized as a Socialist, Self-hating Jew'' Reason magazine, December 8, 2003

Martin Peretz, "Tyran-a-Soros: The Madness of King George," The New Republic, February 12, 2007.

TIME's 25 Most Influential Americans, TIME Magazine April 21, 1997. Accessed May 21, 2007.

The TIME 100, The Power Givers, George Soros, TIME Magazine May 14, 2007 accessed May 21, 2007.

Scholarly perspectives

Speeches

Testimony of George Soros to a congressional sub-committee, Sept. 15, 1998

The Theory of Reflexivity Delivered April 26, 1994 to the MIT Department of Economics World Economy

"The Differences Between Natural and Social Science: Implications of Fallibility" at IISc Bangalore, January 5, 2007

Testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Oversight Hearing on FTC Advanced Rulemaking and Oil Market Manipulation

Interviews

Fareed Zakaria discussing economic crisis with George Soros on GPS

The Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC) – Audio Archive: "George Soros on Freedom"

frontline: the crash: interviews: george soros

George Soros Interview On 60 Minutes

Wall $treet Week with FORTUNE . TV Program | PBS

Challenge: The international financial crisis – International ...

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. David Brancaccio interviews ...

Booknotes with Brian Lamb. Transcript and streaming video.

Rocketboom: The Age of Fallibility (Video, 2006)

Google Video: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google interviews George Soros (Video, 2006)

Fox News Interview with Neil Cavuto, October 11, 2006 Video and text, accessed May 25, 2007.

Interview with George Soros, September 5, 2000

Notes

External links

Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network

Institute for New Economic Thinking

Column archives at Project Syndicate

Column archives at ''The New York Review of Books''

Soros Fund Management 13F filing and Portfolio Activities

List of articles and speeches by and about George Soros

George Soros' Political Campaign Contributions

Forbes.com: Forbes 400 Richest in America

George Soros in SEC Filings

The Money Man – New Yorker

In depth review of The New Paradigm

Why Does Soros Bite Hand That Feeds Him? in Investor's Business Daily

Category:1930 births Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:American billionaires Category:American investors Category:American money managers Category:American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Category:American philanthropists Category:Central European University Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Framing theorists Category:Hedge fund managers Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States Category:Hungarian people of Jewish descent Category:Living people Category:Native Esperanto speakers Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People convicted of insider trading Category:People from Budapest Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class Category:Stock and commodity market managers Category:Stock traders Category:Currency traders

ar:جورج سوروس az:Corc Soros be:Джордж Сорас bs:George Soros bg:Джордж Сорос ca:George Soros cs:George Soros da:George Soros de:George Soros et:George Soros el:Τζώρτζ Σόρος es:George Soros eo:George Soros fa:جرج سوروس fr:George Soros gu:જયોર્જ સોરોસ hi:जॉर्ज सोरोस hr:George Soros id:George Soros is:George Soros it:George Soros he:ג'ורג' סורוס kn:ಜಾರ್ಜ್‌ ಸೊರೊಸ್‌ kk:Джордж Сорос lt:George Soros hu:Soros György ms:George Soros my:ဂျော့ချ် ဆိုးရော့စ် nl:George Soros ja:ジョージ・ソロス no:George Soros pl:George Soros pt:George Soros ro:George Soros ru:Сорос, Джордж sq:George Soros sk:George Soros sr:Џорџ Сорос sh:George Soros fi:George Soros sv:George Soros ta:ஜார்ஜ் சொரெஸ் te:జార్జ్ సోరోస్ th:จอร์จ โซรอส tg:Ҷорҷ Сорос tr:George Soros uk:Джордж Сорос vi:George Soros yi:דזשארדזש סאראס zh:乔治·索罗斯

name	Imran Khan Niaziعمران خان نیازی
birth date	November 25, 1952
birth place	Lahore, Pakistan
party	Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
spouse	Jemima Khan (1995–2004)
children	Sulaiman Qasim Khan
residence	Lahore
occupation	Politician Philanthropist Cricketer
religion	Islam
alma mater	Keble College, Oxford
website	PTI }}

Imran Khan Niazi (}}; born 25 November 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics. Currently, besides his political activism, Khan is also a philanthropist, cricket commentator, Chancellor of the University of Bradford and Founder and Chairman Board of Governors of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre.

Arguably Pakistan's most successful cricket captain, Khan played for the Pakistani cricket team from 1971 to 1992 and served as its captain intermittently throughout 1982–1992. After retiring from cricket at the end of the 1987 World Cup, he was called back to join the team in 1988. At 39, Khan led his teammates to Pakistan's first and only World Cup victory in 1992. He has a record of 3807 runs and 362 wickets in Test cricket, making him one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All-rounder's Triple' in Test matches. On 14 July 2010, Khan was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

In April 1996, Khan founded and became the chairman of a political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice). He represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly from November 2002 to October 2007. Foreign Policy magazine has described him as Pakistan's Ron Paul.

Through worldwide fundraising, he has also helped establish the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre in 1996 and Mianwali's Namal College in 2008.

Family, education, and personal life

Imran Khan was born in Lahore, the only son of Ikramullah Khan Niazi, and his wife Shaukat Khanum. Although long settled in Punjab, the family were of Pashtun (Pathan) ethnicity and belonged to the Niazi Shermankhel tribe. A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up with his four sisters in relatively affluent (upper middle-class) circumstances and received a privileged education. He was educated the Cathedral School in Lahore, the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket, and at Aitchison College, Lahore. In 1972, he enrolled to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated with a second-class degree in Politics and a third in Economics. Khan's mother hailed from the Burki family which had produced several successful hockey players, as also cricketers such as Javed Burki and Majid Khan. Early in life, Khan developed an interest in cricket, which is an extremely popular sport in Pakistan.

Marriage to Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith

On 16 May 1995, Khan married Jemima Goldsmith, in an Islamic ceremony in Paris. A month later, on 21 June, they were married again in a civil ceremony at the Richmond register office in England, followed by a reception at the Goldsmiths' house in Surrey. The marriage, described as "tough" by Khan, produced two sons, Sulaiman Isa (born 18 November 1996) and Kasim (born 10 April 1999). As an agreement of his marriage, Khan spent four months a year in England. On 22 June 2004, it was announced that the Khans had divorced because it was "difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan". The marriage ended amicably. Imran has regular access to his children and his relationship with his ex-wife is friendly. Khan now resides in Bani Gala, Islamabad, where he built a farmhouse with the money he gained from selling his London flat. He grows fruit trees, wheat, and keeps cows, while also maintaining a cricket ground for his two sons, who visit during their holidays.

Cricket career

country	Pakistan
living	true
living	true
dayofbirth	25
monthofbirth	11
yearofbirth	1952
placeofbirth	Mianwali, Punjab
countryofbirth	Pakistan
batting	Right-handed
bowling	Right-arm fast
role	All-rounder
international	true
testdebutdate	3 June
testdebutyear	1971
testdebutagainst	England
testcap	65
lasttestdate	2 January
lasttestyear	1992
lasttestagainst	Sri Lanka
odidebutdate	31 August
odidebutyear	1974
odidebutagainst	England
odicap	175
lastodidate	25 March
lastodiyear	1992
lastodiagainst	England
club1	Sussex
year1	1977–1988
club2	New South Wales
year2	1984/85
club3	PIA
year3	1975–1981
club4	Worcestershire
year4	1971–1976
club5	Oxford University
year5	1973–1975
club6	Lahore
year6	1969–1971
columns	4
column1	Test
matches1	88
runs1	3,807
bat avg1	37.69
100s/50s1	6/18
top score1	136
deliveries1	19,458
wickets1	362
bowl avg1	22.81
fivefor1	23
tenfor1	6
best bowling1	8/58
catches/stumpings1	28/–
column2	ODI
matches2	175
runs2	3,709
bat avg2	33.41
100s/50s2	1/19
top score2	102*
deliveries2	7,461
wickets2	182
bowl avg2	26.61
fivefor2	1
tenfor2	n/a
best bowling2	6/14
catches/stumpings2	36/–
column3	FC
matches3	382
runs3	17,771
bat avg3	36.79
100s/50s3	30/93
top score3	170
deliveries3	65,224
wickets3	1,287
bowl avg3	22.32
fivefor3	70
tenfor3	13
best bowling3	8/34
catches/stumpings3	117/–
column4	LA
matches4	425
runs4	10,100
bat avg4	33.22
100s/50s4	5/66
top score4	114*
deliveries4	19,122
wickets4	507
bowl avg4	22.31
fivefor4	6
tenfor4	n/a
best bowling4	6/14
catches/stumpings4	84/–
date	24 December
year	2011
source	http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/1/1383/1383.html CricketArchive }}

name	Pride of Performance Award Recipient
country	Islamic Republic of Pakistan
date	1983
presenter	Islamic Republic of Pakistan }}

name	Hilal-i-Imtiaz Award Recipient
country	Islamic Republic of Pakistan
date	1992
presenter	Islamic Republic of Pakistan }}

Khan made a lacklustre first-class cricket debut at the age of sixteen in Lahore. By the start of the 1970s, he was playing for his home teams of Lahore A (1969–70), Lahore B (1969–70), Lahore Greens (1970–71) and, eventually, Lahore (1970–71). Khan was part of Oxford University's Blues Cricket team during the 1973–75 seasons. At Worcestershire, where he played county cricket from 1971 to 1976, he was regarded as only an average medium pace bowler. During this decade, other teams represented by Khan include Dawood Industries (1975–76) and Pakistan International Airlines (1975–76 to 1980–81). From 1983 to 1988, he played for Sussex.

In 1971, Khan made his Test cricket debut against England at Birmingham. Three years later, he debuted in the One Day International (ODI) match, once again playing against England at Nottingham for the Prudential Trophy. After graduating from Oxford and finishing his tenure at Worcestershire, he returned to Pakistan in 1976 and secured a permanent place on his native national team starting from the 1976–77 season, during which they faced New Zealand and Australia. Following the Australian series, he toured the West Indies, where he met Tony Greig, who signed him up for Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. His credentials as one of the fastest bowlers of the world started to establish when he finished third at 139.7 km/h in a fast bowling contest at Perth in 1978, behind Jeff Thomson and Michael Holding, but ahead of Dennis Lillee, Garth Le Roux and Andy Roberts.

As a fast bowler, Khan reached the peak of his powers in 1982. In 9 Tests, he got 62 wickets at 13.29 each, the lowest average of any bowler in Test history with at least 50 wickets in a calendar year. In January 1983, playing against India, he attained a Test bowling rating of 922 points. Although calculated retrospectively (ICC player ratings did not exist at the time), Khan's form and performance during this period ranks third in the ICC's All-Time Test Bowling Rankings.

Khan achieved the all-rounder's triple (securing 3000 runs and 300 wickets) in 75 Tests, the second fastest record behind Ian Botham's 72. He is also established as having the second highest all-time batting average of 61.86 for a Test batsman playing at position 6 of the batting order. He played his last Test match for Pakistan in January 1992, against Sri Lanka at Faisalabad. Khan retired permanently from cricket six months after his last ODI, the historic 1992 World Cup final against England at Melbourne, Australia. He ended his career with 88 Test matches, 126 innings and scored 3807 runs at an average of 37.69, including six centuries and 18 fifties. His highest score was 136 runs. As a bowler, he took 362 wickets in Test cricket, which made him the first Pakistani and world's fourth bowler to do so. In ODIs, he played 175 matches and scored 3709 runs at an average of 33.41. His highest score remains 102 not out. His best ODI bowling is documented at 6 wickets for 14 runs.

Captaincy

At the height of his career, in 1982, the thirty-year-old Khan took over the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team from Javed Miandad. Recalling his initial discomfort with this new role, he later said, "When I became the cricket captain, I couldn’t speak to the team directly I was so shy. I had to tell the manager, I said listen can you talk to them, this is what I want to convey to the team. I mean early team meetings I use to be so shy and embarrassed I couldn’t talk to the team." As a captain, Khan played 48 Test matches, out of which 14 were won by Pakistan, 8 lost and the rest of 26 were drawn. He also played 139 ODIs, winning 77, losing 57 and ending one in a tie.

In the team's second match under his leadership, Khan led them to their first Test win on English soil for 28 years at Lord's. Khan's first year as captain was the peak of his legacy as a fast bowler as well as an all-rounder. He recorded the best Test bowling of his career while taking 8 wickets for 58 runs against Sri Lanka at Lahore in 1981–82. He also topped both the bowling and batting averages against England in three Test series in 1982, taking 21 wickets and averaging 56 with the bat. Later the same year, he put up a highly acknowledged performance in a home series against the formidable Indian team by taking 40 wickets in six Tests at an average of 13.95. By the end of this series in 1982–83, Khan had taken 88 wickets in 13 Test matches over a period of one year as captain.

This same Test series against India, however, also resulted in a stress fracture in his shin that kept him out of cricket for more than two years. An experimental treatment funded by the Pakistani government helped him recover by the end of 1984 and he made a successful comeback to international cricket in the latter part of the 1984–85 season.

In 1987, Khan led Pakistan to its first ever Test series win in India, which was followed by Pakistan's first series victory in England the same year. During the 1980s, his team also recorded three creditable draws against the West Indies. India and Pakistan co-hosted the 1987 World Cup, but neither ventured beyond the semi-finals. Khan retired from international cricket at the end of the World Cup. In 1988, he was asked to return to the captaincy by the President Of Pakistan, General Zia-Ul-Haq, and on 18 January, he announced his decision to rejoin the team. Soon after returning to the captaincy, Khan led Pakistan to another winning tour in the West Indies, which he has recounted as "the last time I really bowled well". He was declared Man of the Series against West Indies in 1988 when he took 23 wickets in 3 tests.

Khan's career-high as a captain and cricketer came when he led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Playing with a brittle batting line-up, Khan promoted himself as a batsman to play in the top order along with Javed Miandad, but his contribution as a bowler was minimal. At the age of 39, Khan scored the highest runs of all the Pakistani batsmen and took the winning last wicket himself.

Post-retirement

In 1994, Khan had admitted that, during Test matches, he "occasionally scratched the side of the ball and lifted the seam." He had also added, "Only once did I use an object. When Sussex were playing Hampshire in 1981 the ball was not deviating at all. I got the 12th man to bring out a bottle top and it started to move around a lot." In 1996, Khan successfully defended himself in a libel action brought forth by former English captain and all-rounder Ian Botham and batsman Allan Lamb over comments they alleged were made by Khan in two articles about the above-mentioned ball-tampering and another article published in an Indian magazine, ''India Today''. They claimed that, in the latter publication, Khan had called the two cricketers "racist, ill-educated and lacking in class." Khan protested that he had been misquoted, saying that he was defending himself after having admitted that he tampered with a ball in a county match 18 years ago. Khan won the libel case, which the judge labelled a "complete exercise in futility", with a 10–2 majority decision by the jury.

Since retiring, Khan has written opinion pieces on cricket for various British and Asian newspapers, especially regarding the Pakistani national team. His contributions have been published in India's ''Outlook'' magazine, the ''Guardian'', the ''Independent'', and the ''Telegraph''. Khan also sometimes appears as a cricket commentator on Asian and British sports networks, including BBC Urdu and the Star TV network. In 2004, when the Indian cricket team toured Pakistan after 14 years, he was a commentator on TEN Sports' special live show, Straight Drive, while he was also a columnist for sify.com for the 2005 India-Pakistan Test series. He has provided analysis for every cricket World Cup since 1992, which includes providing match summaries for BBC during the 1999 World Cup.

In November 2009 Khan underwent emergency surgery at Lahore's Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital to remove an obstruction in his small intestine.

Social work

For more than four years after retiring from cricket in 1992, Khan focused his efforts solely on social work. By 1991, he had founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust, a charity organisation bearing the name of his mother, Mrs. Shaukat Khanum. As the Trust's maiden endeavour, Khan established Pakistan's first and only cancer hospital, constructed using donations and funds exceeding $25 million, raised by Khan from all over the world. Inspired by the memory of his mother, who died of cancer, the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, a charitable cancer hospital with 75 percent free care, opened in Lahore on 29 December 1994. Khan currently serves as the chairman of the hospital and continues to raise funds through charity and public donations.

During the 1990s, Khan also served as UNICEF's Special Representative for Sports and promoted health and immunisation programmes in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

On 27 April 2008, Khan's brainchild, a technical college in the Mianwali District called Namal College, was inaugurated. Namal College was built by the Mianwali Development Trust (MDT), as chaired by Khan, and was made an associate college of the University of Bradford (of which Khan is Chancellor) in December 2005. Currently, Khan is building another cancer hospital in Karachi, using his successful Lahore institution as a model. While in London, he also works with the Lord’s Taverners, a cricket charity.

Political work

In 1996, Khan founded a political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which emphasized on anti-corruption policies. The newly formed party was unable to win a seat during the 1997 Pakistani general election. Khan supported General Pervez Musharraf's military coup in 1999, believing Musharraf would "end corruption, clear out the political mafias". According to Khan, he was Musharraf's choice of prime minister in 2002 but turned down the offer. The 2002 Pakistani general election were held in October across 272 constituencies. Khan anticipated doing well in the elections and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote. He was elected from the NA-71 constituency of Mianwali and being the only party member to have secured a seat, PTI won only 0.8% of the popular vote. Khan, who was sworn in as an MP on 16 November, remained part of the Standing Committees on Kashmir and Public Accounts, and expressed legislative interest in Foreign Affairs, Education and Justice.

On 6 May 2005, Khan became one of the first Muslim figures to criticise a 300-word ''Newsweek'' story about the alleged desecration of the Qur'an in a U.S. military prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Khan held a press conference to denounce the article and demanded that Gen. Pervez Musharraf secure an apology from the American president George W. Bush for the incident.. In June 2007, the federal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr. Sher Afghan Khan Niazi and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party filed separate ineligibility references against Khan, asking for his disqualification as member of the National Assembly on grounds of immorality. Both references, filed on the basis of articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan, were rejected on 5 September.

On 2 October 2007, as part of the All Parties Democratic Movement, Khan joined 85 other MPs to resign from Parliament in protest of the Presidential election scheduled for 6 October, which General Musharraf was contesting without resigning as army chief. On 3 November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest at his father's home hours after President Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. Khan had demanded the death penalty for Musharraf after the imposition of emergency rule, which he equated to "committing treason". The next day, on 4 November, Khan escaped and went into peripatetic hiding. He eventually came out of hiding on 14 November to join a student protest at the University of the Punjab. At the rally, Khan was captured by students from the Jamaat-i-Islami political party, who claimed that Khan was an uninvited nuisance at the rally, and they handed him over to the police, who charged him under the Anti-terrorism act for allegedly inciting people to pick up arms, calling for civil disobedience, and for spreading hatred..

Ideology

Khan's proclaimed political platform and declarations include: Islamic values, to which he rededicated himself in the 1990s; liberal economics, with the promise of deregulating the economy and creating a welfare state; decreased bureaucracy and the implementation of anti-corruption laws, to create and ensure a clean government; the establishment of an independent judiciary; overhaul of the country's police system; and an anti-militant vision for a democratic Pakistan.

Khan told Britain's ''Daily Telegraph'', "I want Pakistan to be a welfare state and a genuine democracy with a rule of law and an independent judiciary." Other ideas he has presented include a requirement of all students to spend a year after graduation teaching in the countryside and cutting down the over-staffed bureaucracy in order to send them to teach too. "We need decentralisation, empowering people at the grass roots," he has said.

Criticism

During the 1970s and 1980s, Khan became known as a socialite due to his "non-stop partying" at London nightclubs such as Annabel's and Tramp, though he claims to have hated English pubs and never drunk alcohol. He also gained notoriety in London gossip columns for romancing young debutantes such as Susannah Constantine, Lady Liza Campbell and the artist Emma Sergeant.

Khan is often dismissed as a political lightweight and a celebrity outsider in Pakistan, where national newspapers also refer to him as a "spoiler politician". The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, has asserted that Khan is "a sick person who has been a total failure in politics and is alive just because of the media coverage". Political observers say the crowds he draws are attracted by his cricketing celebrity, and the public has been reported to view him as a figure of entertainment rather than a serious political authority.

Declan Walsh in ''The Guardian'' newspaper in England in 2005 described Khan as a "miserable politician," observing that, "Khan's ideas and affiliations since entering politics in 1996 have swerved and skidded like a rickshaw in a rainshower... He preaches democracy one day but gives a vote to reactionary mullahs the next." The charge constantly raised against Khan is that of hypocrisy and opportunism, including what has been called his life's "playboy to puritan U-turn." Political commentator Najam Sethi, stated that, "A lot of the Imran Khan story is about backtracking on a lot of things he said earlier, which is why this doesn’t inspire people."

In 2008, as part of the Hall of Shame awards for 2007, Pakistan's ''Newsline'' magazine gave Khan the "Paris Hilton award for being the most undeserving media darling." The 'citation' for Khan read: "He is the leader of a party that is the proud holder of one National Assembly seat (and) gets media coverage inversely proportional to his political influence." ''The Guardian'' has described the coverage garnered by Khan's post-retirement activities in England, where he made his name as a cricket star and a night-club regular, as "terrible tosh, with danger attached. It turns a great (and greatly miserable) Third World nation into a gossip-column annexe. We may all choke on such frivolity." After the 2008 general elections, political columnist Azam Khalil addressed Khan as one of the "utter failures in Pakistani politics".

Awards and honours

In 1992, Khan was given Pakistan's civil award, the Hilal-i-Imtiaz

In 1983, he had received the President’s Pride of Performance Award

In 2011 he was given Jinnah award.

Khan is featured in the University of Oxford's Hall of Fame and has been an honorary fellow of Oxford's Keble College.

On 7 December 2005, Khan was appointed the fifth Chancellor of the University of Bradford, where he is also a patron of the Born in Bradford research project.

In 1976 as well as 1980, Khan was awarded The Cricket Society Wetherall Award for being the leading all-rounder in English first-class cricket.

In 1983, he was also named Wisden Cricketer of the Year

In 1985, Sussex Cricket Society Player of the Year

In 1990, Indian Cricket Cricketer of the Year On 5 July 2008, he was one of several veteran Asian cricketers presented special silver jubilee awards at the inaugural Asian cricket Council (ACC) award ceremony in Karachi. On 8 July 2004, Khan was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2004 Asian Jewel Awards in London, for "acting as a figurehead for many international charities and working passionately and extensively in fund-raising activities. On 13 December 2007, Khan received the Humanitarian Award at the Asian Sports Awards in Kuala Lumpur for his efforts in setting up the first cancer hospital in Pakistan. In 2009, at International Cricket Council's centennial year celebration, Khan was one of fifty-five cricketers inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.

Writings by Khan

Khan has published five works of non-fiction, including an autobiography co-written with Patrick Murphy. He periodically writes editorials on cricket and Pakistani politics in several leading Pakistani and British newspapers. It was revealed in 2008 that Khan's second book, ''Indus Journey: A Personal View of Pakistan'', had required heavy editing from the publisher. The publisher Jeremy Lewis revealed in a memoir that when he asked Khan to show his writing for publication, "he handed me a leatherbound notebook or diary containing a few jottings and autobiographical snippets. It took me, at most, five minutes to read them; and that, it soon became apparent, was all we had to go on."

Khan has finished writing his sixth book, ''Pakistan: A Personal History'', and it released on 15 September 2011. The book is meant to be an overview of Pakistan's history, seen through the prism of Khan's memories and recollections. He also takes a look at historic developments, such as the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks, and the subsequent American invasion of Afghanistan. A stated goal was to have these events ''viewed not only through the eyes of Westerners, but through those of ordinary Pakistanis.''

Books Articles

Guardian comments, political and cricket commentary by Khan

Telegraph columns, sports articles penned by Khan from 2000 to present

We must address the root causes of this terror, Khan's editorial in the ''Independent'' following the 11 September attacks

Benazir Bhutto has only herself to blame, Khan's 2007 editorial on Bhutto's return to Pakistan

References

Further reading

External links

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Khan's political party

Chancellor: Imran Khan at the University of Bradford

Column archive at ''The Guardian''

Imran Khan at Cricinfo

;Articles

The NS Interview: Imran Khan Mehdi Hasan, ''New Statesman'', 20 August 2010

Imran Khan's revolution, Murtaza Razvi, ''Dawn'', 27 April 2011

Imran Khan: Pakistan's next leader?, ''Frost Over the World'', ''Aljazeera English'', 10 December 2011

Thousands rally for Pakistan's Imran Khan, ''Aljazeera English'', 25 December 2011

Hundreds of thousands gather at PTI rally in Karachi, ''Dawn'', 25 December 2011

Category:Alumni of Keble College, Oxford Category:Chancellors of the University of Bradford Category:Cricketers at the 1975 Cricket World Cup Category:Cricketers at the 1979 Cricket World Cup Category:Cricketers at the 1983 Cricket World Cup Category:Cricketers at the 1987 Cricket World Cup Category:Cricketers at the 1992 Cricket World Cup Category:Fellows of Keble College, Oxford Category:Hilal-i-Imtiaz Category:International Cricket Council Hall of Fame inductees Category:Lahore cricketers Category:Members of the National Assembly of Pakistan Category:Old Aitchisonians Category:People educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester Category:Oxford University cricketers Category:Pakistani sportsperson–politicians Category:Pakistani cricket captains Category:Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf politicians Category:Pakistan International Airlines cricketers Category:Pakistani philanthropists Category:Pakistani politicians Category:Pakistani socialites Category:Pakistan One Day International cricketers Category:Pakistan Test cricketers Category:Pakistani people of Afghan descent Category:People from Lahore Category:People from Mianwali District Category:Politicians from Lahore Category:Sussex cricketers Category:Wisden Cricketers of the Year Category:Worcestershire cricketers Category:World Series Cricket players Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:Wisden Leading Cricketers in the World Category:New South Wales cricketers Category:Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Category:Leaders of political parties in Pakistan Category:Article Feedback Blacklist Category:Recipients of the Pride of Performance award Category:Pakistani Muslims

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Name	Lee Hsien Loong
Office	Prime Minister of Singapore
President	Sellapan RamanathanTony Tan Keng Yam
Deputy
Term start	12 August 2004
Predecessor	Goh Chok Tong
Office2	Leader of the People's Action Party
Deputy2	Wong Kan SengTeo Chee Hean
Term start2	12 August 2004
Predecessor2	Goh Chok Tong
Office3	Minister for Finance
Primeminister3	Goh Chok Tong
Deputy3	Raymond Lim
Term start3	2001
Term end3	1 December 2007
Predecessor3	Hu Tsu Tau Richard
Successor3	Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Office4	Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore
Primeminister4	Goh Chok Tong
Term start4	28 November 1990
Term end4	12 August 2004
Predecessor4	Goh Chok Tong
Successor4	Shunmugam Jayakumar
Constituency mp5	Ang Mo Kio GRC
Parliament5	Singapore
Term start5	31 August 1991
Predecessor5	Constituency established
Majority5	47,157 (32.2%)
Constituency mp6	Teck Ghee SMC
Parliament6	Singapore
Term start6	22 December 1984
Term end6	31 August 1991
Predecessor6	Constituency established
Successor6	Constituency abolished
Birth date	February 10, 1952
Birth place	Singapore
Party	People's Action Party
Spouse	Wong Ming Yang (1978-1982)Ho Ching (1985-present)
Children	XiuqiYipengHongyiHaoyi
Alma mater	Trinity College, CambridgeHarvard UniversityUnited States Army Command and General Staff College }}

Pic	Lee Hsien Loong 2004-11-21.jpg
Picsize	200px
Title	Lee Hsien Loong
C	李显龙
Showflag	c
P	Lǐ Xiǎnlóng
Poj	Lí Hián-liông }}

Lee Hsien Loong (|t=|p=Lǐ Xiǎnlóng|poj=Lí Hián-liông}}; born 10 February 1952) is the third and current Prime Minister of Singapore. Lee Hsien Loong is married to Ho Ching, who is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the government-owned Temasek Holdings. He is the eldest son of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Early life

The eldest child of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo, Lee was born in Singapore on 10 February 1952. His grandmother Chua Jim Neo was a Hokkien Nyonya, and his mother Kwa Geok Choo has ancestry from Tong'an District, Xiamen, in Fujian province. In Lee Kuan Yew's biography, the young Lee had learned Jawi script since he was five, and has always been interested in the affairs of Singapore, often following his father to the rally grounds since 1963.

Lee studied at Nanyang Primary School, received his secondary education at Catholic High School and subsequently studied at National Junior College, where he learned the clarinet under the tutelage of Adjunct Associate Professor Ho Hwee Long. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he graduated in 1974 with First Class Honours in Mathematics and a Diploma in Computer Science (with distinction). He subsequently obtained a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1980.

Lee joined the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in 1971 and rose quickly through the ranks becoming the youngest Brigadier General in Singapore's history. In 1978, he attended the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. He retired from the military in 1984 to enter politics and was elected as a Member of Parliament that year. Lee's first wife, Malaysian-born doctor Wong Ming Yang, died on 28 October 1982 of a heart attack three weeks after giving birth to Lee's first son Li Yipeng, a mildly autistic albino. In 1985, Lee married Ho Ching, a fast-rising civil servant. They have one daughter and three sons (the oldest son of Ho Ching, Li Hongyi was the winner of the Lee Kuan Yew Award for Math & Science in 2006, the same year he was commissioned as an officer in the Singapore Armed forces at the SAFTI Military Institute), including one daughter and son from Lee's first wife.

In 1992, Lee was diagnosed with lymphoma. He underwent a three-month period of chemotherapy and has since recovered.

Early political career

Lee entered politics at the age of 32 in 1984. He was appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Defence in December 1984 by his father, Lee Kuan Yew, and was subsequently promoted to Acting Minister for Trade and Industry in 1986, and the Second Minister for Defence.

Deputy Prime Minister

When Goh Chok Tong became the Prime Minister of Singapore on 28 November 1990, Lee became the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore. He focused on economic and civil service matters and concurrently served as Minister for Trade and Industry until 1992.

Lee was appointed Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 1998, and Minister for Finance in 2001. During Lee's thirteen and a half years as Deputy Prime Minister, he exerted significant influence on Singapore's governance, especially in economic and social affairs.

To ease the growing budget deficit due to falling tax revenues from cuts in corporate and personal income taxes and other factors such as the Iraq War and SARS outbreak, Lee proposed on 29 August 2003 to raise the GST from three percent to five percent, a change that took place in January 2004.

Lee also initiated several relaxations of the requirements for Singapore citizenship, especially for foreign husbands of Singaporean women and foreign-born children of Singaporeans. The changes were made after repeated pleas from MPs and the Remaking Singapore Committee.

Prime Minister

2004

On 12 August 2004, Lee Hsien Loong succeeded Goh Chok Tong as Prime Minister, relinquishing his Chairmanship of the Monetary Authority of Singapore to Goh Chok Tong. Lee was sworn in by former Chief Justice Yong Pung How at the Istana, office of the President of Singapore.

Lee made his maiden National Day Rally on 12 August 2004. In his speech, Lee initiated the policy of the "Five-day work week", a plan that would remove a half-working day on Saturday. The plan took effect on 1 January 2005.

Lee also proposed two-month paid maternity leave for mothers of newly-born children and financial incentives to mothers who give birth to a fourth child. These policies were initiated in response to the declining birth rate that Singapore has experienced in recent years.

In November 2004, Lee sparked a national debate when he revealed a proposal to build two Integrated Resorts (IRs) which are holiday resorts with casinos. In April 2005, despite substantial opposition expressed by the public, Lee announced the decision to approve the proposal. The two IRs are to be built in Marina Bay and Sentosa. To limit the negative social impact of casino gambling, Lee suggested that safeguards be implemented, such as prohibiting minors from entering the casinos and charging a SGD$100 entrance fee for Singaporeans and permanent residents or SGD$2000 for a year-long entrance fee.

2006

In February 2006, Lee announced in parliament a S$2.6 billion bonus called the ''Progress Package''. The plan was to distribute budget surpluses accumulated from the past few years to adult Singaporeans in the form of cash to everyone, top-ups to the state pension savings for elders, rental and utilities rebates for those living in public housing, educational funds for school children from low-income families, and cash bonuses for low-wage workers above 40 and for those men who have completed National Service. The cash bonuses was distributed in early May 2006.

Critics, especially members of the opposition, have slammed the Progress Package as a "vote-buying exercise" for the Singapore parliamentary election held on 6 May 2006. In that election, Lee led the People's Action Party to win 82 of the 84 seats, including 37 walkovers. Lee and his 6-member team won the Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency with 96,591 (60.42%) votes out of the total 159,872 votes cast. Most of the opposition WP's team of 6 were in their 20s and the constituency was contested for the first time in 15 years.

Its decision to contest Ang Mo Kio came as a surprise, as the opposition was expected to stay away from GRCs helmed by heavyweight ministers; but the party said that giving Ang Mo Kio residents a chance to vote was a prime reason for contesting the GRC. Given the inexperience of the WP team and Lee Hsien Loong's position as the Prime Minister, they won a surprisingly strong 49,468 votes (30.94%). There were also an extremely high percentage of void votes: 13,813 (8.64%).

2010

In May 2010, Lee instituted electoral reforms to the current electoral system by reducing the number of Group representation constituencies (GRC), increased the number of Non-constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) to a maximum of nine (inclusive of the number of elected opposition members of Parliament), and the number of Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) permanent also to nine. Also part of the reforms was the legalization of internet campaigning and mandating a "cooling-off" day where campaigning is prohibited except for party political broadcasts.

2011

Effective 1 June 2011, Lee was named chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation which manages more than $100 billion of the in assets. He succeeds his father, Lee Kuan Yew, who will remain as senior advisor to the fund.

The 2011 General Election

In April 2011, a general election was called for 7 May 2011. For the second time, the PAP was not return to government on Nomination Day with only one uncontested walkover. In the final results, the PAP saw a 6.46% swing against the it from the 2006 elections to 60.14%, its lowest since independence. While the PAP met most expectations to sweep into power and claim over two-thirds of parliamentary seats, it won 81 out of 87 seats, and lost Aljunied Group Representation Constituency to the Workers' Party of Singapore, the first time a GRC was won by an opposition party. Two cabinet ministers namely Foreign Minister George Yeo Yong-Boon and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Hwee Hua were defeated.

Later on, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong tendered their resignations from the Cabinet, stating that they wished to give the Prime Minister a "fresh clean slate" in forming the Government and enable him to "have a completely younger team of ministers to connect to and engage with this young generation". Lee and Goh were appointed as senior advisers to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) respectively.

Lee was sworn-in into a second term on 21 May 2011. His new cabinet included three newly appointed ministers namely, S. Iswaran, formerly Senior Minister of State for Education and for Trade and Industry, was elevated to the Cabinet as Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, and Second Minister for Home Affairs and for Trade and Industry. Heng Swee Keat and Chan Chun Sing, both elected to Parliament for the first time, were respectively assigned the posts of Minister for Education, and Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports and Minister of State for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. Heng was the first new MP directly appointed a full minister since 1984.

Foreign relations

;China Relations with China have improved under Lee's administration. Smooth progress has been made in areas of trade, tourism and investment, which is not merely in accordance with the interest of the two countries, but promises to be beneficial to the common development of the region. The China-Singapore Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) is responsible for promoting Sino-Singaporean co-operation.

During his meeting with vice-premier Wu Yi in September 2005, Lee proposed the establishment of a China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, which would achieve the goal of realizing US$50 billion in trade volume before 2010. In doing so, both agreed that relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should be elevated.

During his seven-day visit to China in late October 2005, the Prime Minister stressed the need of improving bilateral diplomatic relationships between ASEAN and China. Lee also urged leaders to focus on the next wave of growth in north-eastern China, saying:

;United States

Singapore has generally had a favourable relationship with the United States. The growth of bilateral trade improved commercial and diplomatic ties between the two countries after the implementation of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement and the growth in bilateral trade has been evident since the Free Trade Agreement became effective on 1 January 2004.

Lee made his inaugural visit to the United States, as Prime Minister of Singapore, between 6 July and 16 July 2005. Several other ministers, notably the defence minister Teo Chee Hean and foreign minister George Yeo, accompanied Lee.

On 12 July 2005, President George W. Bush and Lee signed the "Strategic Framework Agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of Singapore for a Closer Cooperation Partnership in Defence and Security". The agreement was a natural step in the expansion of bilateral ties. President Bush and the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong had first announced their intention to conclude this agreement in October 2003.

The intention of the agreement is to address common threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which called for even closer cooperation between the United States and Singapore.

The agreement recognizes Singapore's role as a Major Security Cooperation Partner and will expand the scope of current cooperation in areas such as counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, joint military exercises and training, policy dialogues and defence technology. The Agreement will further enhance regional stability by supporting the continued security presence of the United States in Southeast Asia.

Both Lee and Bush agree that US presence in Southeast Asia has promoted peace and stability, which are crucial for regional cooperation and economic development.

During their meeting, both Bush and Lee acknowledged the progress in the war on terror. Lee commended Bush's 'resolute and steadfast stance in the war on terror' and expressed Singapore’s continued support in this endeavour. In exchange, Bush commended the professionalism of the Singapore Armed Forces personnel, who have been deployed in support of Iraq operations over the past two years and of the Singapore Police Force, which has provided critically important training. Both Bush and Lee also pledged to sustain the close cooperation between the United States and Singapore in key regional and global multilateral institutions.

Controversies

As the eldest son of Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Lee's career has been shadowed by allegations of nepotism. At the age of 32 he became the youngest Brigadier General in Singapore's history, and from a young age was widely tipped to be Lee Kuan Yew's successor as Prime Minister. When Lee Kuan Yew stepped down as Prime Minister to make way for his successor, Goh Chok Tong, several critics had seen Goh as a seat-warmer, but Lee Kuan Yew said he had disproved that. In his memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew stressed that he could not have his son directly succeed him.

However, such allegations by critics held on for six to seven years until Goh managed to prove his worth by regaining seats and pushing up the PAP's vote share in the 1997 elections. The appointment of Lee's wife Ho Ching as the director of state investment agency Temasek has also raised some eyebrows.

The Lees have reacted strongly against these allegations by taking legal action, often winning large out-of-court settlements for defamation from, among others, the ''International Herald Tribune'' (1994), ''Bloomberg'' (2002), ''The Economist'' (2004) and the Financial Times (2007).

Lee's career has also been dogged by a reputation for being arrogant and autocratic. According to one particularly persistent rumour, at a pre-Cabinet meeting in 1990 an enraged Lee first insulted the then Minister for Finance Richard Hu and then physically slapped the then Minister for National Development S. Dhanabalan when he sided with Hu and demanded an apology . While those directly involved have never publicly mentioned the alleged incident, in 2003, then prime minister Goh Chok Tong dismissed the incident when discussing the leadership transition to his successor.

Taiwan

On 10 July 2004, Lee visited Taiwan, causing displeasure in the People's Republic of China. On 28 August 2004 in his maiden National Day Rally speech, he criticized the Taiwanese leadership and populace of overestimating the support they would receive if they were to declare Taiwan independence. At the same time, he also clarified during the rally that his visit to Taiwan in July was to ensure he gathered enough intelligence to make the right decisions when he took over the baton as Prime Minister. He reiterated his support for the One-China policy. Later that year in September, Foreign Minister George Yeo cautioned the United Nations General Assembly about the dangers of letting the cross-strait relationship deteriorate. In response, an enraged Taiwan Foreign Minister, Mark Chen, called Singapore a "''Pi-Sai'' Country", translated literally from Hokkien, it means a "country no bigger than a booger." The Taiwanese Foreign Minister later made a formal apology.

Japan

In 2005, Lee made a remark regarding Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, stating that "from the point of view of many countries in the region who have experienced Japanese occupation, it raises many unhappy memories". His remark drew public demonstrations outside the Singapore embassy in Japan on 24 May 2005 with protestors criticising Lee for "meddling" with Japanese issues.

Defamation judgment

On 24 September 2008, High Court, in a summary judgment by Justice Woo Bih Li, ruled that the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) magazine-Hugo Restall, editor, defamed Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The court found the 2006 article "Singapore's 'Martyr': Chee Soon Juan" meant that Lee Kuan Yew "has been running and continues to run Singapore in the same corrupt manner as Durai operated NKF and he has been using libel actions to suppress those who would question to avoid exposure of his corruption." FEER has 30 days to appeal. The court sentenced FEER publisher and editor, owned by Dow Jones & Company (in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp), to pay damages to complainants.

Defamation lawsuit

In 2010, Lee Hsien Loong, together with the two former prime minister preceded him, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, threatened legal action against The New York Times Company which owns The International Herald Tribune regarding an Op-Ed piece titled ‘All in the Family’ of 15 February 2010 by Philip Bowring, a freelance columnist and former editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review. The Herald Tribute apologized in March that readers of the article may ‘infer that the younger Lee did not achieve his position through merit’. The Times and Bowring also agreed to pay SG$60,000 to Lee, SG$50,000 to Lee Kuan Yew and SG$50,000 to Goh (total amounted to about US$114,000 at the time), in addition to legal costs. The case stemmed from a 1994 settlement between the three Singaporean leaders and the paper about an article also by Bowring that referred to ‘dynastic politics’ in East Asian countries including Singapore. In that settlement, Bowring agreed not to say or imply that the younger Lee had attained his position through nepotism by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In response, media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders wrote an open letter to urge Lee and other top officials of the Singapore government to stop taking ‘libel actions’ against journalists.

Salary

Lee Hsien Loong currently earns an annual salary of S$3,870,000 (), an increase of 25% from S$3,091,200 (), making him the highest paid head of government in the world. In comparison, the President of the United States earns a salary of US$400,000. The new salary took effect in January 2008.

Honours

Orden El Sol del Perú en el grado de Gran Cruz con Brillantes (Order of the Sun - Peru), bestowed 22 November 2008. Olympic Order (Gold), conferred 13 August 2010.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography

"Hsien Loong: Election soon". (8 November 2005). ''New Straits Times'', p. 31.

PM Lee:Your vibrant global city, your home, ''The Straits Times'', Headlines, p. 1.

Singapore announces 60 percent pay raise for ministers ''International Herald Tribune''

External links

Prime Minister's Office Singapore ''official government website''

Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, MP ''official government website''

Lee Hsien Loong collected news and commentary at ''CNN''

Lee Hsien Loong collected news and commentary at ''The Economic Times''

Lee Hsien Loong collected news and commentary at ''The Los Angeles Times''

Lee Hsien Loong, ''The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy'' on ''PBS'', 2002

Profile: Lee Hsien Loong, ''BBC News'', 11 August 2004

;Speeches

Transcript of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally English Speech 2008

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