"Mr & Mrs Ten Percent"
"Mr & Mrs Ten Percent" on 9 January 1998, The New York Times outdid itself in its South Asia coverage. The newspaper whose motto is "All the News That´s Fit to Print" thought it fit to print an expose of massive corruption within the Bhutto clan.
South Asia correspondent John F. Burns, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was allowed front-page treatment and (rather incongruously, actually) two full pages on the inside, following the shenanigans of Asif Ali Zardari from Pakistan to Dubai, Geneva, Channel Islands and the British Virgin Islands. In doing so, Burns compiles in one story and confirms much of what had been widely known of Benazir Bhutto´s husband Asif Ali Zardari. It also provides some new angles.
Burns reports on the financial deals which got Benazir Bhutto´s husband the sobriquet "Mr Ten Percent", including millions made off gold bullion trade into Pakistan, customs scams, licensing scams, etc. Besides these, according to officials interviewed, Zardari exploited "defence contracts; power plant projects; the privatisation of state-owned industries; the awarding of broadcast licences; the granting of an export monopoly for the country´s huge rice harvest; the purchase of planes for Pakistan International Airlines; the granting of oil and gas permits; authorisations to build sugar mills; and the sale of government lands."