title: Nun

text: In the Eastern Orthodox Church there is no distinction between a monastery for women and one for men. In Greek, Russian, and other Eastern European languages, both domiciles are called "monasteries" and the ascetics who live therein are "monastics". In English, however, it is acceptable to use the terms "nun" and "convent" for clarity and convenience. The term for an abbess is the feminine form of abbot ("hegumen") – Greek: ἡγουμένη ("hegumeni"); ("igumanija"); Russian: игумения ("igumenia"). Orthodox monastics do not have distinct "orders" as in Western Christianity. Orthodox monks and nuns lead identical spiritual lives. There may be slight differences in the way a monastery functions internally but these are simply differences in style (Gr. "typica") dependent on the abbess or abbot. The abbess is the spiritual leader of the convent and her authority is absolute (no priest, bishop, or even patriarch can override an abbess within the walls of her monastery.) There has always been spiritual equality between men and women in the Orthodox Church (). Abbots and Abbesses rank in authority equal to bishops in many ways and were included in ecumenical councils. Orthodox monasteries are usually associated with a local synod of bishops by jurisdiction, but are otherwise self-governing. Abbesses hear confessions (but do not absolve) and dispense blessings on their charges, though they still require the services of a presbyter (i.e., a priest) to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and perform other priestly functions, such as the absolution of a penitent.


title: Nun

text: Orthodox monastics, in general have little or no contact with the outside world, especially family. The pious family whose child decides to enter the monastic profession understands that their child will become "dead to the world" and therefore be unavailable for social visits.


title: Nun

text: After the Protestant Reformation, some monasteries in Lutheran lands (such as Amelungsborn Abbey near Negenborn and Loccum Abbey in Rehburg-Loccum) and convents (such as Ebstorf Abbey near the town of Uelzen and Bursfelde Abbey in Bursfelde) adopted the Lutheran Christian faith. Other convents, especially those in Reformed areas, closed after the Reformation, with some sisters deciding to marry.


title: Nun

text: A modern resurgence of the early Christian Deaconess office for women began in Germany in the 1840s and spread through Scandinavia, Britain and the United States, with some elements of the religious life, such as simple vows, and a daily obligation of prayer. Lutherans were especially active, and within both Lutheranism and Anglicanism some Deaconesses formed religious communities, with community living, and the option of life vows in religion. The modern movement reached a zenith about 1910, then slowly declined as secularization undercut religiosity in Europe, and the professionalization of nursing and social work offered better career opportunities for young women. A small movement still exists, and its legacy is seen in the names of numerous hospitals.


title: Nun

text: The example of the Deaconess communities eventually led to the establishment of religious communities of monks and nuns within some Protestant traditions, particularly those influenced by the more liturgical Protestant reformers (such as Martin Luther) rather than the more extreme reformers (such as John Calvin). This has allowed for communities of nuns (or, in some cases, mixed communities of nuns and monks) to be re-established in some Protestant traditions. Many of these are within the episcopal Lutheran tradition and the closeness of Lutheranism with Anglicanism its belief and practice has led to local arrangements of inter-Communion between the two traditions, such as the Porvoo Communion.


title: Nun

text: There are a plethora of religious orders within the Lutheran Churches, such as the Order of Lutheran Franciscans and Daughters of Mary. Nearly all are located in Europe.


title: Nun

text: The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, an order of Lutheran nuns, operates a guesthouse for Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem.


title: Nun

text: Religious communities throughout England were destroyed by King Henry VIII when he separated the Church of England from papal authority during the English Reformation (see Dissolution of the Monasteries). Monasteries and convents were deprived of their lands and possessions, and monastics were forced to either live a secular life on a pension or flee the country. Many Catholic nuns went to France.


title: Nun

text: Anglican religious orders are organizations of laity or clergy in the Anglican Communion who live under a common rule. The term "religious orders" is distinguished from Holy Orders (the sacrament of ordination which bishops, priests, and deacons receive), though many communities do have ordained members.


title: Nun

text: The structure and function of religious orders in Anglicanism roughly parallels that which exists in Catholicism. Religious communities are divided into orders proper, in which members take solemn vows and congregations, whose members take simple vows.


title: Nun

text: With the rise of the Oxford Movement in Anglicanism in the early 19th century came interest in the revival of "religious life" in England. Between 1841 and 1855, several religious orders for nuns were founded, among them the Community of St. Mary at Wantage and the Community of St. Margaret at East Grinstead.


title: Nun

text: In the United States and Canada, the founding of Anglican religious orders of nuns began in 1845 with the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion (now defunct) in New York.


title: Nun

text: Whilst there is no single central authority for all religious orders, and many member churches of the Anglican Communion have their own internal structures for recognising and regulating religious orders, some central functions are performed by the Anglican Religious Communities Department at Church House, Westminster, the headquarters of the Church of England's Church Commissioners, General Synod, Archbishops' Council, and National Society. This department publishes the bi-annual "Anglican Religious Life", a world directory of religious orders, and also maintains an official Anglican Communion website for religious orders. "Anglican Religious Life" defines four categories of community.


title: Nun

text: In the United States (only), there is a clear distinction between "orders" and "communities", as the Episcopal Church has its own two-fold definition of "religious orders" (equivalent to the first two groups above) and "Christian communities" (equivalent to the third group above). The "Anglican Religious Life" directory affirms this, stating "This distinction in not used in other parts of the Anglican Communion where 'communities' is also used for those who take traditional vows."


title: Nun

text: The Saint Brigid of Kildare Benedictine Monastery is a United Methodist double monastery with both monks and nuns.


title: Nun

text: Nuns play an important role in the public's image of religious symbolism. A list of notable works in which nuns play a major part ranges from "A Time for Miracles", which is hagiography, to realistic accounts by Kathryn Hulme and Monica Baldwin, to the blatant nunsploitation of "Sacred Flesh". Works can include those which portray Catholic nuns or non-Catholic such as "Black Narcissus" (Anglican).


title: Nun

text: Many stories that have depicted nuns have gone on to critical and audience acclaim such as "Sister Act", "", and "The Sound of Music". These stories have been reproduced in both stage and film. Other examples of nuns in television and film include Sally Field in "The Flying Nun", Stephanie Beacham in "Sister Kate" and Meryl Streep in "Doubt". Miss Clavel in the "Madeline" books and TV series is the nun of a French Catholic boarding school.


title: Nun

text: Nuns have been used as antagonists in stories including Jessica Lange as Sister Jude in "American Horror Story" or Vanessa Redgrave in "The Devils".


title: Nun

text: All Buddhist traditions have nuns, although their status is different among Buddhist countries. The Lord Buddha is reported to have allowed women into the "sangha" only with great reluctance, predicting that the move would lead to Buddhism's collapse after 500 years, rather than the 1,000 years it would have enjoyed otherwise. (This prophecy occurs only once in the Canon and is the only prophecy involving time in the Canon, leading some to suspect that it is a late addition.) Fully ordained Buddhist nuns ("bhikkhunis") have more "Patimokkha" rules than the monks ("bhikkhus"). The important vows are the same, however.


title: Nun

text: As with monks, there is quite a lot of variation in nuns' dress and social conventions between Buddhist cultures in Asia. Chinese nuns possess the full "bhikkuni" ordination, Tibetan nuns do not. In Theravada countries it is generally believed that the full ordination lineage of "bhikkunis" died out, though in many places they wear the "saffron" colored robes, observing only ten precepts like novices.


title: Nun

text: In Thailand, a country which never had a tradition of fully ordained nuns ("bhikkhuni"), there developed a separate order of non-ordained female renunciates called "mae chi". However, some of them have played an important role in dhamma-practitioners' community. There are in Thai Forest Tradition foremost nuns such as Mae Ji Kaew Sianglam, the founder of the Nunnery of Baan Huai Saai, who is believed by some to be enlightened as well as Upasika Kee Nanayon. At the beginning of the 21st century, some Buddhist women in Thailand have started to introduce the "bhikkhuni sangha" in their country as well, even if public acceptance is still lacking. Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, formerly the successful academic scholar Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, established a controversial monastery for the training of Buddhist nuns in Thailand.


title: Nun

text: The relatively active roles of Taiwanese nuns were noted by some studies. Researcher Charles Brewer Jones estimates that from 1951 to 1999, when the Buddhist Association of the ROC organized public ordination, female applicants outnumbered males by about three to one. He adds:


title: Nun

text: Wei-yi Cheng studied the Luminary (Hsiang Kuang 香光) order in southern Taiwan. Cheng reviewed earlier studies which suggest that Taiwan's Zhaijiao tradition has a history of more female participation, and that the economic growth and loosening of family restriction have allowed more women to become nuns. Based on studies of the Luminary order, Cheng concluded that the monastic order in Taiwan was still young and gave nuns more room for development, and more mobile believers helped the order.


title: Nun

text: The August 2007 International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha, with the support of the XIVth Dalai Lama, reinstated the Gelongma (Dharmaguptaka vinaya bhikkhuni) lineage, having been lost, in India and Tibet, for centuries. Gelongma ordination requires the presence of ten fully ordained people keeping exactly the same vows. Because ten nuns are required to ordain a new one, the effort to establish the Dharmaguptaka bhikkhu tradition has taken a long time.


title: Nun

text: It is permissible for a Tibetan nun to receive bhikkhuni ordination from another living tradition, e.g., in Vietnam. Based on this, Western nuns ordained in Tibetan tradition, like Thubten Chodron, took full ordination in another tradition.


title: Nun

text: The ordination of monks and nuns in Tibetan Buddhism distinguishes three stages: rabjung-ma, getshül-ma and gelong-ma. The clothes of the nuns in Tibet are basically the same as those of monks, but there are differences between novice and "gelong" robes.


title: Nun

text: Hokke-ji in 747 was established by the consort of the Emperor. It took charge of provincial convents, performed ceremonies for the protection of the state, and became the site of pilgrimages. Aristocratic Japanese women often became Buddhist nuns in the premodern period. Originally it was thought they could not gain salvation because of the Five Hindrances, which said women could not attain Buddhahood until they changed into men. However, in 1249, 12 women received full ordination as priests.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in Cambridge and was established in 1994 to represent its members' interests, principally to government and Parliament. It was incorporated in 2007. Its members are often perceived as the UK's most prestigious universities, but this has been disputed.


title: Russell Group

text: , Russell Group members receive over three-quarters of all university research grant and contract income in the United Kingdom. Fifteen of the country's sixteen universities in the THE top 100 are members of the group. Their graduates hold 61% of all UK jobs that require a university degree, despite being only 17% of all higher education graduates. Russell Group members award 60% of all doctorates gained in the United Kingdom. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, Russell Group universities accounted for 65% of all world-leading (4*) research conducted in the UK, and 91% of the Russell Group's research was judged to be world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*). Of the 21 Russell Group universities that have entered the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), 10 hold gold awards (48%), 10 silver (48%) and one bronze (5%), compared to proportions across all 274 higher education providers with full awards of 28% gold, 50% silver and 22% bronze, and proportions across 139 universities and alternative providers with university status of 40% gold, 50% silver and 10% bronze.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group is named after the location of the first informal meetings of the Group, which took place at the Hotel Russell in Russell Square, London.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group of universities was formed in 1994 by 17 British research universities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Leeds, Liverpool, London School of Economics, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, University College London and Warwick, who originally met at Hotel Russell shortly before meetings of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK) in nearby Tavistock Square, close to the University of London buildings and, particularly, Senate House. With the exception of Warwick (established in the 1960s), the founder members of the group were all universities or university colleges prior to World War I, including most of Britain's ancient universities and "redbrick universities". In 1998, Cardiff University and King's College London joined the group.


title: Russell Group

text: In March 2001, the Russell Group decided against selecting a preferred option for the future funding of higher education, stating that endowments, a graduate contribution, increased public funding and top-up fees should all remain options. In December 2005, it was announced that the Russell Group would be appointing its first full-time director-general as a result of a planned expansion of its operations, including commissioning and conducting its own policy research. In November 2006, Queen's University Belfast was admitted as the twentieth member of the group. In the same month Wendy Piatt, the then deputy director in the Prime Minister's strategy unit, was announced as the group's new Director General and chief executive.


title: Russell Group

text: In March 2012, it was announced that four universities – Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary University of London; and York – would become members of the Russell Group in August of the same year. All of the new members had previously been members of the 1994 Group of British universities.


title: Russell Group

text: In January 2013, it was announced that the Russell Group would establish an academic board to advise the English exams watchdog Ofqual on the content of A-Levels. In May 2019 the group launched a website "Informed Choices" to advise school children on which A-level subject choices were useful for various degree courses, replacing an earlier teachers' guide that had identified a list of "facilitating subjects'.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group states that "its aim is to help ensure that our universities have the optimum conditions in which to flourish and continue to make social, economic and cultural impacts through their world-leading research and teaching."


title: Russell Group

text: It works towards this by lobbying the UK government and parliament; commissioning reports and research; creating a forum in which its member institutions can discuss issues of common concern; and identify opportunities for them to work together.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group is led by Chief Executive Dr Tim Bradshaw and chaired by Prof Sir Anton Muscatelli, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow.


title: Russell Group

text: In May 2020 the Russell Group appointed the next chair Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester, starting September 2020.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group currently has twenty four members, of which twenty are from England, two from Scotland, and one from each of Wales and Northern Ireland. Of the English members, five are from Greater London; three from the Yorkshire and the Humber region; two from each of the North East, North West, West Midlands, South West and South East regions; and one from each of the East Midlands and East regions. Four Russell Group members are constituent colleges of the University of London and a fifth London institution, Imperial College London, was part of the University of London until 2007.


title: Russell Group

text: The table below gives the members of the group, along with when they joined, their student and staff numbers, and their Teaching Excellence Framework rating).


title: Russell Group

text: In 2022/23, following the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), the English universities of the Russell Group saw their share of recurring research funding from Research England drop by 2.71 percentage points from the 2021/22 funding (based on the previous 2014 REF) to 68.21 per cent, although most institutions saw a rise in actual funding levels due to an overall increase in funding. The top 19 English institutions in terms of funding continued to all be from the Russell Group, with the top 20 being rounded off, as before, by Lancaster. The LSE was, as in previous REF rounds, the exception, ranking 31st in terms of funding (down from 23rd in 2021/11) and seeing a nine per cent fall (£1.7 million) in its allocation.


title: Russell Group

text: In 2015/16, following the 2014 REF, the 19 English universities with HEFCE research funding allocations (excluding transitional funding) in excess of £20 million were all members of the Russell Group. The only English Russell Group institution to receive an allocation below £20 million was the LSE (£18.6 million), which ranked 22nd behind the Universities of Leicester and Lancaster (both on £19 million).


title: Russell Group

text: In 2010/11, 19 of the 20 UK universities with the highest income from research grants and contracts were members of the Russell Group. In terms of total research funding allocations from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in 2007/8, the top 15 universities were all Russell Group institutions. LSE was 21st, due to its focus on less costly social sciences research. Queen's University Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh, were not included in this table, as they are not English institutions. The Russell Group institutions received 82% of the total HEFCE research funding allocation.


title: Russell Group

text: The research funding figures depend on factors other than the quality of research, in particular there are variations due to institutional size and subject spread (e.g. science, technology and medicine tend to attract more money).


title: Russell Group

text: In 2008, 18 of the then 20 members were positioned in the top 20 of Research Fortnight's Research Assessment Exercise 'Power' Table. The other two places were occupied by Durham University and Queen Mary University of London, which were not then Russell Group members but have since joined. The two Russell Group institutions outside the top 20 were QUB (21st) and the LSE (27th), while the other two universities to have since joined were York (22nd) and Exeter (25th). In the equivalent table for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the 24 Russell Group members occupied the top 24 positions, with the University of Lancaster in 25th being the highest-ranked non-Russell Group university.


title: Russell Group

text: In 2021, all eight UK universities in the ARWU top 100, sixteen of the seventeen in the QS top 100 (the other place being occupied by the University of St Andrews), and all eleven in the THE top 100 are members of the Russell Group. The Russell Group provides seven of the top ten in the Complete, Guardian, and Times/Sunday Times.


title: Russell Group

text: All but two of the universities in the Russell Group are part of the Sutton Trust's group of 30 highly selective universities, the Sutton 30 (the absent members being Queen Mary University of London and Queen's University Belfast). The Sutton 13 group of the 13 most highly selective universities only includes one non-Russell Group member, the University of St Andrews. The top 10 by average UCAS points of new undergraduate students in 2019–20 included three non-Russell Group universities: St Andrews (1st; 208 points), Strathclyde (5th; 198 points) and Aberdeen (10th; 182 points). The average offer rate, including conditional and unconditional offers, across 'high tariff' UK institutions (as defined by UCAS) was 61.2% in 2021.


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group accounted for 49.1% of the income of the higher education sector in the UK in 2013–14, having risen from 44.7% of the total in 2001–02. Over the same period the total income of Russell Group universities rose by 69.9% in real terms, compared to a sector average of 54.4%. Russell Group universities are also seen as "particularly creditworthy" due to their membership of the group, allowing them to borrow money at low interest rates.


title: Russell Group

text: The total annual income for Russell Group members for 2020–21 was £20.30 billion of which £4.77 billion was from research grants and contracts, with an operating surplus of £1.15 billion. Russell Group universities hold a total endowment value of £6.18 billion (exclusive of colleges) and net assets of £31.52 billion. The table below is a record of each Russell Group member's financial data for the 2020–21 financial year.


title: Russell Group

text: In a statement to the Higher Education Policy Institute, David Watson of the University of Oxford suggested that the Russell Group's claim to represent 24 'leading universities' was "a real stretch". In the context of the Russell Group's reputation in the sector, he continued: "particularly dangerous, I think, is the bottom half of the Russell Group…The problem with the Russell Group is that it represents neither the sector as a whole [nor], in many cases, the best of the sector". Performance in research intensity showed that there were dozens of other UK universities "above the bottom Russellers".


title: Russell Group

text: A Durham University academic, Vikki Boliver, published a report in 2015 claiming that the prestigious position of the Russell Group was not based on evidence, but rather successful marketing. Only the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were significantly more elite than the majority of "old" universities when a grouping analysis was performed using data on academic selectivity, research activity, teaching quality, socio-economic exclusivity and economic resources. The other 22 members of the Russell Group sit in a second tier of universities along with 17 other "old" universities (University of Aberdeen, University of Bath*, University of Dundee, University of East Anglia*, Goldsmiths*, Heriot-Watt University, University of Kent, Lancaster University*, University of Leicester*, Loughborough University*, University of Reading*, Royal Holloway*, University of St Andrews*, SOAS*, University of Strathclyde, University of Surrey* and University of Sussex*), mostly comprising former members of the defunct 1994 Group (shown by asterisks). Another 13 "old" universities and 54 "new" universities made up a third tier, with a fourth tier of 19 "new" universities. Within each tier, the differences between the institutions were less significant than the differences between the tiers. This reflected an earlier result from 2010 that, when the "Golden Triangle" universities (defined in the study as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial,KCL,LSE, and UCL) were omitted, the remaining (then) members of the Russell Group were outperformed by the (then) members of the 1994 Group.


title: Russell Group

text: Ant Bagshaw from the Wonkhe think-tank has criticised the use of Russell Group membership as a proxy for selectivity in official Department for Education reports and statistics, as better measures of selectivity are available from UCAS data. He states that the idea that "Russell Group membership is synonymous with 'best is "persistent, but unverified". He also notes that this may lead to less scrutiny of the performance of non-Russell Group selective universities with respect to widening participation and improving access.


title: Russell Group

text: The Institute of Economic Affairs has argued that the Russell Group acts out of protectionist interests. It is claimed that this will "restrict competition, discourage innovation and encourage inefficiency, thereby depriving students of lower prices and/or greater choice".


title: Russell Group

text: The Russell Group has been prominent in recent years in the debate over the introduction of tuition fees, a measure which it has strongly supported – much to the dismay of the universities' students' unions. Indeed, members of the group argued that even the fees proposed by the controversial Higher Education Bill would not be sufficient to cover the rising cost of undergraduate teaching, and successfully argued for the right to charge variable fees at much higher rates, so-called top-up fees.


title: Russell Group

text: The twenty-four universities in the Russell Group are responsible for around half of the Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions of the UK university sector. The Group as a whole has been criticised for an inconsistent and inadequate response to the need to identify emissions and take reduction measures. An Environmental Sustainability Network was announced by the Russell Group in December 2019; as of November 2021 no outcomes from this had been announced.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder of Hotwire.com; David Beitel, Zillow's current chief technology officer; and Kristin Acker, Zillow's current senior vice president of experience design.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow has stated that it is a media company that generates revenue by selling advertising on its website. In April 2009, Zillow announced a partnership to lend its real-estate search engine to the websites of more than 180 United States newspapers as a part of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium. Zillow shares advertising revenue from the co-branded sites with the newspapers and extends its reach into local markets.


title: Zillow

text: In February 2011, Zillow and Yahoo! Real Estate launched an exclusive partnership creating the largest real-estate advertising network on the web, according to comScore Media Metrix.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow now allows renters to pay rent online to their landlords for properties on the Zillow Rental Manager tool. Zillow charges renters a transaction fee when using debit or credit cards to pay their landlord. However, renters also have a no-fee option to pay their rent by using ACH.


title: Zillow

text: In 2018, Zillow Group began operations as a blanket referral-fee network without an upfront cost called Zillow Flex. Once brokers close a home transaction with a client, they pay a referral fee out of escrow to Zillow. In areas where Flex partner brokers operate alongside brokers who pay for Zillow Premier Agent upfront, leads and connections flow through the same system and are allocated randomly to partner brokers. Blanket referral fees paid to Zillow Group are not disclosed to consumers, but likely range between 30 and 40% of the entire broker's commission. The main qualification for real-estate brokers who participate with Zillow Flex Program is their willingness to pay a blanket referral fee once the transaction is complete.


title: Zillow

text: Barton got the inspiration for funding Zillow when he was working at Microsoft and he realized that the real-estate industry would be transformed. In December 2004, Zillow was incorporated; Zillow's website was launched in February 2006. In 2010, Spencer Rascoff was named CEO of the company. Barton stayed as executive chairman. In April 2018, Zillow entered the on-demand home-buying market with Zillow Offers. In February 2019, Barton returned as CEO to lead the transition.


title: Zillow

text: In 2018, Zillow signed a partnership with Century 21 Canada to begin listing Canadian properties on the site, marking the first country outside the United States to be covered by the company.


title: Zillow

text: In February 2020, Zillow's stock was up 18% after going down for four years. In March of the same year, the CEO of Zillow announced a cut in expenses by 25%, and stopped hiring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, Zillow announced plans to increase the workforce by 40% by hiring more than 2,000 employees nationwide by the end of 2021.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow began purchasing homes in 2018/2019 with the goal of becoming a market maker with a per-unit target of within +/− 200 basis points (+/− 2%) of breakeven. In November 2021, Zillow CEO Rich Barton announced the company would shutter the i-buying part of the business, sell its existing inventory, and lay off 25% of its employees. When Barton announced the company would cease purchasing homes, Zillow owned about 7,000 houses. The division responsible for acquiring and selling homes, Zillow Offers, resulted in the company losing $420 million in the third quarter of 2021 and the share price plummeted from a high of $200 in 2021 to $30 in 2022.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow has data on roughly 110 million homes across the United States. The company offers several features, including value estimates of homes, value changes of each home in a given time frame, aerial views of homes, and prices of comparable homes in the area. It also provides basic information on a given home, such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Users can also get estimates of homes that have undergone significant changes, such as a remodeled kitchen.


title: Zillow

text: In December 2006, Zillow launched features allowing users to post homes for sale and set a "Make Me Move" price (an informal way to market a home), as well as a real estate wiki. That same year, Zillow teamed with Microsoft to offer a feature in Microsoft Virtual Earth that shows aerial photographs.


title: Zillow

text: In late 2013, Zillow began powering AOL Real Estate. In July 2014, Zillow also took over the real-estate portal for MSN Real Estate. In October 2017, Zillow announced to add three-dimensional tours to get 360° photos of houses customers are interested in buying or renting.


title: Zillow

text: In July 2018, Zillow released a tool for prospective renters to submit a credit check and eviction history report to landlords.


title: Zillow

text: On April 3, 2008, Zillow launched a service called Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. This service allows for borrowers to get custom loan quotes without revealing personally identifying information.


title: Zillow

text: On December 16, 2008, Zillow launched Zillow Advice, allowing people to ask real-estate questions online and get answers from the website's community of experts.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow produces home value reports for the nation and over 130 metropolitan statistical areas. The reports identify market trends, including 5- and 10-year annualized change, negative equity, short sales, and foreclosure transactions.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow also releases a Homeowner Confidence Survey. The survey is conducted by Harris Interactive and measures homeowners' perceptions about home-value changes of their own home and the local market.


title: Zillow

text: The Zillow data team has created a database of nearly 7,544 neighborhood boundaries in the largest cities in the U.S. and made them available via Creative Commons Attribute-Sharealike license.


title: Zillow

text: Zillow determines an estimate, also known as a "Zestimate", for a home based on a range of publicly available information, including sales of comparable houses in a neighborhood. According to Zillow, the Zestimate is a starting point in determining a home's value. The accuracy of the Zestimate varies by location depending on how much information is publicly available, but Zillow allows users to check the accuracy of Zestimates in their own region against actual sales.


title: Zillow

text: In March 2011, Zillow released Rent Zestimates, which provide estimated rent prices for 90 million homes.


title: Zillow

text: On June 14, 2011, Zillow changed its algorithm used to calculate Zestimates. In addition to changing the current Zestimate for millions of homes throughout the country, Zillow changed historical Zestimate value information dating back to 2006.


title: Zillow

text: On June 15, 2021 Zillow reported that it updated how it calculates the Zestimate for off-market homes, so to be more responsive to local trends and seasonality that may affect a home’s market value and includes even more historical data to improve accuracy.


title: Zillow

text: In 2007, "The Wall Street Journal" studied the accuracy of Zillow's estimates and found that they "often are very good, frequently within a few percentage points of the actual price paid. But when Zillow is bad, it can be terrible."


title: Zillow

text: In October 2006, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission stating that Zillow was "intentionally misleading consumers and real-estate professionals to rely upon the accuracy of its valuation services despite the full knowledge of the company officials that their valuation Automated Valuation Model (AVM) mechanism is highly inaccurate and misleading." In a letter dated May 4, 2007, the FTC elected not to investigate this complaint, which was later withdrawn by the NCRC.


title: Zillow

text: Using data published on the Zillow website, the typical Zestimate error in the United States in July 2016 was $14,000.


title: Zillow

text: While factors contributing to estimates are described elsewhere, Zillow seemingly overemphasises home square footage as the major metric driving property valuation. This method may not be unique to Zillow, but unduly distorts value expectations. Listings in areas where land is priced at high premiums often reflect an identical Zillow estimate to that of nearby homes with comparable interior square footage, but where the home might be decades older. Condition, age of home, special features, and proximity to nuisances are insufficiently factored into the estimate. Zillow has made some effort to add balance by including option for owners to provide their own value estimate, but these figures can be similarly unreliable as being opinion instead of quantifiable.


title: Zillow

text: In 2014, Zillow faced several lawsuits from former employees at the Zillow operation in Irvine, California, alleging violations of California Labor Code and California Business and Professions Code. On February 26, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California certified the class to include anyone who worked as an inside sales consultant at Zillow between November 2010 and January 2015. Among the numerous allegations brought by high-profile attorneys Bobby Samini and Mark Geragos, Zillow is accused of failing to pay wages, failing to pay overtime pay, and failing to provide meal and rest breaks. Zillow responded: "the narrative being pushed by this law firm through their multiple lawsuits is completely inconsistent with those who know and work with Zillow...the behavior described does not accurately depict our culture or the 1,200 Zillow employees."


title: Zillow

text: In addition, Samini and Geragos represented a former Zillow employee in a sexual harassment action against the company, alleging "sexual torture" and "the most heinous acts of sexual harassment imaginable". According to the lawsuit, Zillow's Southern California office represents an "adult frat house where sexual harassment and misconduct are normalized, condoned, and promoted by male managers." Based on the allegations against the company, Samini has called Zillow a "modern day "Animal House"." On May 5, 2016, Zillow settled the action for an undisclosed amount, without admitting any wrongdoing.


title: Zillow

text: In 2017, Zillow sent a cease-and-desist letter to Kate Wagner, the author of McMansion Hell, a blog that lampooned the presentations of luxury homes found on the site. Wagner was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Zillow later released a statement saying it had "decided against moving forward with legal action" on the matter.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and overall state of conflict between the two countries. The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire in North America (later called Canada) and the United States of America, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the latter. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: This treaty and the separate peace treaties between Great Britain and the nations that supported the American cause—France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic—are known collectively as the Peace of Paris. Only Article 1 of the treaty, which acknowledges the United States' existence as free, sovereign, and independent states, remains in force.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Peace negotiations began in Paris in April 1782 and continued through the summer. Representing the United States were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and John Adams. Representing Great Britain were David Hartley and Richard Oswald. The treaty was drafted on November 30, 1782, and signed at the Hôtel d'York (at present 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris on September 3, 1783, by Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Hartley.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Regarding the American treaty, the key episodes came in September 1782, when French Foreign Minister Vergennes proposed a solution, which was strongly opposed by his ally, the United States. France was exhausted by the war, and everyone wanted peace except for Spain, which insisted on continuing the war until it could capture Gibraltar from the British. Vergennes came up with a deal that Spain would accept, instead of Gibraltar. The United States would gain its independence, but it would be confined to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain would keep the area north of the Ohio River, which was part of the Province of Quebec. In the area south of that would be set up an independent Indian barrier state, under Spanish control.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Nevertheless, the Americans realized that they could get a better deal directly from London. John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them and thus to bypass France and Spain. British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne agreed. In charge of the British negotiations (some of which took place in his study at Lansdowne House, now a bar in the Lansdowne Club), Shelburne now saw a chance to split the United States from France and to make the new country a valuable economic partner. The terms were that the United States would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, and south of Canada. The northern boundary would be almost the same as they are today.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: The United States would gain fishing rights off Nova Scotian coasts and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to try to recover their property. The treaty was highly favorable for the United States and deliberately so from the British point of view. Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly-growing United States, which indeed came to pass.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Great Britain also signed separate agreements with France and Spain, and (provisionally) with the Netherlands. In the treaty with Spain, the territories of East and West Florida were ceded to Spain (without a clear northern boundary, which resulted in a territorial dispute resolved by the Treaty of Madrid in 1795). Spain also received the island of Menorca, but the Bahama Islands, Grenada, and Montserrat, which had been captured by the French and Spanish, were returned to Britain. The treaty with France was mostly about exchanges of captured territory (France's only net gains were the island of Tobago, and Senegal in Africa), but it also reinforced earlier treaties, guaranteeing fishing rights off Newfoundland. Dutch possessions in the East Indies, captured in 1781, were returned by Britain to the Netherlands in exchange for trading privileges in the Dutch East Indies by a treaty, which was not finalized until 1784.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: The United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784, in Annapolis, Maryland, in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House, which made Annapolis the first peacetime capital of the new United States. Copies were sent back to Europe for ratification by the other parties involved, the first reaching France in March 1784. British ratification occurred on April 9, 1784, and the ratified versions were exchanged in Paris on May 12, 1784.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: The treaty and the separate peace treaties between Great Britain and the nations that supported the American cause (France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic) are known collectively as the Peace of Paris. Only Article 1 of the treaty, which acknowledges the United States' existence as free sovereign and independent states, remains in force. The US borders changed in later years, which is a major reason for specific articles of the treaty to be superseded.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: "Preamble". Declares the treaty to be "in the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity" (followed by a reference to the Divine Providence) states the "bona fides" of the signatories, and declares the intention of both parties to "forget all past misunderstandings and differences" and "secure to both perpetual peace and harmony."


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: "Eschatocol." "Done at Paris, this third day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three."


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Historians have often commented that the treaty was very generous to the United States in terms of greatly-enlarged boundaries. Historians such as Alvord, Harlow, and Ritcheson have emphasized that British generosity was based on a statesmanlike vision of close economic ties between Britain and the United States. The concession of the vast trans-Appalachian region was designed to facilitate the growth of the American population and to create lucrative markets for British merchants without any military or administrative costs to Britain. The point was that the United States would become a major trading partner. As French Foreign Minister Vergennes later put it, "The English buy peace rather than make it." Vermont was included within the boundaries because the state of New York insisted that Vermont was a part of New York although Vermont was then under a government that considered Vermont not to be a part of the United States.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Privileges that the Americans had received from Britain automatically when they had colonial status (including protection from pirates in the Mediterranean Sea; see: the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War) were withdrawn. Individual states ignored federal recommendations, under Article 5, to restore confiscated Loyalist property, and also ignored Article 6 (such as by confiscating Loyalist property for "unpaid debts"). Some, notably Virginia, also defied Article 4 and maintained laws against payment of debts to British creditors. Several Loyalists attempted to file for a return for their property in the US legal system after the war but mostly unsuccessfully.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: The actual geography of North America turned out not to match the details used in the treaty. The treaty specified a southern boundary for the United States, but the separate Anglo-Spanish agreement did not specify a northern boundary for Florida. The Spanish government assumed that the boundary was the same as in the 1763 agreement by which it had first given its territory in Florida to Great Britain. While the West Florida Controversy continued, Spain used its new control of Florida to block American access to the Mississippi, in defiance of Article 8. The treaty stated that the boundary of the United States extended from the "most northwesternmost point" of the Lake of the Woods (now partly in Minnesota, partly in Manitoba, and partly in Ontario) directly westward until it reached the Mississippi River. However the Mississippi does not in fact extend that far northward, and the line going west from the Lake of the Woods never intersects the river. Additionally, the Treaty of Paris did not explain how the new border would function in terms of controlling the movement of people and trade between British North America and the United States. The American diplomats' expectation of negotiating a commercial treaty with Great Britain to resolve some of the unfinished business of the Treaty of Paris failed to materialize in 1784. The United States would thus wait until 1794 to negotiate its first commercial agreement with the British Empire, the Jay Treaty.


title: Treaty of Paris (1783)

text: Great Britain violated the treaty stipulation that it should relinquish control of forts in United States territory "with all convenient speed." British troops remained stationed at six forts in the Great Lakes region and at two at the north end of Lake Champlain. The British also built an additional fort in present-day Ohio in 1794, during the Northwest Indian War. They found the justification for their actions during the unstable and extremely tense situation that existed in the area following the war, in the failure of the US government to fulfill commitments made to compensate loyalists for British losses, as well as in the British need for time to liquidate various assets in the region. All of the posts were relinquished peacefully through diplomatic means as a result of the Jay Treaty:


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Asif Ali Zardari (; ; born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician who is the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and was the co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party. He served as the 11th president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, the first president born after Independence. He is the widower of twice-elected former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto. He has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since August 2018.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The son of Hakim Ali Zardari, a landowner from Sindh, Zardari rose to prominence after his marriage to Benazir Bhutto in 1987, who became the Prime Minister of Pakistan after her election in 1988. When Bhutto's government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, Zardari was widely criticized for involvement in corruption scandals that led to its collapse. When Bhutto was reelected in 1993, Zardari served as Federal Investment Minister and Chairperson of Pakistan Environmental Protection Council. Following increasing tensions between Bhutto's brother Murtaza and Zardari, Murtaza was killed by police in Karachi on 20 September 1996. Bhutto's government was dismissed a month later by President Farooq Leghari, while Zardari was arrested and indicted for Murtaza's murder as well as corruption charges.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Although incarcerated, he nominally served in Parliament after being elected to the National Assembly in 1990 and Senate in 1997. He was released from jail in 2004 and went into self-exile to Dubai, but returned when Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007. As the new co-chairman of the PPP, he led his party to victory in the 2008 general elections. He spearheaded a coalition that forced military ruler Pervez Musharraf to resign, and was elected president on 6 September 2008. He was acquitted of various criminal charges the same year.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: As president, Zardari remained a strong American ally in the war in Afghanistan, despite prevalent public disapproval of the United States following the Raymond Davis incident and the NATO attack in Salala in 2011. Domestically, Zardari achieved the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 2010, which constitutionally reduced his presidential powers. His attempt to prevent the reinstatement of Supreme Court judges failed in the face of massive protests led by his political rival Nawaz Sharif. The restored Supreme Court dismissed the PPP's elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani for contempt in 2012 after Gillani refused to write to the Government of Switzerland to reopen corruption cases against Zardari. Zardari's tenure was also criticised for mishandling nationwide floods in 2010, and growing terrorist violence. Following multiple bombings of Hazaras in Quetta in early 2013, Zardari dismissed his provincial government in Balochistan.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Towards the end of his term, Zardari recorded abysmally low approval ratings, ranging from 11 to 14%. After the PPP was heavily defeated in the 2013 general election, Zardari became the country's first elected president to complete his constitutional term on 9 September 2013. His legacy remains divisive, with political observers accusing his administration of corruption and cronyism.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari was born on 26 July 1955 in Karachi, Sindh in the Zardari family. He is of Baloch origin, belonging to the Sindhi-speaking Zardari tribe. He is the only son of Hakim Ali Zardari, a tribal chief and prominent landowner, and Bilquis Sultana Zardari. His paternal grandmother was of Iraqi descent, while his mother was the granddaughter of Hassan Ali Effendi, a Sindhi educationist who is known as the founder of the Sindh Madressatul Islam.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In his youth, he enjoyed polo and boxing. He led a polo team known as the Zardari Four. His father owned Bambino—a famous cinema in Karachi—and donated movie equipment to his school. He also appeared in a 1969 movie, "Salgira", as a child. Zardari's academic background remains a question mark. He received his primary education from Karachi Grammar School. His official biography says he graduated from Cadet College, Petaro in 1972. He went to St Patrick's High School, Karachi from 1973 to 1974; a school clerk says he failed his final examination there. In March 2008, he claimed he had graduated from the London School of Business Studies with a bachelor of education degree in the early 1970s. Zardari's official biography states he also attended Pedinton School in Britain. His British education, however, has not been confirmed, and a search did not turn up any Pedinton School in London. The issue of his diploma was contentious because a 2002 rule required candidates for Parliament to hold a college degree, but the rule was overturned by Pakistan's Supreme Court in April 2008.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari's initial political career was unsuccessful. In 1983, he lost an election for a district council seat in Nawabshah, a city of Sindh, where his family owned thousands of acres of farmland. He then went into real estate.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He married Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987. The arranged marriage, done in accordance with Pakistani culture, was initially considered an unlikely match. The lavish sunset ceremony in Karachi was followed by immense night celebrations that included over 100,000 people. The marriage enhanced Bhutto's political position in a country where older unmarried women are frowned upon. Zardari deferred to his wife's wishes by agreeing to stay out of politics.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In 1988, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane crash. A few months later, Bhutto became Pakistan's first female Prime Minister when her party won 94 of 207 seats contested in the 1988 elections.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He generally stayed out of his wife's first administration, but he and his associates became entangled in corruption cases linked to the government. He was largely blamed for the collapse of the Bhutto administration.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: After the dismissal of Bhutto's government in August 1990, Benazir Bhutto and Zardari were prohibited from leaving the country by security forces under the direction of the Pakistan Army. During the interim government between August and October, caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, a Bhutto rival, initiated investigations of corruption by the Bhutto administration. Jatoi accused Zardari of using his wife's political position to charge a ten percent commission for obtaining permission to set up any project or to receive loans. He was tagged with the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent".


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He was arrested on 10 October 1990 on charges relating to kidnapping and extortion. The charges alleged an extortion scheme that involved tying a supposed bomb to a British businessman's leg. The Bhutto family considered the indictment politically motivated and fabricated. In the October 1990 elections, he was elected to the National Assembly while in jail. Bhutto and the PPP staged a walkout from the inaugural session of the National Assembly to protest Zardari's incarceration. He posted $20,000 bail, but his release was blocked by a government ordinance that removed a court's power to release suspects being tried in the terrorist court, which fast-track trials for alleged terrorists. The ordinance was later revoked and a special court acquitted him of bank fraud and conspiracy to murder political opponents. He was freed in February 1993. In March 1994, Zardari was acquitted of bank fraud charges. All other corruption charges relating to Bhutto's first term were dropped or thrown out of the courts.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: On 25 March 1991, the hijackers aboard Singapore Airlines Flight 117 demanded Zardari's release among other demands. The hijackers were killed by Singapore Commandos.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In April 1993, he became one of the 18 cabinet ministers in the caretaker government that succeeded Nawaz Sharif's first abridged premiership. The caretaker government lasted until the July elections. After Bhutto's election, he served as her Investment Minister, chief of the intelligence bureau, and the head of the Federal Investigation Agency. In February 1994, Benazir sent Zardari to meet with Saddam Hussein in Iraq to deliver medicine in exchange for three detained Pakistanis arrested on the ambiguous Kuwait-Iraq border. In April 1994, Zardari denied allegations that he was wielding unregulated influence as a spouse and acting as "de-facto Prime Minister". In March 1995, he was appointed chairman of the new Environment Protection Council.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: During the beginning of the second Bhutto Administration, a Bhutto family feud between Benazir and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, surfaced over the political future of Murtaza Bhutto, Nusrat's son and Benazir's younger brother. Benazir thanked Zardari for his support. In September 1996, Murtaza and seven others died in a shootout with police in Karachi, while the city was undergoing a three-year civil war. At Murtaza's funeral, Nusrat accused Benazir and Zardari of being responsible and vowed to pursue prosecution. Ghinwa Bhutto, Murtaza's widow, also accused Zardari of being behind his killing. President Farooq Leghari, who would dismiss the Bhutto government seven weeks after Murtaza's death, also suspected Benazir and Zardari's involvement. Several of Pakistan's leading newspapers alleged that Zardari wanted his brother-in-law out of the way because of Murtaza's activities as head of a breakaway faction of the PPP.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In November 1996, Bhutto's government was dismissed by Leghari primarily because of corruption and Murtaza's death. Zardari was arrested in Lahore while attempting to flee the country to Dubai.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: A major report was published in January 1998 by "The New York Times" detailing Zardari's vast corruption and misuse of public funds. The report discussed $200 million in kickbacks to Zardari and a Pakistani partner for a $4 billion contract with French military contractor Dassault Aviation, in a deal that fell apart only when the Bhutto government was dismissed. It contained details of two payments of $5 million each by a gold bullion dealer in return for a monopoly on gold imports. It had information from Pakistani investigators that the Bhutto family had allegedly accrued more than $1.5 billion in illicit profits through kickbacks in virtually every sphere of government activity. It also reported Zardari's mid-1990s spending spree, which included hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on jewellery. The arrangements made by the Bhutto family for their wealth relied on Western property companies, Western lawyers, and a network of Western friends. The report described how Zardari had arranged secret contracts, painstaking negotiations, and the dismissal of anyone who objected to his dealings.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Citibank, already under fire for its private-banking practices, got into further trouble as a result of the report. Zardari's financial history was one case study in a 1999 U.S. Senate report on vulnerabilities in banking procedures.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In March 1997, Zardari was elected to the Senate while in a Karachi jail. In December 1997, he was flown to Islamabad under tight security to take his oath.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In July 1998, he was indicted for corruption in Pakistan after the Swiss government handed over documents to Pakistani authorities relating to money laundering. The Swiss had also indicted him for money laundering. At the same time, in a separate case, he and 18 others were indicted for conspiracy to murder Murtaza Bhutto. After criminal prosecutions began, Citibank closed Zardari's account.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In April 1999, Bhutto and Zardari were convicted for receiving indemnities from a Swiss goods inspection company that was hired to end corruption in the collection of customs duties. The couple received a fine of $8.6 million. Both were also sentenced to five years imprisonment, but Bhutto could not be extradited back to Pakistan from her self-imposed exile. Zardari was already in jail awaiting trial on separate charges. The evidence used against them had been gathered by Swiss investigators and the Pakistani Bureau of Accountability.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In May 1999, he was hospitalised after an alleged attempted suicide. He claimed it was a murder attempt by the police.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In August 2003, a Swiss judge convicted Bhutto and Zardari of money laundering and sentenced them to six months imprisonment and a fine of $50,000. In addition, they were required to return $11 million to the Pakistani government. The conviction involved charges relating to kickbacks from two Swiss firms in exchange for customs fraud. In France, Poland, and Switzerland, the couple faced additional allegations.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In November 2004, he was released on bail by court order. A month later, he was unexpectedly arrested for failing to show up for a hearing on a murder case in Islamabad. He was placed under house arrest in Karachi. A day later, he was released on $5,000 bail. His release, rearrest, and then release again was regarded as a sign of growing reconciliation between Musharraf's government and the PPP. After his second release in late 2004, he left for exile in Dubai.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He returned to Lahore in April 2005. Police prevented him from holding rallies by escorting him from the airport to his home. He criticised Musharraf's government, but rumours of reconciliation between Musharraf and the PPP grew. Zardari went back to Dubai in May 2005.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In June 2005, he had a heart attack and was treated in the United Arab Emirates. A PPP spokesman stated he underwent angioplasty in the United States. In September 2005, he did not show up for a Rawalpindi hearing on corruption charges; the court issued an arrest warrant. His lawyers stated he could not come because he was recovering from his treatment. Following a request by the Rawalpindi court, Interpol issued a red notice in January 2006 against the couple which called on member nations to decide on the couple's extradition.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: When Bhutto announced in September 2007 her upcoming return to Pakistan, her husband was in New York City undergoing medical treatment. After the October 2007 bombing in Karachi that tainted Bhutto's return, he accused Pakistani intelligence services of being behind the attacks and claimed "it was not done by militants". He had not accompanied Bhutto, staying in Dubai with their daughters. Bhutto called for the removal of the chief investigator of the attacks because she claimed he had been involved in Zardari's alleged torture in prison in 1999.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In November 2007, Musharraf instituted emergency rule for six weeks (see Pakistani state of emergency, 2007), under the pretext of rising Islamist militancy, a few days after Bhutto's departure for Dubai to meet with Zardari. Immediately after the state of emergency was invoked, Bhutto returned to Pakistan, while Zardari again stayed behind in Dubai. Emergency rule was initiated right before the Supreme Court of Pakistan began deliberations on the legality of Musharraf's U.S.-backed proposal—the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO)—to drop corruption charges against Bhutto and Zardari in return for a joint Bhutto-Musharraf coalition to govern Pakistan. Bhutto and Zardari sympathised with Musharraf on his feud with the Supreme Court, but simultaneously criticised the imposition of martial law. Before the Supreme Court could issue a decision, Musharraf replaced its members with his supporters.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In the midst of his exile, Zardari had several different legal problems. In Pakistan, Musharraf granted him amnesty for his alleged offences through the National Reconciliation Ordinance, drafted in October 2007. However, the ordinance faced mounting public pressure and an uncompromising judiciary. In addition, it only dealt with charges up to 1999. This left open the possibility of investigations into his alleged involvement in about $2 million in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, discovered in October 2005, under the oil-for-food program. If the ordinance was rescinded, he would have had to deal with charges relating to evading duties on an armoured BMW, commissions from a Polish tractor manufacturer, and a kickback from a gold bullion dealer. In Switzerland, Bhutto and Zardari appealed the 2003 Swiss conviction, which required the reopening of the case in October 2007. In November 2007, Swiss authorities returned the frozen $60 million to him through offshore companies because of the National Reconciliation Ordinance. In Spain, a criminal investigation was opened over the money laundering for the oil-for-food program because of the illicit profits handled through Spanish firms. In Britain, he was fighting a civil case against the Pakistani government for the proceeds from the liquidation sale of a Surrey mansion. He successfully used his medical diagnosis to postpone a verdict on his British manor trial.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari prevented Bhutto's autopsy in accordance with Islamic principles. He and their children attended her funeral, which was held the next day. He denied government allegations that the assassination was sponsored by Al-Qaida. He called for an international inquiry into her death and stated that she would still be alive if Musharraf's government had provided adequate protection. He and his family offered to accept Musharraf's demand to exhume Bhutto's body in exchange for a United Nations inquiry, but Musharraf rejected the proposal.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In Bhutto's political will, she had designated Zardari her successor as party leader. However, their nineteen-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, became Chairman of the PPP because Zardari favoured Bilawal to represent Bhutto's legacy, in part to avoid division within the party due to his own unpopularity. He did, however, serve as co-chairman of the PPP for at least three years until Bilawal completed his studies overseas.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari called for no delays to the 8 January parliamentary elections and for the participation of all opposition parties. Other major political parties quickly agreed to participate, ending any chance of a boycott. Because of the turmoil after the Bhutto assassination, the elections were postponed six weeks to 18 February. In January 2008, he suggested that if his party did win a majority, it might form a coalition with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q). He and Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party (PML-N), threatened national protests if any vote-rigging was attempted. He himself could not run for Parliament because he had not filed election papers in November 2008, back when he had no foreseeable political ambition while Bhutto was alive.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The PPP and the PML-N won the largest and second largest number of seats respectively in the February elections. He and Sharif agreed to form a coalition government, ending American hopes of a power-sharing deal between him and Musharraf. They agreed to restore the judiciary, but Zardari took a less stringent stance than Sharif. He met with U.S. ambassador Anne W. Patterson, who pushed for a pact with Musharraf. To strengthen the new coalition, he reached out to Awami National Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and Baloch nationalist leaders, who had all boycotted the elections.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: After weeks of speculation and party infighting, he said he did not want to become Prime Minister. In mid-March 2008, he chose Yousaf Raza Gillani for Prime Minister in a snub to the more politically powerful Makhdoom Amin Fahim.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He and Sharif agreed in a 9 March 2008 agreement, known as the Murree Declaration, to the reinstatement by 30 April 2008 of 60 judges previously sacked by Musharraf. The deadline was later extended to 12 May. He and Sharif held unsuccessful talks at London in May. After the coalition failed to restore the judiciary, the PML-N withdrew from the government in mid-May, pulling its ministers out of the cabinet. The coalition regrouped, again with the PML-N, and proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove the power of the President to dismiss Parliament. By late May, the coalition was set in a confrontation with Musharraf. At the same time, the government was successful in getting Pakistan readmitted to the Commonwealth.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He and Sharif met in Lahore in June 2008 to discuss Musharraf's removal and the constitutional amendments, which the PML-N viewed as not going far enough to fulfill the Murree declaration. He opposed impeachment calls because he claimed the coalition did not have the two-thirds majority in both legislative bodies—National Assembly and Senate. He was unwilling to restore the judiciary as divisions in the coalition grew and popular sentiment shifted towards Sharif. The coalition criticised the government for barring Sharif from competing in the June by-elections. Because of the impasses over Musharraf and the judiciary, the coalition could not address rising food shortages and spiraling inflation, which was the highest in 30 years.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In August 2008, Zardari relented, and the coalition agreed to proceed full speed towards Musharraf's impeachment by drafting a charge-sheet against him. The coalition charged him with high treason for the 1999 coup and the imposition of martial law. He warned Musharraf against dismissing Parliament, and the coalition selected Gillani instead of Musharraf to represent Pakistan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. On 18 August, Musharraf resigned in order to avoid impeachment. Although Zardari favoured granting Musharraf immunity from prosecution, the coalition could not agree on a decision. The coalition also could not reach a united stance on the future of the judiciary.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Presidential elections were held within three weeks after the departure of Musharraf. Zardari vowed to pursue an unpopular campaign against tribal militancy in Pakistan and had the support of the United States. He claimed he had a London business school degree to satisfy a prerequisite for the presidency, but his party did not produce a certificate. He was endorsed by the PPP and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for the presidency. The PML-N nominated former justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, while the PML-Q put forth Mushahid Hussain Sayed. Zardari won a majority in the Electoral College with 481 of 702 votes. He was elected president on 6 September 2008.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: At the inauguration on 9 September 2008, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was a guest of honour, which was a signal for much closer cooperation between the two nations in addressing the tribal insurgency along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. After the election, Zardari promised to approve the constitutional provision that removed the President's power to dismiss Parliament, but public scepticism remained on whether he would actually carry out his promise. His economic competence was questioned after allegations that he had raised grain procurement prices through inflationary subsidies and scrapped the capital gains tax. His first parliamentary speech was overshadowed by 20 September Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing. A few days later, he went to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City on his first overseas trip as president.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: From 23 to 26 September 2008, he met with various foreign leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao. He suffered political embarrassment by flirting with U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and making tongue-in-cheek comments about her. Although, at the United Nations General Assembly, he publicly condemned U.S drone attacks in Pakistan, "The Washington Post" reported that he had signed a "secret deal" when he met with senior American officials that arranged for the coordination of Predator strikes and a jointly approved list of prominent targets. He and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to resume peace talks by the end of 2008.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: From 14 to 17 October 2008, he was in China to negotiate foreign aid, as Pakistan faced the possibility of defaulting on its payments. China refused to offer any aid commitments, but instead promised to provide assistance in the development of two nuclear power plants and more future business investments.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: After Saudi Arabia, Britain, China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates refused to provide any bailout, he officially asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance in solving Pakistan's balance of payments problem on 22 October.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He went to Saudi Arabia from 4 to 6 November in hopes of obtaining financial aid and securing trade agreements. However, leaked cables revealed increasingly strained relations between Zardari and Saudi royalty, primarily because of Saudi distrust of Zardari and preference for Sharif. Weaker cooperation led to decreased oil subsidies as part of a broader Saudi policy of withholding monetary assistance.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In mid-November 2008, Zardari's government officially sent a letter of intent to the IMF regarding a bailout to help increase its foreign exchange reserves. In a $11.3 billion multi-year loan package, Pakistan received a $7.4 billion loan for 2008–10. The IMF stipulated stringent reform conditions, which included rebuilding the tax structure and privatising state enterprises. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank withheld a combined $3 billion aid in the 2010–11 fiscal year and the IMF withheld since May 2010 the last segment of its aid package.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In January 2011, the MQM withdrew from the government. Zardari's ruling coalition averted a government collapse by accepting the opposition's economic proposals, which restored gas subsidies and abandoned many of the IMF's suggested reforms.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In an effort to curb government expenditures, Zardari swore in an "austerity cabinet" in February 2011 which reduced the cabinet from 60 ministers to 22.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In early October 2008, he received fierce domestic criticism for repeatedly calling Kashmiri nationalists (see Kashmir conflict) in India "terrorists". In mid-November 2008, he suggested Pakistan was ready for a no-first-use nuclear policy and called for closer economic ties.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The relationship between the two nations was damaged by the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. He initially denied any links between the perpetrators and Pakistan, but the government soon pursued military action against Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders in a 7 December raid. India cleared Zardari's government of any direct involvement in the attacks, but simultaneously demanded the extradition of 20 Pakistanis which it alleged had taken part in them. Zardari offered to send Inter-Services Intelligence Director-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha to assist in the investigation.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In June 2009, Zardari met Singh for the first time since the Mumbai attacks at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: On 8 April 2012, President Zardari, along with his son Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, visited Dargah Sharif in Ajmer, India on a private visit. He also met with the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The government has had a longstanding conflict in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistani regions bordering Afghanistan. Diplomatic relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai improved after Musharraf's departure and Zardari's rise to power. The Obama administration's AfPak policy, through AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke, reflected the unified approach the United States took in dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In his first visit to Afghanistan as president in early January 2009, Zardari promised a renewed relationship to improve cooperation. In late March, Obama announced a civilian aid package of $7.5 billion over five years in return for cooperation in the AfPak conflict. In late April, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Zardari and promised $1 billion over the next four years. In May, Obama held a trilateral summit in Washington D.C with Karzai and Zardari, where they discussed further cooperation. At Brussels in mid-June, Zardari unsuccessfully sought trade concessions from the European Union; it instead pledged $90 million development aid to curtail tribal influence by insurgents. After the U.S. Congress passed Obama's civilian aid package in October, army generals in the Pakistani military establishment widened the growing rift with Zardari's government and openly criticised U.S. interference.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In February 2009, FATA's provincial government officially declared Islamic law in Swat to achieve a ceasefire with the northwestern Pashtun tribes. Because the United States and Britain opposed the measure, Zardari did not sign the Swat ceasefire until mid-April, when domestic pressure from Parliament mounted. By the end of April, the agreement collapsed as the Pakistani military pursued an unpopular offensive in the neighbouring Dir district.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In September 2010, Zardari and Karzai met in Islamabad and both advocated fighting insurgents rather than trying to end the war with diplomacy. Zardari went to the United States in January 2011 to attend Special Envoy Holbrooke's funeral. Following Osama bin Laden's death in a compound in Abbottabad in May 2011, Obama called Zardari and collaborated on the events.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In February 2009, Zardari and the Musharraf-appointed Supreme Court attempted to disqualify Nawaz Sharif from running in any elections and tried to force his brother Shahbaz Sharif to resign as Chief Minister of Punjab province. Zardari dismissed the Punjab provincial government and only partially reinstated the judiciary by restoring 56 other judges deposed by Musharraf—but not their former leader, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. After Nawaz Sharif defied house arrest and rallied with thousands of his supporters, the Sharif brothers vowed to join forces with the Lawyers' Movement in the "Long March". Zardari's government gave in to popular pressure and Prime Minister Gilani in an early morning speech on 16 March 2009 promised to reinstate Chaudhry by 21 March. Ten judges were reinstated on 16 March, and Chaudry assumed his position on 22 March. Zardari's month-long direct control of the Punjab ended on 30 March.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In April 2009, President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation into law. The regulation formally established Sharia law in the Malakand division.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In late November 2009, Zardari ceded to Prime Minister Gillani the chairmanship of the National Command Authority, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal oversight agency.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In December 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Reconciliation Ordinance amnesty was unconstitutional, which cleared the way for the revival of corruption cases against Zardari. Although Zardari had immunity from prosecution because he was president, the end of NRO and his earlier corruption cases challenged the legality of his presidency. Calls for his resignation escalated. Zardari, who rarely left the Aiwan-e-Sadr presidential palace, responded with a nationwide spurt of speeches in January 2011. In January 2010, the Supreme Court ordered Pakistan's government to reopen Zardari's corruption charges in Switzerland. However, Zardari prevented the MQM-leaning Attorney General, Anwar Mansoor, from filing charges, so Mansoor resigned in protest in early April. That same month, Zardari won a key victory against the judiciary over his corruption trials when Geneva Attorney General Daniel Zappelli stated that Zardari can not be prosecuted under international laws because of his presidential immunity. Zardari was supported by Prime Minister Gilani, who defied the Supreme Court order.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In February 2010, Zardari sparked a standoff by attempting to appoint a Supreme Court candidate without the court's approval, but the confrontation ended after he backed down and nominated a candidate acceptable by the court.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In April 2010, after months of political pressure, the government passed the 18th Amendment, which reduced the President to a ceremonial figurehead by stripping the office of the power to dissolve Parliament, to dismiss the Prime Minister, and to appoint military chiefs. The amendment also lifted the restriction of two terms as Prime Minister, which enabled Zardari's foremost political rival, Nawaz Sharif, to seek a third term. The amendment was passed with virtually unanimous support in Parliament and Zardari himself espoused the legislation because of political pressure. After the 18th Amendment, Zardari's main power derived from his position as leader of the PPP, which controls the largest bloc in Parliament.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In late September 2010, the Supreme Court considered removing presidential immunity. In October, Chief Justice Chaudry met with his colleagues to discuss troubling media rumours that Zardari's government was planning to fire them; Chaudry requested government assurance that the stories were unfounded. In early January 2011, Zardari signed the 19th Amendment, which lessened the likelihood of future clashes between the President and the judiciary by strengthening the power of the Chief Justice in deciding judicial appointments.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In March 2011, Zardari delivered his annual parliamentary address to a half-empty chamber because of an opposition walkout.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In November 2012, the Pakistan government in response to the court orders, finally wrote to the Swiss authorities seeking to reopen the corruption cases against Zardari. The Swiss government responded by saying that the corruption cases being time-barred cannot be reopened.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The 2010 Pakistan floods began in late July with rain in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and soon submerged a fifth of Pakistan and affected 20 million people, resulting in one of the nation's largest natural catastrophes. Simultaneously, British Prime Minister David Cameron sparked a serious diplomatic row with Pakistan during his visit to India by stating that elements within Pakistan were promoting the "export of terror" a week before a planned visit by Zardari to Britain. Zardari ignored domestic pressure and began his European trip in Paris on 1 August, meeting French President Sarkozy. In France, he drew a rebuke from the U.S. after stating that NATO had "lost the battle for hearts and minds" in the Afghan war. As the flood's devastation became increasingly evident, he was widely criticised for flying in a helicopter to his Normandy chateau and dining at Cameron's Chequers countryside home. Protests within Britain, mainly among the British Pakistani community, grew against his visit. The widely expected maiden speech by his son Bilawal was cancelled, as Zardari faced criticism for using the trip to advance Bilawal's political aspirations.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari returned to Pakistan on 10 August. He first visit to an area affected by the flooding was in Sukkur on 12 August. He cancelled the 14 August Independence Day celebrations and instead visited Naushera. He flew over devastated areas with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 August. He left the country on 18 August and attended the four-way Russian summit at Sochi, which included Tajikistan and Afghanistan. On 19 August, he visited Jampur with U.S. Senator John Kerry. He ordered local authorities to concentrate efforts to save Shahdadkot from inundation on 24 August.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In early December 2011 Zardari flew to Dubai undergoing medical tests and treatment, reportedly for a "small stroke". According to the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Zardari sought medical treatment outside of Pakistan because of "threats to his life". He finds himself currently in the midst of the "Memogate" controversy. Zardari left the hospital on 14 December to recuperate at the Persian Gulf, while his son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party, assumed a more prominent role in Pakistan.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Pakistan and China on 22 May 2013 inked several Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) that mainly included the long-term Economic Corridor plan, maritime cooperation and satellite navigation.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: President Asif Ali Zardari and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang witnessed the signing ceremony as the representatives of the two countries inked the documents at a ceremony held at the Aiwan-e-Sadr. The visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang marked the signing of important documents aimed at long-term cooperation between the two countries in multiple areas.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari completed his five-year term on 8 September 2013, becoming the first democratically elected president in the 66-year-long history of Pakistan to complete his tenure. He received a guard of honour while leaving the Aiwan-e-Sadr. He was succeeded by Mamnoon Hussain as president.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He became active in the PPP, which he voted to revamp, after his presidency. He succeeded Ameen Faheem as chairman of PPPP in 2015. In December 2016, he announced that both he and his son Bilawal, would contest the 2018 general election.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In July 2017, during the investigation of Panama Papers case, Zardari demanded Nawaz Sharif's resignation. In August 2017, Pakistan's anti-corruption acquitted him from his last pending case in which he was accused along with his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, of laundering illegal kickbacks and maintaining assets beyond known sources of income. The case had dogged him for 19 years. His rival Imran Khan believed that Zardari's acquittal was the result of a deal between PML-N and PPP. However he denied any kind of collaboration. The National Accountability Bureau also challenged the acquittal. On 2 September, after his wife's murder case verdict which declared Pervez Musharraf as fugitive and convicted two senior police officer, he said that he was not satisfied with the verdict and that he will appeal the judgment as it had acquitted five Pakistani Taliban suspects. In 2019, he was arrested in Islamabad over a money laundering case. An anti-graft court issued an indictment of Zardari on corruption charges on 10 August 2020.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari and Benazir Bhutto had one son and two daughters. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is the current Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party. His older daughter, Bakhtawar, was born on 25 January 1990, and his younger daughter, Aseefa, was born on 2 February 1993. After Benazir Bhutto's death, his sister Faryal Talpur became the guardian of his children and he changed Bilawal Zardari's name to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: His mother died in November 2002, during his detention in jail. His father Hakim Ali Zardari died in May 2011. After that he became the chieftain of the Zardari tribe. However, initially he had decided not to assume leadership and wanted to pass the position to his son Bilawal.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: Zardari is a Shia, being a disciple of Prof. Ahmad Rafique Akhtar, who hails from Gujjar Khan and is the guide of many other officials from civil and military circles as well.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: His mental health has been a subject of controversy. He has repeatedly claimed he was tortured while in prison. He was diagnosed with dementia, major depressive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder from 2005 to 2007, which helped influence the verdict of one of his corruption trials. He now claims he is completely healthy, with only high blood pressure and diabetes.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In 2005, "Daily Pakistan" reported he was the second richest man in Pakistan with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion. He amassed great wealth while his wife was Prime Minister. In 2007, he received $60 million in his Swiss bank account through offshore companies under his name. He was reported to have estates in Surrey, West End of London, Manhattan (a condominium in Belaire Apartments), and Dubai, as well as a 16th-century chateau in Normandy. In Britain, he used a common legal device—the purchase of property through nominees with no family link to the Bhuttos. His homes in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad are called Bilawal House I, Bilawal House II, and Zardari House respectively.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He bought a 365-acre (148-hectare) 20-bedroom luxury estate in Rockwood, Surrey in 1995 through a chain of firms, trusts, and offshore companies in 1994. The country home's refurbishment abruptly ended in October 1996, shortly before the end of his wife's second term. He initially denied for eight years that he owned the property and no one paid the bills for the work on the unoccupied mansion. Creditors forced a liquidation sale in 2004 and the Pakistani government claimed the proceeds because the home had been bought with money obtained through corruption. However, he stepped in to claim that he actually was the beneficial owner. , the proceeds were in a liquidator bank account while a civil case continues.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: The estate includes two farms, lodgings, staff accommodation, and a basement made into an imitation of a local pub. The manor has nine bedrooms and an indoor swimming pool.


title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: He had sent large shipments from Karachi in the 1990s for the refurbishment of Surrey Palace. He has faced allegations from various people, including the daughter of Laila Shahzada, that he acquired stolen art to decorate the palace. He earlier had plans for a helipad, a nine-hole golf course, and a polo pony paddock.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural communication, developed by Geert Hofstede. It shows the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structure derived from factor analysis.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Hofstede developed his original model as a result of using factor analysis to examine the results of a worldwide survey of employee values by IBM between 1967 and 1973. It has been refined since. The original theory proposed four dimensions along which cultural values could be analyzed: individualism-collectivism; uncertainty avoidance; power distance (strength of social hierarchy) and masculinity-femininity (task-orientation versus person-orientation). The Hofstede Cultural Dimensions factor analysis is based on extensive cultural preferences research conducted by Gert Jan Hofstede and his research teams. Hofstede based his research on national cultural preferences rather than individual cultural preferences. Professor Hofstede included six key aspects of national culture country comparison scales, including: the power distance index (PDI), individualism vs. collectivism (IDV), masculinity versus femininity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), long term orientation versus short term normative orientation (LTO), and indulgence versus restraint (IVR). The PDI describes the degree to which authority is accepted and followed. The IDV measures the extent to which people look out for each other as a team or look out for themselves as an individual. MAS represents specific values that a society values. The UAI describes to what extent nations avoid the unknown. LTO expresses how societies either prioritize traditions or seek for the modern in their dealings with the present and the future. The IVR index is a comparison between a country's willingness to wait for long-term benefits by holding off on instant gratification, or preferences to no restraints on enjoying life at the present.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Independent research in Hong Kong led Hofstede to add a fifth dimension, long-term orientation, to cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm. In 2010, Hofstede added a sixth dimension, indulgence versus self-restraint. Hofstede's work established a major research tradition in cross-cultural psychology and has also been drawn upon by researchers and consultants in many fields relating to international business and communication. The theory has been widely used in several fields as a paradigm for research, particularly in cross-cultural psychology, international management, and cross-cultural communication. It continues to be a major resource in cross-cultural fields.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: In 1965 Hofstede founded the personnel research department of IBM Europe (which he managed until 1971). Between 1967 and 1973, he executed a large survey study regarding national values differences across the worldwide subsidiaries of this multinational corporation: he compared the answers of 117,000 IBM matched employees samples on the same attitude survey in different countries. He first focused his research on the 40 largest countries, and then extended it to 50 countries and 3 regions, "at that time probably the largest matched-sample cross-national database available anywhere." The theory was one of the first quantifiable theories that could be used to explain observed differences between cultures.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: This initial analysis identified systematic differences in national cultures on four primary dimensions: power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), uncertainty avoidance (UAI) and masculinity (MAS), which are described below. As Hofstede explains on his academic website, these dimensions regard "four anthropological problem areas that different national societies handle differently: ways of coping with inequality, ways of coping with uncertainty, the relationship of the individual with her or his primary group, and the emotional implications of having been born as a girl or as a boy". In 1984 he published "Culture's Consequences", a book which combines the statistical analysis from the survey research with his personal experiences.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: In order to confirm the early results from the IBM study and to extend them to a variety of populations, six subsequent cross-national studies were successfully conducted between 1990 and 2002. Covering between 14 and 28 countries each, the samples included commercial airline pilots, students, civil service managers, 'up-market' consumers and 'elites'. The combined research established value scores on the four dimensions for a total of 76 countries and regions.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: In 1991 Michael Harris Bond and colleagues conducted a study among students in 23 countries, using a survey instrument developed with Chinese employees and managers. The results from this study led Hofstede to add a new fifth dimension to his model: long-term orientation (LTO), initially called Confucian dynamism. In 2010, the scores for this dimension were extended to 93 countries thanks to the research of Michael Minkov, who used data from the recent World Values Survey. Further research has refined some of the original dimensions, and introduced the difference between country-level and individual-level data in analysis.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Finally, Minkov's World Values Survey data analysis of 93 representative samples of national populations also led Geert Hofstede to identify a sixth last dimension: indulgence versus restraint.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Putting together national scores (from 1 for the lowest to 100 for the highest), Hofstede's six-dimensions model allows international comparison between cultures, also called comparative research:


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Researchers have grouped some countries together by comparing countries' value scores with other country difference such as geographical proximity, shared language, related historical background, similar religious beliefs and practices, common philosophical influences, and identical political systems; in other words, everything which is implied by the definition of a nation's culture. For example, low power distance is associated with consultative political practices and income equity, whereas high power distance is correlated with unequal income distribution, as well as bribery and corruption in domestic politics. Individualism is positively correlated with social mobility, national wealth, or the quality of government. As a country becomes richer, its culture becomes more individualistic.


title: Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

text: Another example of correlation was drawn by the Sigma Two Group in 2003. They have studied the correlation between countries' cultural dimensions and their predominant religion based on the "World Factbook" 2002. On average, predominantly Catholic countries show very high uncertainty avoidance, relatively high power distance, moderate masculinity and relatively low individualism, whereas predominantly atheist countries have low uncertainty avoidance, very high power distance, moderate masculinity, and very low individualism. Coelho (2011) found inverse correlations between rates of specific kinds of innovation in manufacturing companies and the percentage of large companies per country as well as the employment of a specific kind of manufacturing strategy. The national culture measure of power distance is positively correlated with the ratio of companies with process innovation only over the companies with any of the three types of innovation considered in the country (determinant of correlation: 28%). Hence in countries with higher power distance, innovative manufacturing companies are somewhat more bound to resort to process innovations.