at a christmas market in strasbourg. cherif chekatt was spotted on a street not far from where he lived and opened fire on armed officers when they intercepted him. he was killed when they returned fire. he'd been on the run since tuesday evening. britain's prime minister has urged european union leaders to make concessions that would help her get her brexit deal through parliament back in london, but they have said they won't renegotiate. theresa may survived a no—confidence vote this week but has been seeking assurances over the major stumbling block, the so—called backstop to prevent a hard border in ireland. a day after president trump's former personal lawyer was sentenced to prison, mr trump has claimed he never directed him to break the law, and had no ties to michael cohen's crimes. it's being reported that federal prosecutors are also looking into whether the trump inaugural committee mis—spent millions of dollars raised from donors. you are up—to—date with the headlines. now on bbc news, hardtalk‘s

stephen sackur speaks to pakistan's finance minister — asad umar. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. it took former cricketer imran khan two decades of hard political slog to win power in pakistan. it has taken his critics just months to decide he's out of his depth. they point to the country's crippled economy, propped up by emergency loans, despite imran‘s promise to end the "begging bowl" culture. well, my guest today is pakistan's finance minister, asad umar. is the pti government strong enough to put pakistan on a new course? asad umar, in islamabad, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you. you are one of the key ministers in imran khan's government. why do you think the hope and excitement generated by imran‘s election victory has worn off so very quickly? actually, it hasn't. if you look at the pakistani media and listen to the political talk shows, and maybe hear some of the discussions going on in the parliament, you might be led into believing what you just said. but in reality, you know, when the first 100 days of the government ended, there was a lot of focus. a number of surveys got carried out.

and if you look at the surveys, a very clear majority of pakistanis think the country is moving in the right direction, it is moving towards a place where it is better than where it was earlier, and hope is very much in the air. the truth is, the country isn't going in the direction that imran promised for it. in fact, the press have taken to calling him mr u—turn. he said, "i will be ashamed to go abroad and ask for money." well, the truth is, that is precisely what he has been doing. well, but by the time the government came in, it was a fact well—known that pakistan needed some kind of a bailout. and i'm not saying that today. i said this repeatedly in interviews, to print in the national media, before going into the elections. and it's not something to be proud of, so if he says i'm ashamed of it, you have to have pretty low self—respect to go around and do what the prime minister of pakistan and the finance minister of pakistan have to do in current circumstances

and be proud of that fact. but the real challenge, the real decision, and that is how we'll be judged in the future — did we take the decisions of setting the country's economy on a path,, where this is going to be what i repeatedly said would be the last imf programme, if we get into one right now? and for that, a very, very clear direction has been set. pakistan has been using a growth strategy which is imported capital finance, consumption—led. that has let us repeatedly into these current account deficit cycles. it's taken our external indebtedness to a level which is not sustainable. until we move pakistan to a domestic resource—mobilised, productivity—led, export—oriented economy, we are not going to be getting out of this "begging bowl" syndrome. and in the very first 100 days, we have taken clear decisions which are moving the country in that direction. very interesting you say that, minister. but if one cuts through the economic jargon, it seems to me that what you have done is sort out loans from those that are going to impose the least conditions upon those loans. you looked at the imf

at the very beginning, you wanted a big wodge of money from them, some people said up to $12 billion. then you realised there were going to be very, very serious conditions imposed upon it, so you cut the bid to $6 billion, and you haven't even agreed that. and instead, you've raced over to the chinese and the saudis and taken their money, because they don't impose the same rigorous conditions. so you can't convince me that this is a new start for pakistan. there are actually two different parts to that thing. first of all, the sequence of actions is not exactly consistent with what you just said. when i became finance minister, i said we will be reaching out to bilateral countries, as well as starting a dialogue with the imf, and being able to do these things simultaneously, because there is no time to first work out a strategy which is your preferred option. and that's exactly what we did. we start — within ten days of becoming the finance minister, i had reached out to imf, invited their team over, and that team did come in, the staff mission came in. they issued a report,

we started a formal dialogue. the mission was here in the month of november, and that dialogue continues even today... well, that's all very well, minister, that's all very well, and i understand these things aren't altogether simple. but the bottom line is the imf ties giving you up to $us6—7 billion to some very serious reforms that you must make to stop living beyond your means, including hiking energy prices, for example. you don't want to do that, that's politically difficult, which seems to me why you're so tempted to take the money from saudi arabia, for example, where they're not imposing those kinds of conditions. if you allowed me to complete my answer, you would have gotten a response to this part as well. that's what i said, there was a second part of it, and that is, we have not waited for the imf to impose any sanctions on us or impose any conditions on us to do what we think is required for the economy.

in the very first 100 days, we have increased gas prices, we have increased electricity prices, we've put in a supplementary finance budget, where we increased taxes. we have been — the policy rate has been increased by the central bank, the rupee has been devalued, the currency has been adjusted by the central bank. so both the monetary policy and the fiscal policy have been moving in the very direction of the reforms that are needed. we don't need imf to dictate that to us for us to do that, because we believe this is what's necessary. however, the path for reform is different in the eyes of the imf, as we stand today, versus what we think is right, and that's what the dialogue is going on right now. there is no difference of opinion in terms of what needs to be done. it is the pace, the sequence, and the extent which is being discussed. well, the pace and the extent — they‘ re pretty important differences, i would suggest. yeah, yeah. but you keep avoiding the references i keep making to your decision to take saudi money. when everybody else around the world

was utterly appalled and disgusted by what we saw happen in the saudi consulate in istanbul with the murder of the saudi writer and journalist, jamal khashoggi, the pakistani government held its nose, decided to send top representation to that investment forum in riyadh, and your prime minister, imran khan himself, went out of his way to say nice things about the saudis. and as a result, you got an assistance package of around $6 billion. when we talk about shame, should you not be ashamed for that? well, i would be happy to be ashamed of standing up with a country with whom i've had close bilateral relations, and both countries which have supported each other over years, and i have never lectured on what kind of a system that country should hold. maybe the western leaders should be

ashamed of themselves, talking about democracy, talking about freedoms, and then reaching out into the same saudi pockets to take out billions of dollars's of business deals. the leader of the western world, the leader of the free world, mr donald trump, stands up and openly says i'm getting too much business from saudi arabia for me to worry about what happened to khashoggi. .. believe me... so maybe some of the western leaders should be ashamed of themselves. now... we are just being consistent in the bilateral relationship, which will remain the same, whoever is in power. finance minister, i take your point about donald trump. if he was sitting in the hardtalk chair, believe me, i'd be discussing with him his values, the way he treats his relationship with saudi arabia. as it happens, i've got you in the chair. i come back to the point. you've taken, in the last month or two, $6 billion of assistance from riyadh. that gives the saudis real leverage over you,

as i understand it. one of the conditions is that you send some of your military personnel to work in saudi arabia. you say that they won't be fighting in yemen, but they'll certainly be training the forces that do fight in yemen. is that a price that you, in all honesty, think is worth paying to just get yet more bailout money? the pakistani relationship with saudi arabia goes back half a century. this is very interesting, stephen. when i was born, that day, my father, who was working in the pakistan army at that point in time, was in saudi arabia and he had a meeting with the crown prince, who later became king faisal, who gave me a small koran. so this is a relationship which goes back 50 years. it has nothing to do with khashoggi, it has nothing to do with yemen. pakistani troops have been present in saudi arabia, and we have had a military relationship which spans half a century. and that relationship was not about to break because we may agree or disagree with saudi arabia on how to handle the yemen crisis. the thing is, if we move beyond saudi arabia to your relationship with china,

i see yet more seeds of trouble being sown by your desperation to get your hands on foreign currency to save your parlous budget. the chinese relationship involves a huge investment from china in this cpec — the china—pakistan economic corridor — much of the money going into vast infrastructure projects in balochistan. we know that many people in that very undeveloped part of your country are furious about the impact the chinese money and the chinese labour is having on their particular region. again, are you sure that all of the compromises you're making to get your hands on the cash are worth it? i'm not sure which compromise you're referring to, but stephen, i thought foreign direct investment was something which is good. that's what i learned from western economic schools. that's the economics that i was taught... it all depends, minister — it all depends, minister, it all depends whose interest is it in> who has got the leverage, whose interest is it really serving? so what is supposed to be a good deal is where the interests of both

the investor and the country in which the investment is taking place is served. both their interests are served, and that's exactly what is going on in cpec. as far as a vast number of people in balochistan being furious at what the chinese are doing there, on our last visit to china, when i went there with the prime minister, the chief minister of balochistan, who is the elected chief minister of balochistan, who represents the voice of the people of balochistan, was with us, and he was eager to have the chinese engagement in balochistan increased versus what it is right now. so i'm not sure which of these people are furious over chinese engagement in balochistan. why does your government not go public with all of the arrangements, the financial details behind china's loans and indeed investments in pakistan, including rates of interest, labour terms and conditions, all of those things? many people in pakistan have asked you to be completely transparent about the nature of the deals you strike with the chinese,

and the pakistani government has always refused. that's actually not true. there are... if i divide it into two different parts, most of the investments which have come in have been in what are called the independent power projects, the ipps, which it came in, and those are investments which are made under a transparent policy, which the regulator puts into place. so those terms and conditions — you can go on the website now and find out what the terms and conditions for those investments are. as far as the loans are concerned, the loan information, there is probably a lot of mistrust probably built around the media narrative which has been going around. when the imf team came in, we shared all the details with them, as transparently as they wanted. after the first meeting, i didn't hear any questions from them, because there was nothing to hide. did you see the words not long ago of mike pompeo, the us secretary of state, when he was asked about his view and america's view of the imf helping pakistan in the future? he said, "make no mistake, we're going to watch what the imf

is doing very closely. there is no rationale for imf dollars associated with american dollars being used to bail out chinese bond holders, or china itself." we will worry about our china debt problem. mr pompeo should worry about his china debt problem. usa is the biggest debtor in the world to china, $1.3 billion. what does pakistan owe to china? less than 10% of pakistan's foreign debt is chinese, 90% is not chinese. we have been in 12 different imf programmes in the last 20 years. why has it never been asked which western country has lent to pakistan? why is there suddenly all this interest in how much money has come from china? why were the same questions not being asked when the lenders were western banks? you told me that the baloch people are thrilled china is putting so much money and infrastructure into their region.

it is a little embarrassing, isn't it, when, recently, in the port city of gwadar, which you are trying to develop as a mega—port at the end of this sort of chinese transportation infrastructure through the region, it is a little embarrassing at the time you were taking delegates i believe from more than 20 countries to look at the potential of all of these projects, gunmen shot dead three workers, injured five others, and that was the fourth fatal shooting in the area in a few short months. the security situation — the degree of insecurity around that region and the anger that i have referred to that is generated among some by what is happening, that is a real threat to stability in balochistan. this is not anger of the people of balochistan. these are activities sponsored by terrorists who received training, funding material from outside pakistan. and is there a serious attempt

to try to destabilise balochistan, and through that try to subvert cpec? of course there is. there is a concerted effort. who is doing that? there is no disagreement. in your opinion, who is doing that, these external forces? led by india, of course. so, is there a terrorist intervention in balochistan? yes. what the people of balochistan thought there has been expressed through the free will of the people, by electing the government of balochistan, which stands by cpec, who want greater cpec presence in the province. let's talk about the big picture in pakistan. imran khan came to power, you became finance minister promising a new era of fairness in your country, where every individual pakistani would get a fair shake. the situation today is that 45% of children under the age of five show signs of undernourishment and stunted growth. you have some of the worst education figures in all of south asia. and at the very same time, only 800,000 pakistanis out of a population of more than 200 million pay any significant tax. if you are to change that situation, it is going to require the most what the people of balochistan

thought there has been expressed through the free will of the people, by electing the government of balochistan, which stands by cpec, who want greater cpec presence in the province. let's talk about the big picture in pakistan. imran khan came to power, you became finance minister promising a new era of fairness in your country, where every individual pakistani would get a fair shake. the situation today is that 45% of children under the age of five show signs of undernourishment and stunted growth. you have some of the worst education figures in all of south asia. and at the very same time, only 800,000 pakistanis out of a population of more than 200 million pay any significant tax. if you are to change that situation, it is going to require the most massive, thoroughgoing reform. those are the very reforms that we have been working on despite the severe balance of payment crisis. the revenue generation aspect is absolutely central to be able to deal with the horrendous challenges that we have. you are absolutely right about that

— the health situation, the education situation needs drastic reform. for that, you need revenue, for that you need the revenue authority fixed. so what are the things we've done? we have separated tax policy from tax administration, which is absolutely central to the reform effort. almost the entire top leadership of the revenue authority has been changed. we have made changes in law, which allow the application of modern technology, use of data analytics, algorithms, to figure out where tax evasion is taking place, who is evading taxes, to be able to go after them. we have developed this list of high net—worth individuals who are evading taxes — 3,100 of them have already been issued notices and a follow—up has been done. the database is more than 700,000. but we wanted a first pick up on the big ones,

make them an example and expand the net. and i can go on about ten of the initiatives which have gone on as a result of this. it's interesting, it's interesting you alight upon tax evasion, and of course that's one element of an accountable, transparent system of governance. another way of looking at that is looking at the state of the media and the right to free expression. imran khan and your government are accused by the committee to protectjournalists, in a statement released recently, of aiding and abetting a situation in your country where the pakistani army has, quote, "quietly but effectively set restrictions on reporting — lines of control which effectively gag the media." in the interests of open and transparent governance, you personally must be fighting that, are you? the need for pakistani democracy is a media which is free to express its opinion and get the facts to the people of pakistan. we, as democrats, have a vested interest in a free media. you don't have a free media. you have journalists

who are being disappeared by shadowy intelligence agencies. you have an opposition party who is saying, "our country is today under the grip of a silent martial law." that's very nice and dandy for the opposition leader to say that, but if in the last three and a half months you can mention the name of a single journalist who has disappeared or come under any kind of a threat, i would like to know, because i would like to stand up for that journalist. the need forfree media is absolutely paramount. the government of imran khan, the tehreek—e—insaf, stands by that responsibility. there is a need for bringing some kind of accountability into this whole space of media and social media so that people cannot spread false information. but that cannot be made an excuse for gagging people's expression — right or freedom of expression. all you have to do, stephen, is watch one evening of television and you'll find out how free

the media is, how the government gets ripped into and criticised. on that point, ijust recommend you talk to the veteran and respected journalist ghazi salahuddin, who said recently, he has lived through the dictatorship of general zia, but he says, "right now is one of the worst times i have seen for journalists. we get threatening phone calls, we see journalists being disappeared. we see an atmosphere of fear and self—censorship." so if you want to know what's happening in pakistani media today, maybe you should speak to him. i would be happy to speak to him. i know him very well. i have a lot of respect for him. but, with due respect to ghazi salahuddin, then he's forgotten what has happened. journalists were in jail, they were tortured, there was public flogging ofjournalists. so, with all due respect, maybe he's starting to... maybe his memory starting to fade and he doesn't remember what's going on there. but that should be no benchmark.

we should not say we are better... i stand for freedom of media as much as salahuddin does, and i would be happy to make that phone call to him. and if you stand for a free, well—governed pakistan, very different from what we have seen in the past, where extremism doesn't triumph, how worried are you that imran khan has completely failed to stand up for the rights of aasia bibi since she was released from prison? of course, the supreme court said that she should be released after she'd languished in prison for so many years in a blasphemy case, which the court ultimately dismissed, and yet she hasn't been allowed to leave the country. how disgusted are you, as a minister in the government, by your own government's failure to protect her rights? imran khan's government believes in the rule of law and the supremacy of the law.

we believe in the tricameral system of justice. the courts decided what was the right decision. it is not for the government to decide, and the government stood by that decision. so putting any kind of blame on the government on either the release of aasia bibi or her lack of travel abroad, neither of these decisions were taken by pakistan, so you can neither give us credit or discredit for that. these are decisions for the court to take, and whatever the decision... well, it's not for me... i'm not doling out the credit or the discredits. i am listening to human rights activists, like sherry rehman, who said, "aasia bibi is still suffering profoundly, despite her acquittal. imran khan has lost all credibility. he can't make decisions to uphold the rule of law. his politics revolves around religion and u—turns." things really haven't changed very much at all, have they? maybe sherry rehman has not heard about the fact that those who created a law and order

situation after that incident — after that decision was taken, who destroyed public property, who issued threatening statements are facing accountability perhaps for the first time in decades in pakistan. maybe this change has not yet been informed to ms sherry rehman. i would strongly suggest that she should go through the newspapers of the last few weeks and she'll find out what is happening is truly unprecedented in the last 30 years of pakistan. let's end with a personal note, if we may, minister. you know that there are countries in the west that have offered safe haven to aasia bibi. would you, as a human being, never mind your loyalty to the government, whatever, butjust on the most human and personal level, would you like to see aasia bibi allowed to leave pakistan and make a new life for herself in a safe third country? i would like every citizen of pakistan to be able to live freely and safely, if they chose to do so in pakistan, for them to do so in pakistan, and if they want to live abroad, for them to live abroad. but these decisions on whether something which is not yet fully decided by the supreme court, a final decision on appeal has been taken, whether the travel freedom should be allowed or not is a decision for the court to take, and only for the court today.

minister asad umar, i thank you very much indeed for on hardtalk. hello. thursday brought us a cold and a frosty day across many parts of the country, but there was some blue sky and some sunshine. this picture was taken by one of our weather watchers in wiltshire and i think friday morning will dawn on a very similar note. again, it will be a cold and a frosty start to the day with subzero temperatures first thing. plenty of spells of sunshine for many of us through the course of the day to compensate for that fairly chilly start. but temperatures fairly widely

will be below freezing. it won't be quite as cold in the west, particularly for northern ireland, where we have more cloud first thing friday morning, keeping temperatures around 11—5 degrees. after that cold, frosty start, for many of us it will be a decent, dry looking day. always a bit more cloud for northern ireland with a chance of a few showers at times too. perhaps just one or two showers around this exposed eastern coasts, particularly for eastern scotland, north—east england, could even be a wintry flurry towards east anglia and the south—east. but for the vast majority of people, you'll miss those showers. and temperatures for most of us around 4—7 degrees. then, into friday evening, we see the cloud bringing more outbreaks of rain parts of northern ireland and the west of scotland, too. eastern areas keeping in that cold air. so you can see blue colours later on through friday and then on into saturday. but some milder airjust waiting in the wings here out towards the south—west, that will be drawn in on this weather front. so a bit of a change in conditions as we head through into the weekend. as a frontal system works in from the west, it will bring not only the milder air but also

some outbreaks of rain, as a frontal system works in from the west, it will bring not only the milder air but also some outbreaks of rain, which will for some of us turn to snow. so, for saturday, things are turning pretty wet and windy. some fairly heavy snow and also some ice across scotland and northern england combined with some strong winds, too. so there could be some travel disruption through the day on saturday as this weather front bumps into that cold air. you can see snow across parts of northern england and scotland, too. could be about 10—20 centimetres across central parts of scotland, even more over the higher ground, 2—5 centimetres across parts of northern england. now, it will turn back to rain further south across the country, where we've got some slightly mild airworking in, but you'll really notice the strength of those winds. it will feel around “11 degrees there in hull. for northern ireland, you've got the slightly milder air moving in, so any early snow turning back to rain. but some heavy snow across scotland could be quite problematic through the day on saturday. that rain—snow mix slowly easing away towards the east as we head through into the second half of the weekend, but we keep that pretty chilly wind coming in from the west. so, although things will turn milder

through the day on sunday, most of those heavy and wintry showers should ease away, too. bye— bye. this is the briefing. i'm victoria fritz. our top story: the eu rejects a bid by theresa may to put a time limit on the irish border backstop as she tries to salvage her brexit deal. praise for french police and their efforts to fight terrorism, as the hunt for the strasbourg shooting suspect comes to an end. the race to space continues, as a virgin galactic rocket comes the closest it has ever been to leaving the earth's atmosphere. coming up in the business briefing — the brexit deadlock takes its toll, as companies scale back uk spending and investors pull billions out of britain. also coming up, asian shares tumble as the latest figures from china confirm a further slowdown in the world's biggest economy.