Sherry Rehman appointed ambassador to US

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has appointed former Pakistani information minister Sherry Rehman as new ambassador to the United States of America, the PM's House said Wednesday.

Rehman, a member of National Assembly will replace former ambassador Husain Haqqani who was asked by Prime Minister Gilani Tuesday to resign from his post on the issue of controversial memo. Earlier, Sherry Rehman called on Prime Minister Gilani at the Prime Minister's House on Wednesday and discussed matters relating to her diplomatic assignments. Rehman, currently heads the Pakistan Red Crescent Society. She has a 20-year journalistic experience including her services as editor of Herald magazine and member of Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors.

As a politician, she served in various capacities as Central Information Secretary of Pakistan Peoples Party and is author of five bills on women empowerment, anti-honour killings, domestic violence prevention bill, affirmative action bill and Hadood Repeal bill.

Her personality profile:-

"Sherry Rehman is a ranking member of the National Security Committee of Pakistan's Parliament and founding President of the Jinnah Institute in Islamabad, an independent public policy institute committed to regional peace and inclusive democracy in Pakistan.

She co-chairs several track-two strategic dialogues with India, and is convener of a similar institutionalized dialogue process between Pakistan and Afghanistan later this year.

She lectures widely on strategic security challenges facing Pakistan, and is a key member of the Legislative Councils that govern both Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Rehman has served as Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting of Pakistan from March 2008 to March 2009. As minister she prepared and presented Pakistan's first in-camera National Security briefing to a joint session of Parliament in 2008. This briefing led to the first formal political consensus - resolution against terrorism in Parliament. Sherry Rehman's background as a senior professional journalist for 20 years has given her wide media outreach as an incumbent second-term law-maker with a frontline public position against religious extremism.

Her most recent awards include formal recognition as "Democracy's Hero" by the International Republican Institute, US, and the Jeanne Kirkpatric Award for Women in 2011.

The March 2011 issue of Newsweek Pakistan ranked her on its cover as "Pakistan's Most Important Woman". Foreign Policy magazine has identified Rehman as one of 2011's Top Global Thinkers."

APP