A team of police from Britain’s Scotland Yard is expected to arrive in Pakistan on Friday to help probe the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as the controversy over her death rages on. On Thursday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf admitted he was ”not fully satisfied” with his own country’s handling of the investigation.
Pakistan parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8 will be held in February, a senior election commission said on Tuesday. ”Elections will not be delayed beyond February. We expect it to be towards the later part of next month,” the official said. The commission was to make a public announcement later in the day.
No image available
/ 31 December 2007
Pakistan’s elections will be delayed by at least four weeks due to mass unrest after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a Cabinet official said on Monday. Other government and election officials confirmed that the January 8 polls would be postponed. Bhutto’s party rejected any delay.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
President Pervez Musharraf promised on Thursday to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on December 16, making a long-awaited gesture of reconciliation hours after being sworn in as a civilian leader. Addressing the nation on television, Musharraf said he would also restore the Constitution, which was suspended when he declared emergency rule on November 3.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
Pakistan’s ex-premier Nawaz Sharif plotted tactics with key aides on Monday as he sought to capitalise on his hero’s welcome home from exile to spur opposition to President Pervez Musharraf. Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, was due to file his nomination papers for general elections, despite warning his party may end up boycotting the January 8 vote.
No image available
/ 14 September 2007
Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto will return from self-imposed exile on October 18, her party said on Friday, adding to the political turmoil facing President Pervez Musharraf ahead of elections. The government said it will not obstruct Bhutto’s return, but added that she must still face corruption charges.
As Pakistan marks its 60th anniversary, the country finds itself chafing under military rule with its identity and very existence threatened by a rising tide of Islamic extremism. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and its Taliban allies plot insurrection and global terror from bases in Pakistan’s northern tribal zones.
Embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was set to decide on Thursday whether to impose emergency rule due to ”external and internal threats”, a government spokesperson said. Official sources said late on Wednesday they believed that a proclamation of a state of emergency was likely following a meeting later on Thursday at the president’s camp outside Islamabad.
Pakistan boosted security on Saturday fearing further attacks a day after a suicide bombing during protests at Islamabad’s pro-Taliban Red Mosque killed 14 people. Authorities were also investigating how the attacker was able to strike at a crowded market in the heart of the capital.
A Pakistani cleric said a bid to shoot down President Pervez Musharraf’s plane was apparently in revenge for the bloody government siege of his mosque, in which he alleged that 70 students had died. The claim came as fighting intensified on the fifth day of the stand-off between radicals holed up in the bullet-scarred Red Mosque in Islamabad and security forces