Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion /Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest/Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero/ Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dreams, yet submits in its awakening/Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block/Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking/ Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again/ Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

-- Khalil Gibran

This is very unfair on witches. Most are very hard working and decent women. Unlike Bhutto.

I am of Kashmirie descent and my family both in the UK and Pakistan are big supporters of 'The Witches' party. I have seen over the years when she was in power the amount of corruption there was in Pakistan. She had a husband who went around taking 20% cut in any overseas deal in Pakistan from foreign companies. They nicked named him 20%.

Pakistan needs a democracy but that aint likely to happen with the military effectively running every institution and if it can't run an institution it will dissolve it by hook or by crook. And then we have crooks like Bhutto being so corrupt and using every means possible to "do it for themselves" rather than those who elected them.

As one news correspondent reported, she is the mediocre politician daughter, of a once great leader being sent back to a nation from George Bush and gang in Washington

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=75281

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/pak-o6.shtml

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IJ11Df01.html

You're only saying that because she's been sacked as PM twice for corruption
Didn't she also make a host of pro-female plans, without putting any ideas into action?
She seems to have fitted in with GWBush quite well!

Too bad her opponents protest with bombs. Arseholes.

yeah pity the victims of the extremist bomb and it's a pity they live under a military dictator.

My 'other' office is in Karachi and I deal with some of the developers. Got to say it's been very quiet on the email front - I don't use MSN so I can't contact them so I don't have any idea of what's happening, mind you they usually have Friday off for prayers and work Sat / Sun.

yeah sacked as PM twice by a civilian president. She was taken to to court but legged it out the country to her four mansions she owns in london and dubai and her self imposed exile from the pakistani justice system, that the dictator is tying so hard to dismantle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1523477.stm

Not only that but she and her family have a real marie antoinette mentality. They import tons of food just for there fancy breed horses. while most of the country goes hungry. And when it comes to elections the war chest for the campaign goes on buying votes or coercing of voters. Thats her democracy.

as for the bombs its only the start of blood shed by loonies from the military isi, other political parties and the classic religious nutters to kill kill kill kill people in a crowd. And the pakistani marie antoinette was told not to do this grand gesture of home coming parade, it is too dangerous and risky but when your in a bomb and bullet proof bus, you don't think about the poor people who standing in the street. In one of the most troubled and political and religious violent cities in the world.


The Real Face of Benazir Bhutto
By: COMPILED FORM VARIOU SOURCES
Published: July 28, 2007
This is the person now being imposed again on Pakistan by Mush and Bush regimes.

Bhutto was charged with corruption and faced a number of legal proceedings (the resolution of which seems to vary depending on opinion) in Pakistan. She has also been charged with laundering state-owned money through Swiss banks, in a case that remains before the Swiss courts. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, spent eight years in prison under similar charges of corruption. Bhutto and her husband continue to face allegations by (among others) the Pakistani government, of having stolen hundreds of millions of dollars by demanding "commissions" on government contracts and tenders.

Over the past decade, the couple have faced an approximate combined total of 90 legal cases; while eight cases still remain, Bhutto maintains that the charges levelled against her and her husband are purely politically motivated.

A 1998 article in the New York Times indicates that Pakistani investigators have documents that uncover a network of bank accounts all linked to the family's lawyer in Switzerland with Asif Zardari as the principal shareholder in most of these corporations. According to the article, documents released by the French authorities indicated that Zadari offered exclusive rights to Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, to replace the air force's fighter jets in exchange for a 5% commission to be paid to a corporation in Switzerland controlled by Zardari.

The article also said a Dubai company received an exclusive license to import gold into Pakistan for which Asif Zardari received payments of more than $10M into his Dubai-based Citibank accounts. The paper also said that Zardari's parents, who had modest assets at the time of Bhutto's marriage, now own a 355-acre estate south of London. The estate has been auctioned through a court order. http://icssa.org/article_detail_parse.php?...51&rel=1119


Bhutto Clan Leaves Trail of Corruption in Pakistan

http://www.samsloan.com/benazir.htm

Lee, what do you think the electorate of Pakistan looks like?
How much of it is the conservative (Tribal Provinces/Waziristan) kind of place. (Where the Taliban are welcome).
And the other (eastern/northen) part where things can be a little more relaxed.
You must have seen National Geographic last month, where Pakistan was the main story.
You said (Lee) that in the Pakistan you know, it's very modern. Males and females can hang out together, and have some ''western'' traits. I never saw this in 1983 when I went through Pakistan twice. That was a long time ago. But on Newsnight just a week ago, a woman of Pakistani origin (from Britain) went there and talked to people.
She got short shrift from one group of elders, who said she should be at home in the kitchen.

Well is very mixed. You have the religious nutters, landed aristocracy, the city bourgeois and the military ISI establishment all controlling peoples votes with bribes. Local and tribal leader of villages all over pakistan guarantee votes to which ever of the 4 is most beneficial to them. this vid will give a better understanding from Imran Khan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WU_0jSrHj4 after the 2 mins of cricket talk he give a very good account of politics in pakistan and why india is so much different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86gKKD6Ipcw

well it a bit like Chile under and after pinochet at the moment. if you watch the War On Democracy by John Pilger on the following link you'll see what I mean


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3739500579629840148

Those two Youtubes with Imran Khan were very interesting Lee. Especially the 2nd one, being interviewed by Riz Khan. I'll look at some more of them.
Imran went up in my estimation for the way he talked about the Red Mosque, and how to handle volatile situations. I guess you like him Lee.
I was never sure what his agenda was, but he seems sincere.

If you have any more news on events in Pakistan, I for one, would be very pleased for you to post it here, (in the future)

WOW she got shot today!!!!!!!!! It's gonna be a dodgy time in pakistan for a bit. political violence, pay backs and bombing are the future in the new year. Or all the parties will unite

Fucking hell Lee. You didn't say DEAD!!!!
I went from what you wrote above, to Reuters just now.

A brave woman (what ever else one thought of her).

Shot or blown up, she's not around anymore, bye bye

Not that I'd expect to hear anything from my 'co-workers' in Karachi- they don't talk to Westeners - there should be a complete slow-down of 'automated' emails within the next few days

edited 1 hour later....

3 emails since this post, 56 before....

I was never one of her supporters, but Brown and Bush queing up to eulogise her when they both back Musharraf makes me more than a little ill.

The big worry is that ex cricketer & playboy (now devout Muslim) Imram Khan will fill the void .... now that's one opertunist

now that would be a good move in the right direction but the military and the ISI run the show that is "Pakistan Inc" available for Weddings, Birthday Parties, Bat Mitzvah and Cold and Terror Wars is just gonna wait till the dust settles, then back to normal and martial law


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6e5G8yJSes

We have a clear divide between supporters of representative democracy/free press/women's rights and a mixed economy and religious bigotry and violent extremism.

We all need to take sides and face down the terrorists, our elected politicians are not perfect by any means but Islamist fascism will be a hell on earth.

Lets campaign for women's rights and gay rights and lets not name ourselves after murderers of elected politicians.

Yeah well unless the someone invades pakistan thats not gonna happen. Western pundits blather on about the jihadi finger on the nuclear trigger. This is pure fantasy, reminiscent of a similar campaign almost three decades ago, when the threat wasn’t the jihadis who were fighting alongside the West in Afghanistan, but nationalist military radicals. The cover story of Time magazine for 15 June 1979 dealt with Pakistan; a senior Western diplomat was quoted as saying that the big danger was ‘that there is another Gaddafi down there, some radical major or colonel in the Pakistani army. We could wake up and find him in Zia’s place one morning and, believe me, Pakistan wouldn’t be the only place that would be destabilised.’
The Pakistan army is half a million strong. Its tentacles are everywhere: land, industry, public utilities and so on. It would require a cataclysmic upheaval (a US invasion and occupation, for example) for this army to feel threatened by a jihadi uprising.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n24/ali_01_.html

That's all well and good, but I still reckon we can beat them at cricket. At home, of course.

lol naaaaaa no chance unless England put on the Indian uniform and then Pakistan will bottle it as per.

Robert Fisk: They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame Musharraf

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3291600.ece

Shot, blown up....or just bumped her head on the sunroof.

Yeah, like anyone is going to believe THAT.

If she hit her head with enough force after the blast, it could have easily killed her.

Oh my gosh this is something out of Shakespeare's Macbeth or Julius Caesar tale of murder and political intrigue, betrayal, feudal family oligarks/political mafia not in Ancient Rome but in modern day Pakistan. I can't wait for the film I tell ya.

If Benazir Bhutto was so democratic or cared for her country/people yad yad yad please re-consider after hearing her Will. She chose her husband (widely known as Mr.10% and Mr.20% during her 2 rules of power) to succeed her as chairman!! Bilawal (her 19 yr. son) who hasn't lived in Pakistan, cannot speak the language is going to be chairman with Mr.10-20% as co-chairman...what does it say about the PPP, Pakistanis and Pakistan in general?!! oh 10/20% is how much commission he took off the top on all outside multinationals doing business in pakistan.

HOUSE OF GRAFT: Tracing the Bhutto Millions -- A special report.; Bhutto Clan Leaves Trail of Corruption

By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 9, 1998

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C0A96E958260

I read yesterday they want to dig her up for an autopsy. I don't know much about Pakistani burials, but when my boss's father-in-law/cousin died, they had to wait a few days.

It's a rather murky pool that Ms. Bhutto used to tread

Yes funerals, death rites and burial are to be completed quickly, often within a day or two of death. But Loads of have been delayed due autopsy and under Islamic rulings post-mortem/autopsy of a dead body is allowed as a medical or legal necessity to ascertain the cause of death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBaCwyXvHkA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlM2t1kTNAs

My heart bleeds for Pakistan. It deserves better than this grotesque feudal charade

By Tariq Ali, Pakistan-born writer, broadcaster and commentator

Published: 31 December 2007

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentat...icle3295851.ece

Six hours before she was executed, Mary, Queen of Scots wrote to her brother-in-law, Henry III of France: "...As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him." The year was 1587.

On 30 December 2007, a conclave of feudal potentates gathered in the home of the slain Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and testament being read out and its contents subsequently announced to the world media. Where Mary was tentative, her modern-day equivalent left no room for doubt. She could certainly answer for her son.

A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts) and two ciphers will run the party till Benazir's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader.

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess


It's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat, says this acclaimed south Asia expert. Her legacy is far murkier and more complex

William Dalrymple
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2233334,00.html

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess


It's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat, says this acclaimed south Asia expert. Her legacy is far murkier and more complex

William Dalrymple
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2233334,00.html