POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Taking Part in Musharraf’s Polls – Under Protest

With general elections barely a month away, Pakistan’s major political parties have decided not to boycott the polls and take their chances in a situation where the media and the judiciary have been hobbled.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Independence of Judiciary – The Main Issue

As Gen. Pervez Musharraf doffs his army uniform and takes oath as the civilian President of Pakistan, two crucial issues stand out: continuing curbs on the judiciary and media, and general elections, scheduled for early January, that observers say cannot be fair and free under emergency rule.

MEDIA-PAKISTAN: TV Talk Shows Take to the Streets – Literally

The question on the TV talk show was simple. Celebrity anchor Hamid Mir asks guests from various political parties if they are prepared to participate in a general election under emergency rule. As the cameras roll, the guests squirm uncomfortably in their seats and make non-committal noises.

COMMONWEALTH-PAKISTAN: Suspended, But Not Banished

The headlines over suspension of Pakistan from the Commonwealth conceal some of the nuances of this action. The nuances were born of considerable differences that surfaced within the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) that finally took the decision.

PAKISTAN: Media Under Siege

From being the liberal President under whom Pakistan’s independent electronic media was born and flourished, Pervez Musharraf is now seen as the military general who imposed emergency rule on Nov 3 and suspended the Constitution and the independent judiciary.

MEDIA: They Made Thrones Tremble

Nearly 500 journalists have been murdered in the last 15 years, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and about 85 percent of those crimes have gone unpunished.

POLITICS-US: The Nuclear Cowboys

What do the current Pakistani political crisis, Israel's September air strike against Syria, and Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear enrichment all have in common? All three events reflect the aggressive policies adopted by the George W. Bush administration to deal with the growing threat of nuclear proliferation.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Towards Democracy Musharraf-Style

As President Gen. Pervez Musharraf congratulated the outgoing national assembly for being the first ever in Pakistan’s 60-year history to complete its term (on Nov 15) and swore in a new 24-member caretaker government to supervise general elections in January, the flaws in these ostensibly positive moves towards democracy were glaring.

PAKISTAN: Constitution Under the Jackboot Yet Again

Pakistan has seen several coups and military dictators in the 60 years of its existence, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will go down in history as the man who staged a coup against his own government.

AFGHANISTAN: Uneasy Over Pakistan’s Emergency

A wary Afghanistan has been closely following events across the border in Pakistan where President Gen. Pervez Musharraf clamped an emergency on Nov. 3 citing rising militancy and "interference" by the judiciary.

Q&A: &#39&#39Pakistan&#39s Is a Society Trapped In an Undemocratic State&#39&#39

Adil Najam is co-director of the Project on Human Development at the Pardee Centre for the Study of the Longer Range Future at Boston University.

POLITICS-US: No Easy Answers to Pakistan Crisis

Amid growing polarisation between President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's civilian opposition forces, U.S. hopes of salvaging a power-sharing accord that would marry the military dictator to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are fading fast.

Q&A: &#39Pakistan Is Under Martial Law&#39

I.A. Rehman, director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), is among those who insist that the country is now effectively under martial law and that the human rights situation in the country, under emergency rule since Nov. 3, is at its lowest ebb ever.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Civil Society Mounts Pressure on Musharraf

With his army losing ground to insurgents on the western border, his potential political partner Benazir Bhutto joining protests against the emergency and unrest spreading in Pakistan’s urban centres, pressure is mounting on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to step down.

POLITICS: Gagged at Home, Pakistanis Take to Cyberspace

Pakistanis officially gagged by emergency rule are voicing grievances and mobilising resistance in a place beyond their military rulers' writ: cyberspace.

PAKISTAN: Join the Army, Stage a Coup, Retire as President

Commonwealth ministers warned Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf Monday that Pakistan would face part suspension from the Commonwealth if he did not lift emergency, and all that went with it.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Intelligentsia Finds Ways to Beat Emergency Rule

Faced with a continuing news blackout and with street protests being met with police beatings and imprisonment, members of Pakistan’s civil society who oppose the ‘emergency’, imposed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf a week ago, are finding alternative ways to express dissent.

POLITICS-US: New Crises Sap Bush’s War on Terror

Just as the White House claims that it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the "central front" in the war on terror - Iraq - it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises in the war's "periphery" stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey, and south to the Horn of Africa.

POLITICS-US: Bell Tolls for Bush’s “Freedom Agenda”

If George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" is to be his presidential legacy, then his six-year "global war on terror" has been his own worst enemy.

PAKISTAN: Media Muffled Under Musharraf’s Emergency

"I have the habit of saying what I have to and will continue to do so," Syed Talat Hussain, anchor of a popular current affairs programme on Aaj TV, says in an interview from Islamabad.

PAKISTAN: Emergency Rule Draws Fire, But No Sanctions

The U.S.-backed Pakistani ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule in his country is being widely condemned by human rights organisations and democratic nations across the world, although immediate aid cuts appear unlikely.