Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have focussed attention on the west’s history of supporting allegedly “moderate” or “pro-western” dictators, despite their unpopularity among their own people.
Benazir bhutto
UN begins Bhutto killing inquiry
A United Nations inquiry into former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 begins on Wednesday.
Democracy revitalised by Pakistan’s Chief Justice
By demonstrating the importance of functioning and accountable institutions, Pakistan’s lawyers may well have paved the road upon which the long road from its present hell may be charted, writes Mustafa Qadri.
Pakistan’s Sharif an unlikely poster boy for democracy
Pakistan’s elected leaders have a habit of descending into the kind of authoritarianism that makes it hard to be too upset when the military takes over — yet again, writes Shakira Hussein.
Pakistani politics gets some much needed legitimacy
The Pakistan parliamentary elections earlier this week went more smoothly than many dared hope, writes Shakira Hussein.
Rundle: At the end of the day he’s a banker not a Bismarck
With the Liberal party falling in on itself , the knives are coming out for Howard. This is only one chapter in a comprehensive and delusional rewriting of history, writes Guy Rundle.
Dictatorship to kleptocracy: What next for Pakistan?
Benazir Bhutto was allowed out of house arrest, almost as soon as she was put in it, which the west has taken credit for, but which may simply be part of a shadow game, writes Guy Rundle.
Larger questions continue to hang over Pakistani crisis
What the crisis in Pakistan has made most visible is the utter leaderlessness and impuissance of the US, when faced with a real problem to its interests, and not merely shadow players like Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan, writes Guy Rundle.
Pakistan: it’s every country for itself
“The first thing we do let’s kill all the lawyers” quoth the Bard, through Dick the Butcher, and General Pervez Musharraf is nothing if not a creature of the West. A quarter of the country’s 12,000 lawyers are now behind bars, and most judges are under house arrest, writes Guy Rundle.
Sharif don’t like it, Musharraf unrocked
In 2000, with the Sharif males in prison, I visited his wife and daughter at their luxurious home in Lahore and their even more luxurious country estate, remembers Shakira Hussein.
