Zardari Keen to Have All Children in Politics

* Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa to start with PPP’s students’ wings

Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa Zardari, the children of Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto, are likely to start their political career with the People’s Students Federation and the PPP women’s wing,

Sources in the Pakistan People’s Party told Daily Times on Saturday that Mr Zardari told a delegates from the PSF and the Ladies’ Wing at Bilawal House this week that he wanted to see his children become active in politics.

The three children, who at present study in Dubai where Ms Bhutto lives in self-exile, will not be able to play an active role in politics until the completion of their education, the sources said.

However, they will remain in contact with seniors in the students’ and women’s wings of the PPP for political training.

“Mr Zardari said he wanted Bakhtawar and Asifa to learn from the seniors in the Ladies’ Wing,” said MNA Nafisa Raja, who is president of the organisation’s Karachi chapter.

Mr Zardari, who son of former MNA Hakim Ali Zardari, also has other members of his family in politics. One of his sisters, Faryal Talpur, is nazim of his home district of Nawabshah and another, Dr Azra Pechuho, is MNA from there.

Sources in the PPP said that the announcement of Bakhtawar and Asifa joining the Ladies Wing could be made at the organisation’s next convention.

Mr Zardari reportedly hinted at having Bilawal join the PSF when an official of the Sindh People’s Students Federation complained that the PPP leaders do not allow their sons to join the party’s students wing.

Benazir’s request for private security was denied by Musharraf says Senator John Kerry

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated on December 27, was denied private security by President Pervez Musharraf, US Senator John Kerry has alleged.

“Benazir told me shortly before she was assassinated that Musharraf had denied her private security,” the Daily Times quoted Kerry as saying.

Refusing to divulge further details, Kerry said that he had contacted the US State Department to arrange security for Benazir after her October 18 homecoming rally was attacked in Karachi in which over 140 people were killed.

Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Education Policy

Education

Our great martyred leader, the Quaid e Awam, believed that education was the key to empowerment of the people. He introduced free and compulsory primary education, promoted centres of excellence, created Institutes of Science and Technology and took Pakistan to the cutting edge of nuclear physics establishing centres of nuclear medicine. He set up a chain of new Universities, Medical and Engineering colleges in the neglected areas as a harbinger to a Muslim renaissance.

Western countries developed by encouraging free debate in universities of excellence which produce the men and women needed to govern great nations.

• Enhancement of Computer Literacy Program

Textbooks to government primary schools will be provided free of cost while a means test will make students eligible for additional government support. Libraries will be promoted and vocational centres, on the pattern of the Computer Literacy Program, enhanced.

• Access to the Internet

Internet access for government schools will enable the children of the underprivileged to access the worldwide information highway. The global language, English, will be an optional language for students to study preventing lingual apartheid where children of the rich speak English competing for world wide jobs and children of the working classes are denied that opportunity.

• Increase in Education Budget

Seeking an age of reason and enlightenment, the PPP, which increased with extra billions education budget in its two recent terms of power, pledges to make education a top priority. It is education, and education alone that can enable our young people to realise their full potential and compete with the best that the world can produce in the field of art and science.

PPP Parliamentarians commits to its sons and daughters an education that enables a brighter future than that of their parents so that they can hold high their head in the comity of Nations.

Bhutto’s killing deepens negative perceptions about Pakistani-Americans: LA survey

A survey conducted by Los Angeles Times has revealed that most Americans of Pakistani descent feared that the recent happenings in Pakistan, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, crackdown on Opposition parties and the general political chaos, had further deepened the negative impression about Pakistanis in the US.

It was found that after these incidents, while some Americans perceived that Pakistan was a country where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden lived, others thought Pakistan was a militant Arabic-speaking Mideast country.

Apprehending attack, Benazir didn’t want party leaders to accompany her

Slain former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto did not want her party leaders to accompany her in her car in Karachi because she apprehended a suicide attack and did not want other party leaders to fall prey to it. PPP leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro wrote this in an article published in a local paper in Karachi.

He wrote that before arriving in Karachi on October 18, Benazir had said that she did not want any party leader to accompany in her car, but no one agreed with her suggestion

US Consulate in Karachi was next target of Benazir’s murder suspect

A teenage suicide bomber, who was arrested in Dera Ismail Khan for his involvement in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, has told interrogators that his next target was the US Consulate in Karachi.

Sources said that Aitzaz had confessed during preliminary interrogation that he had been asked to attack Bhutto in Karachi if she escaped the attack in Rawalpindi.

But after Bhutto’s assassination, Aitzaz had been directed to move to Karachi to target the US Consulate, they said.

'Scotland Yard team free to probe suspects arrested in Benazir murder case'Islamabad, Jan 23: The Scotland Yard team probing int

: The Scotland Yard team probing into the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto would be free to interrogate Aitezaz Shah, the 15-year-old arrested in connection with the case, said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.

The British team is expected to come back to Pakistan in a couple of days with a final report on the case, Cheema said, adding that the report would be presented to the local investigating team and is likely to be shared with the media, the Daily Times reported.

Pakistan People's Party - Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 (Karachi)-Dec 27, 2007(Rawalpindi)) was the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state. The charismatic Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who controversially used the Eighth Amendment to dissolve parliament and force an election. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari, who also used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers.

A year later, Pakistanis remember slain leader

With tears, prayers and candlelight vigils, Pakistanis on Saturday marked the first anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, a killing that stunned the world and came to symbolize the rising Islamic militancy gripping her homeland.

The charismatic former prime minister, Pakistan’s best-known politician, was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack on Dec. 27, 2007, as she left a campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, outside the capital, Islamabad. She was 54.

At somber gatherings across the country, Bhutto was eulogized as a courageous leader who braved assassination threats to return from self-imposed exile to lead her party in parliamentary elections aimed at restoring democracy to Pakistan. That vote, held after her death, brought a new civilian leadership to power – an unsteady government led by her party that is now struggling to cope with a burgeoning Islamic insurgency, an economic collapse and fears of war with India.

Tens of thousands of mourners, many of them weeping, beating their chests and flinging rose petals, converged on Bhutto’s ancestral village near Larkana in southern Sindh province, some trekking for miles on foot to reach the site. They packed the soaring mausoleum that she had built to honor her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged by a military dictator in 1979. It became her tomb as well.

Pakistan’s entire political leadership gathered at the family home nearby, but security threats forced her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to scrap plans to address the vast crowds at the mausoleum. Zardari took over Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party after her death and became the country’s president in September after U.S.-backed former military leader Pervez Musharraf, facing impeachment, stepped aside.

Bhutto’s killing remains unsolved, and at many of the gatherings there was an undercurrent of anger over the fact that those who orchestrated the assassination have yet to be caught and punished.

Under Musharraf, the government cast the blame on militant leader Baitullah Mahsud, who remains at large in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Many Pakistanis believe elements within the country’s shadowy security apparatus had a hand in Bhutto’s death – a view supported by a letter Bhutto wrote months before she was killed.

The present government has been widely criticized for failing to carry out a meaningful investigation of Bhutto’s death. On the eve of the anniversary, the country’s leading English-language TV station, Dawn News, carried an acerbic report titled “The Probe That Wasn’t.”

Zardari has called on the United Nations to oversee an investigation, something the world body has said it is willing to do. But much crucial evidence is unavailable; no autopsy was performed, and the assassination scene was cleared and hosed down even before hospital authorities formally announced the death of Bhutto, the Muslim world’s first female prime minister.

In cities across Pakistan, mourners observed a moment of silence at 5:17 p.m., the time the attack took place. Tears rolled down the cheeks of many of those gathered at the park in Rawalpindi – now named for her – where Bhutto had addressed a rally moments before the assailants struck.

The site of the bombing, just outside its gates, has for months been a makeshift shrine, never without flickering candles, fresh flowers and handwritten notes. In Bhutto’s birthplace of Karachi, the anniversary revived memories of the devastating suicide attack on her homecoming rally just 10 weeks before her death.

Adnan Sabir Masih, one of the young party activists who had tried to shield Bhutto’s vehicle with his body, spent months recovering from his wounds from the Oct. 18 bombing, which killed more than 150 people. Bhutto escaped unharmed.

“Right at this moment, I would do it again to save her,” said Masih, tears welling in his eyes. “She was a great lady.”

The Life Chairperson - Pakistan Peoples Party

Political activist with the PPP, 1977-84; repeatedly imprisoned and kept under house arrest by the Pakistani government; political exile in London, England, 1984-86; returned to Pakistan in April, 1986; Pakistan co-chair, beginning in 1986; After elections held November 1988, invited to form the government, became Prime Minister in 1988 but her government was illegally dismissed in August 1990. She again came to power after her Party won a majority in elections held in October 1993. Her government was once again dismissed illegally in November 1996. Since then PPP under her leadership has been subjected to political persecution first by Nawaz's regime and then by Musharraf regime. The leadership faced all the difficulties with courage and has remained united under her leadership despite coercion and intimidation.

Zardari says will fulfil Benazir’s mission

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari has said that he will lay down his life to fulfil his wife, Benazir Bhutto’s mission.

Appealing to PPP leaders, workers and people of Pakistan to question him should he deviate from Bhutto’s mission, he said: “I shall have no right to be buried at Garhi Khuda Bux if I drift away from her mission.”

Benazir ‘became a victim of US agenda’: Gen Aslam Beg

Lahore, : Former Pakistan Army Chief General (retired) Mirza Aslam Beg has said that Benazir Bhutto “became a victim of US agenda” after she refused to cut a power-sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf.

“Having realised the ground realities after her arrival in Pakistan, she retreated from commitments she had made with the US on Pakistan’s nuclear assets, Dr AQ Khan and the Taliban and became a victim of the agenda of the US,” the Dawn News quoted Aslam Beg, as saying.

He said Benazir would not have become Prime Minister after the 1988 elections had she been unpopular with the army.

Jesse Jackson calls for national reconciliation in Pakistan

US civil right activist Jesse Jackson has called for peace and reconciliation in Pakistan, which has been roiled by violence after the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

"We all have our interest in conflict resolution in Pakistan. Several groups somehow choose negotiation over confrontation and arrived at an enlightened compromise that there might be peace in Pakistan which is good for Pakistan and give security to India and the whole region," Jackson told reporters while on a visit to the capital to deliver a lecture on Mahatma Gandhi.

Benazir’s last authored book to be launched on February 20

Benazir Bhutto’s last authored book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, will be formally released at the National Press Club here on February 20.

Bhutto co-authored the book with her long-time friend and associate Mark Siegel in the last few months of her life.

According to the Daily Times, the book embodies her vision for the Islamic world.

She completed it just before her assassination on December 27 last year in Rawalpindi.

The National Book Club’s Book and Author Committee is hosting the launch.

Bhutto's alleged killers detained for 10 more days

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Rawalpindi has extended the remand of two men suspected to be members of a squad of suicide bombers that killed former premier Benazir Bhutto by another ten days.

The two men — 15-year-old Aitzaz Shah and Sher Zaman — were produced in court under tight security on Saturday. Shah had earlier told investigators that he was next in line to target Benazir, who was assassinated in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi on December 27.

City Police had booked the two under Sections 302/24, 435/36, 120-B, 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act and 4/5 of the Explosive Act.

According to the Daily Times, Judge Chaudhry Habibullah has ordered the accused to be produced before him again on February 12.

Musharraf never delivered on promises, says Benazir’s book

Assassinated former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has revealed in her forthcoming book – “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West” – that President Pervez Musharraf’s regime never delivered on whatever it had promised to her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) between 2002 and 2007.

According to the Daily Times, the negotiations between the two went on by fits and starts, and failed every time “because I (Benazir) insisted on a road map to democracy.”

Benazir’s Bhutto will names Zardari as next PPP chief

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP’s) martyred Chairperson Benazir Bhutto's will was issued on Tuesday afternoon.

The will dated October 16 says that she was proud of the PPP leadership and desirous of a federal and democratic Pakistan.

Paying glowing tribute to PPP Founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, she said his steadfastness against dictatorship should be followed by the party at all costs.

The one-page will clearly mentions Asif Ali Zardari as the next chairman of PPP. She wrote that Zardari would lead the party after her.

I didn’t vow to fulfil Benazir’s mission: Nawaz

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief and former premier Nawaz Sharif has denied saying he would complete Benazir Bhutto’s mission.

Talking to a private TV channel here on Tuesday, Sharif, however, expressed solidarity with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Nawaz said he “had made the mistake of his life” by promoting Musharraf to the army chief in 1998.

PPP sets up camps for Benazir's chehlum

Garhi Khuda Bux (Sindh)The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has set up camps around the Bhutto mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bux in the country's Sindh Province for people wanting to attend the Chehlum (40th day) ceremony of its martyred chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Cassettes of Benazir’s speeches are being circulated and aired in the camps.

Some people are arriving by foot for the solemn ceremony that will be held under strict security, reports The News.

Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide bomb-cum gun shot attack in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh area on December 27, 2007.

Zardari vows to avenge Benazir’s murder in a democratic way

Garhi Khuda Bux, Feb 7 : Pakistan People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to take revenge of the murder of former premier Benazir Bhutto in a democratic way.
Addressing the chehlum of Benazir Bhutto here, he said: “Our leader Benazir always attempted to effect change in the prevalent system, we will change this system at all costs as this was the mission of Benazir Bhutto.”
“We will avenge Benazir's martyrdom in a democratic way.