Pakistan vote delayed until Feb. 18
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistani election officials announced Wednesday that they were delaying parliamentary elections for six weeks until Feb. 18 because of the violence and chaos that followed the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Pak govt makes U-turn on cause of Bhutto’s death
ISLAMABAD: In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has “apologised” for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack. Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to “forgive and ignore” comments made by his ministry’s spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People’s Party as “lies” and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

Analysis: Military slew Bhutto – sources
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) — Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on orders of lower- and middle-level officers of the Pakistani army and air force, according to various intelligence sources, including members of India’s counterintelligence service.
A few bad apples, huh?  Just like Abu Ghraib?  Musharraf never, ever asked anyone to rid him of that meddlesome woman?

Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections
NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections, an aide said Monday. Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Bhutto ‘blocked from hiring US bodyguards’
Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security experts to protect her, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. But the plans collapsed because President Pervez Musharraf refused to allow the foreign contractors to operate in Pakistan, according to senior aides.

Lawyer: Police prevented Bhutto autopsy
Rawalpindi’s police chief stopped doctors at the hospital where Benazir Bhutto died from conducting an autopsy, according to a lawyer on the hospital’s board. It was a violation of Pakistani criminal law and prevented a medical conclusion about what killed the former prime minister, said Athar Minallah, who serves on the board that manages Rawalpindi General Hospital.

Bush Sticks With Musharraf as Pakistan Democracy Push Stumbles
George W. Bush’s support for Musharraf hasn’t changed, an administration official said, adding that the U.S. sees itself as playing a supporting role as Pakistan decides how to move forward on the path of democracy.

Bhutto’s Son, Husband to Succeed Her
Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son – a student with no political experience – was named symbolic leader of her party Sunday, while her husband took effective control, extending Pakistan’s most enduring political dynasty.

Shady Reputation Trails Bhutto’s Husband
Benazir Bhutto’s husband, who took effective control of his slain wife’s party Sunday, is a former Cabinet minister who spent eight years in prison on corruption accusations and is known as “Mr. 10 Percent” for allegedly taking kickbacks.

Bhutto tribe patriarch disputes party leadership succession
MIR BHUTTO, Pakistan — The elevation of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s husband and teenaged son to replace her as leaders of Pakistan’s largest opposition party is re-opening fissures that have divided the powerful political family for decades. To Mumtaz Bhutto, the septuagenarian patriarch of the 700,000-strong Bhutto tribe, Asif Ali Zardari and his son, Bilawal, are interlopers.

Female suicide bomber kills 10 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A female suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest struck a checkpoint of neighborhood patrol volunteers in Baquba, capital of Iraq’s restive Diyala province, killing 10 people and wounding eight on Wednesday, police said.

Iraq suicide bomber kills 32 at funeral
A suicide bomber has killed 32 men and injured another 34 at the funeral of a retired army officer in Baghdad. It is believed a man loaded with explosives walked into a funeral tent outside the home of Nabil Hussein Jassim in the east Baghdad neighborhood of Zayouna.

No place in Iraq is safe, says US military
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Despite a drop in violence across Iraq, there is still no place in the country that is safe from attack by extremists, the US military warned on Sunday.

Returning Iraqis face lack of services, property disputes
BAGHDAD — Dr. Ahmed Farid heard it from his family and saw it with his own eyes: his old neighborhood in Baghdad is safer, maybe secure enough to move back from the city of Basra.

More than 16,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 2007 – ministry
Some 16,232 Iraqi civilians were killed during 2007 as a result of sectarian violence, [US] bombings and mortar attacks, an official media source in the Iraqi health ministry said on Tuesday.

110 US Troops Die in Afghanistan in 2007
U.S. military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007. Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police, and large swaths of the country remain outside government control.

Afghan police seize more than half tonne of heroin, opium: interior ministry
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan police have seized more than half a tonne of heroin and opium in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

Powder packages spark embassy scare in Australia
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australian police launched a criminal investigation on Wednesday after the Israeli, U.S. and British embassies were sent packages containing white powder, forcing evacuation of the Israeli and American missions.
Oh, yeah, whatever happened to the anthrax scare that occurred here in the U.S. just after 9/11?

Australian officials lose free massages
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian public servants are to lose one of their more unusual perks as part of a crackdown on bureaucratic spending — tax payer-funded massages, reports said Wednesday.

Chavez-led alliance fails to get hostages
BOGOTA, Colombia – It was one of the boldest initiatives yet for Latin America’s emerging leftist alliance and it didn’t even get off the ground.

Russia offers Uruguay floating nuclear power plant
Buenos Aires, Jan 1 (RIA Novosti) Russia is looking for cooperation with Uruguay in the field of nuclear energy, the Russian ambassador to the Latin American state has said.

Vatican denies exorcist expansion
The Vatican is denying reports it plans to install more exorcists around the world so possessed people can get help quickly. “Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters in Rome Friday.

Civil liberties under threat in major Western countries
As the new year took hold, an international rights group said individual privacy was under threat in the United States and across the European Union, where surveillance and information-gathering measures had been increasing in an effort to secure and control borders.

Three killed, 20 hurt in bomb blast in Algeria: interior ministry
ALGIERS (AFP) – Three people were killed and 20 injured on Wednesday in a suicide car bomb blast near a police station in Naciria, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the Algerian capital, witnesses said.

Pressure mounts with 275 killed in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya – International pressure mounted Wednesday on Kenya’s leaders to bring an end to postelection violence that has shaken the country and killed more than 275 people, including dozens burned alive as they sought refuge in a church.

US diplomat killed in Sudan shooting
KHARTOUM, Sudan – An American diplomat and his driver were shot to death Tuesday in the Sudanese capital, the U.S. Embassy said, a day after a joint African Union-United Nations force took over peacekeeping in Sudan’s Darfur region.