Birmingham Blues

A senior election official in Pakistan has announced that elections scheduled for January 8 will be postponed till at least the second week of February. This follows the assassination of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27. Apparently Musharraf is afraid Bhutto’s party would get the sympathy vote if elections moved ahead as planned. Or perhaps there’s a need for additional vote-rigging:

Bhutto was killed Thursday evening in a shooting and bombing attack on her vehicle as she left a campaign rally. She had been scheduled to meet hours later with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.

Sen. Latif Khosa, a lawmaker from Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, said she had planned to give the lawmakers a report outlining complaints on “pre-poll rigging” by Musharraf’s government and the military-run Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

Gee, I’m sure our good buddy Musharraf hasn’t used any of that $10 billion we’ve given him to exert any, shall we say, undue influence. I wonder what happened to Condi Rice’s promise to “review” our aid to Pakistan after he fired the Supreme Court and declared martial law in the fall. Guess I shouldn’t hold my breath. These things takes time, you know.  Just like the election.

MSNBC is reporting that Pakistan plans to go ahead with the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Interior Ministry has announced that al-Qaeda extremists assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and Time has picked up the story and run all the way down the terror field with it, speculating that political assassination is al-Qaeda’s new best friend. Um, Time guys? Perhaps it’s a little too soon to push the panic button. It’s far from clear who engineered the assassination (something the author does concede near the end of the article), and we might want to wait for a little more information.

Ms. Bhutto was laid to rest today as the country continues to be wracked by violent protests. Sad and frightening. More as it breaks.

ADDENDUM:  I’m not taking up for al-Qaeda here.  Destabilizing Pakistan is probably way up near the top of Osama bin Laden’s to-do list.  I’d just prefer not to given Giuliani, et al, any more opportunities to wank about how they’ll protect us from the evil terrists.

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a campaign rally in Pakistan today. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for January 8; her death sparked a violent response from supporters, some of whom blame President Pervez Musharraf. Who, I’m sure, had absolutely nothing to do with it. Uh huh. But I bet he’s really sorry she’s gone. At least 20 other people were killed in the explosion when the assassin blew himself up after shooting Bhutto.

Bhutto served twice as Pakistan’s Prime Minister and had returned in October from an eight-year exile. She headed the largest political party in the country, which was expected to fare quite well in the upcoming elections.

Pakistan is a really scary place right now — political unrest, nuclear weapons, and a leader whose power has been threatened. Oh, and, most likely, Osama bin Laden somewhere in the mix. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Pervez reconsiders the house arrest.  Still, this is some scary shit.

Our pal Pervez Musharraf is determined to silence dissent in Pakistan, so he’s created a “free speech” zone for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Police surrounded her house with barbed wire, refused to let her leave, and arrested thousands of her supporters in order to stop a huge protest against martial law.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Bush is saying to himself, “Damn. I wish I’d thought of that.” Not really.

Drummond Ltd., the Colombian arm of the Drummond Coal Company, is on trial in federal court in Birmingham, accused of paying right-wing militia members to kidnap and murder three union leaders.  The lawsuit is based on the Alien Tort Statute of 1789.

Don’t know much about the case?  You’re not alone.  Drummond has done its best to keep it under the radar, and the judge in the case cooperated by sealing documents and charging the union’s attorneys with contempt – until the appeals court overturned her ruling in March 2007.

So, if you’ve seen a few mentions in the news recently and are curious about the background of the case, Kyle Whitmire at the Birmingham Weekly fills in the details in this week’s cover story.  Check it out.

Paul Wolfowitz, forced to resign as head of the World Bank because he got a high-paying, cushy job for his girlfriend (she recently dumped him), managed to hang on to his job long enough to “earn” a $400,000 performance bonus, due tomorrow.

Must be nice.

Um, literally — allegedly literally, anyway.

Lawyers for three slain Colombian coal miners who are suing Drummond Co. in Birmingham have asked for an extra 180 days to get ready for the wrongful death trial slated to start July 9.

The lawyers representing the families of the dead men, their labor union, and international labor rights organizations said in a court filing last week they have discovered a third last-minute witness who needs time to get ready before he can testify at the trial.

The new witness is Isnardo Gonzalez, a former bodyguard for a Drummond executive in Colombia. The filing said he will testify that he saw a Drummond executive visit with militia leaders who were hostile to labor unions, and witnessed payments to such groups.

I’ve heard a few allusions to this case over the past year, and now I see there have been (since overturned) gag orders on top of sealed documents — and not a whole lot of local media coverage.  I can’t access Latin American Post right now, although the Locust Fork Journal does have some links to Stephen Jackson Flanagan’s ongoing coverage.

Could be I have a couple of readers out there who could fill in some of the details.

Tony Blair has announced that he’s resigning his position as Britain’s Prime Minister effective June 27.

“‘I’ve been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years,” he told supporters in his in his Parliamentary constituency.

“In this job, in the world of today, I think that’s long enough for me but more especially for the country. Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.”

Blair was a popular and successful Prime Minister until he let W sucker him into the Iraq War.

The first term was marked by several significant initiatives: the Bank of England was given the freedom to set interest rates, Scotland and Wales were given regional governments, London gained an elected mayor and all but 92 hereditary members were ejected from the House of Lords.

In 1998, Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern led successful negotiations for a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, launching a process which reached its culmination earlier this week as former enemies from the Protestant and Catholic communities joined to form a new regional government.

The Iraq war severely dented Blair’s popularity. Blair’s close alliance with President Bush was unpopular at home, there were mass marches in Britain opposing the U.S.-led invasion before it began, and the government’s claims that Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction proved false.

Too bad George and Dick won’t follow Tony’s lead this time.