The Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) made major gains in today’s by-elections.  It won ten additional seats in the Punjab Provincial Assembly. Two belong to Shahbaz Sharif.  He’ll have to give up one of them; the results of both could even be nullified. Still, the PML-N is now better placed to control Punjab without the [...]

PPP Co-chairman Asif Zardari paired up with Punjab Governor Salman Taseer at a rally today in Lahore to do their own muscle flexing. Zardari wasn’t able to fire up the crowd as Nawaz had done twice last week. But he did say his party can hold a long march of its own. And then he [...]

Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab and illegitimate offspring of the PPP-Musharraf affair, called the Long March a “dud” and a “failure.” He said the PPP’s teenage leader, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who does not speak Urdu (or Punjabi), would begin a mass contact tour in Punjab this August when on summer vacation from school.  The ‘child [...]

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has become the scapegoat for the country’s present economic challenges.  Much of the blame is well-deserved, though many of his former allies have put a disproportionate amount of responsibility on him to save themselves. However flawed or failed his economic policies, Aziz manages to get some things right in [...]

Our servers have been extremely slow and often unresponsive over the past few days. This has made both visiting and my posting to the site fairly prohibitive. Server speed has since returned to reasonably tolerable levels now. My apologies.  A new post is expected this evening.

A car bomb blast at the Danish embassy in Islamabad has killed at least eight individuals and injuring eight.  The attack occurred in an affluent area of the city (F-6-2), somewhat near the Luna Caprese restaurant that was attacked in March.

June has begun. Pakistan is set to simmer this summer. The People’s Party’s proposed constitutional package will soon be debated in parliament. Pressure on Pervez Musharraf to resign will increase. The summer heat will be met by scheduled blackouts. At the month’s end, by-elections will take place, including the Sharif brothers as candidates. In between, [...]