Keeping politics in the family

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has secured victory in Argentina's presidential election, after being hand-picked by her popular husband President Nestor Kirchner as the Peronist Party candidate.

Argentine law prevents a president serving more than two consecutive terms, but a husband-and-wife team could alternate in power if they continue to be supported. Mrs Kirchner's political ambitions have earned her comparisons with other wives who had designs on their husband's careers. Below are a selection of those couples who tried to keep politics in the family, along with those who fell out over it.

Hillary and Billl Clinton

Hillary and Bill Clinton have spent many years as a political team. According to Hillary's biography, not long after they got together, they hatched a long-term political plan that, if successful, would give them eight years each in the White House.
During his first campaign, Mr Clinton routinely invoked his wife, joking that voters would get "two for one" if they elected him. Indeed, when he was elected, he gave his wife an unprecedented role for a first lady, by putting her in charge of his health-care reform. Both the scheme and Hillary's appointment were widely criticised, and the reform failed to pass through Congress in 1993.

Mrs Clinton continued to play a significant role as first lady, actively promoting education and childcare. She struck out on her own in 1999 when she ran for the Senate.

The issue of a spouse's role has resurfaced during the 2008 US election campaign.

Harnessing her husband's political skills and experience, Mrs Clinton has said that she would give her husband a job as a roaming ambassador to the world to boost America's image abroad.

"I can't think of a better cheerleader for America than Bill Clinton. Can you?" she said in Iowa while campaigning. She added that she was very lucky that he had so much experience.

However, the former president recently said he would take a back seat in the White House should Hillary be elected president. In an interview with the BBC, he said he would not be a "president by proxy".

Eva and Juan Peron

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has not only drawn comparisons with Hillary Clinton, but with Argentina's iconic former first lady Eva Peron.

During her husband Juan's rule in the late 1940s and early 1950s, political observers credited "Evita" with influence in governmental affairs that was second only to the president's.

She was adored by the country's poor and combined an untiring and passionate advocacy for that section of the population with a contempt for the country's well-off.

In 1951, she received much support for her desire to run for the office of vice president. She was eventually thwarted, but in a broadcast to the country, she said: "There was a woman alongside General Peron who took to him the hopes and needs of the people to satisfy them, and her name was Evita."

General Peron's rule collapsed shortly after Evita died of cancer in 1952 and he was forced to flee the country. He returned to Argentina and to power in the early 1970s with a new wife Isabel. The former dancer succeeded her husband as president, on his death in 1974. But her rule proved to be disastrous and she was deposed in a military coup two years later.

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos

The glamorous and well-turned-out Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has earned herself the nickname of Imelda in some quarters, after Imelda Marcos, the Philippines' flamboyant former first lady. It seems the two share a passion for footwear.

Imelda helped her husband Ferdinand rule for more than 20 years. Ferdinand was elected president of the country in 1969. Three years later, he declared martial law and consolidated power for himself and his wife.

Imelda assumed a succession of formal governmental posts, including one that enabled her to tour the world meeting heads of state as her husband's personal envoy.

The couple were toppled in a popular revolt in 1986 and fled to Hawaii. After her husband's death, Imelda returned to the Philippines and ran unsuccessfully for president twice. She was elected to Congress before facing corruption charges.

Summing up her career recently, Mrs Marcos said: "For 20 years, I was privileged to be mother of the Filipino people and our country."

Segolene Royal anf Francois Hollande

France's "golden couple" of the left, Segolene Royal and Francois Hollande, proved that power partnerships are not always plain sailing.

Ms Royal - who ran for president as the Socialist candidate earlier this year - split with Mr Hollande, Socialist Party leader and her partner of more than 27 years, after her defeat by Nicolas Sarkozy.

According to political observers, their relationship had clearly been put under increased strain by disagreements during the presidential elections.

Mr Hollande, who according to observers had wanted to run for the presidency, was occasionally quoted contradicting Ms Royal's policies during the campaign.

Ms Royal has made it clear that she wants to wrest control of the Socialist Party from the father of her four children.

Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi

Peru's former first lady Susana Higuchi was famously stripped of her title by her husband Alberto Fujimori in 1994, after she accused him of tolerating widespread government corruption and ignoring the needs of the country's poor. The two were separated but still married at the time.

President Fujimori explained in an address to the nation that his wife had been "disloyal", as well as "unstable and easily influenced" by his political rivals. He then bestowed the title of first lady on the couple's daughter.

A year later, Ms Higuchi tried to run against her husband in the 1995 presidential race. Mr Fujimori, however, pushed a law through Congress banning immediate relatives of the president seeking higher office. The couple divorced a year later.

In 2000, Ms Higuchi was elected to Congress.

BBC

Rice seeks progress on India deal

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the US wants to move forward on the nuclear deal with India.

There are growing sings that the Indian federal government may shelve the deal in face of stiff opposition from its Communist allies.
The communists say the deal would give the US too much influence over India's foreign policy.

They have threatened to end support for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which could trigger an early election.

The deal would give India access to civilian nuclear technology and fuel even though it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Ms Rice spoke to Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday and told him that the US continued to support the agreement, according to US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"It was underlined ..that we continue to support the agreement and continue moving forward with the agreement," Mr McCormack said about the conversation between the two key officials.

"[Ms Rice] made it clear that the resolution to the political discussions with India are for the Indian political system to resolve, but she wanted to underline and reinforce for the Indian government that we continue to support moving forward with the agreement," he said.

No progress

Asked whether the deal could be renegotiated, Mr McCormack said there has been no "discussion of that on either side at this point".

Several rounds of talks between India's Congress-led ruling coalition and communist allies over the nuclear deal have ended with no indication of progress.

The two sides will resume talks on 16 November.

The administration of US President George W Bush is keen for the deal to be completed before next year's presidential elections.

Prime Minister Singh told Mr Bush recently that he was having difficulty implementing the deal.

It was the first clear sign India could abandon it.

Mr Singh insists that the nuclear agreement was "an honourable deal that is good for India and good for the world".

He has said, however, that if the deal did not come through, he would be disappointed - but he could live with it.

The landmark deal has also been criticised by many outside India.

Under the agreement, India is allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel - something that is seen as a major concession and opposed by some members of the US Congress.

BBC

Key Aids strain 'came from Haiti'

by Neil Bowdler

The strain of the HIV virus which predominates in the United States and Europe has been traced back to Haiti by an international team of scientists.
The virus strain passed from Haiti to the US in around 1969 before spreading around the globe, say the scientists.

The HIV virus can lead to the disease Aids, and scientists say knowledge of its origins could help find remedies.

"HIV-1 group M subtype B" predominates in the US, Europe, large parts of South America, Australia and Japan.

Now scientists say they know where it came from.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences.

'Single carrier'

The team examined archived blood samples from five early Aids patients - all of them Haitian immigrants to the United States - and analysed genetic sequences from another 117 Aids patients from around the world.

With this data, they recreated a family tree for the virus, which they believe shows conclusively that the strain came to the US via Haiti - probably via a single person - in around 1969.

Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson is one of the study's authors. He says the new research suggests HIV first arrived in Haiti in the mid-1960s - probably from Africa where HIV is thought to have originated - before making its crossing into the US.

"By 1966 the virus first starts spreading in Haiti," he told the BBC.

"A few years later one variant from Haiti gives rise to what would then light the fuse and explode around the world as the Aids pandemic that we first became aware of."

Prof Worobey and his colleagues now want to trace the strain back further. His suspicion is that it probably arrived in Haiti from the Congo via Haitians who were working in Africa during those years. He says understanding the origins of this and other strains of HIV will better enable scientists to predict how the virus may mutate in the future.

BBC

Putin after Putin

by Pran Chopra

Two world famous presidencies will come to an end in just a few months, Putin's in Russia and Bush's in America, and both are ending for similar reasons: both Presidents are currently in their second consecutive terms, and the Constitution which governs each, respectively, bars each of them from a third consecutive term. But there the similarity between them ends and a world of differences begins.

Bush's second term began in the midst of serious doubts regarding the legitimacy of his election four years ago, and it is approaching its end with his reputation at its nadir, in domestic as well as external, and political as well as economic domains. He would have little hope of an immediate third term even if the Constitution allowed it, because his party has also been declining of late.

Putin won his second term in an almost uncontested election and it is ending in glory, with Russia's domestic, external and political as well as economic circumstances shining brighter than anything he had inherited from the first term, and probably better than at any time in the whole of the preceding Soviet era.

With his party also stronger than any since the end of that era, no rival would find it worth his while to oppose his bid for a consecutive third term if the Constitution allowed it. Since that is not allowed by the Russian Constitution, the inevitable question arises who or what awaits him and his country at the end of his second term early next year.

It may still be premature to speculate about the extent to which Putin's successes during the past few years and the mistakes of the Bush presidency over the same period may have narrowed the gap between the influence of the two countries upon global events during the next ten years. But the answer need not be only fanciful.

Any reasonable answer would add further meaning to the apparently forceful way in which President Putin now cautions America against pressing too hard against Russian interests in the former Soviet republics in eastern and south-eastern Europe.

Putin's way of addressing this issue noticeably hardened after he failed, during his visit to the Bush family home in America, to persuade Bush to slack off from the American intention to set up missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, directly facing some of the most sensitive areas of Russia.

Putin has not given up his effort to soften this confrontation. He has tried to maintain his series of meetings with Bush on this issue which began with their face to face meetings at the G8 summit in Germany in June this year and continued at the Bush family home in America. But Putin is now more confidently light-hearted in speaking about Russia's right and power to do what it thinks it must do to defend itself.

For example, in a countrywide radio chat with Russians who were phoning in their questions to him, he said on October 18, "Russia has the means and the strength to defend itself," thus expanding on what he had said more cryptically a few months ago when he was first told of the American plan to set up missile bases in Eastern Europe.

On that earlier occasion, when he was asked what he would do about it he had said, "We will have to find targets in Europe." The threat implied in that answer could not have been lost on Europe. But in his radio chat the other day he dismissed the obvious American intentions behind the bases as "political erotica," which means verbalisations which may give temporary pleasure but not produce anything.

All that must raise the question what then will be the equation between Moscow and Washington after the clearly foreseeable departures of both Bush and Putin from the respective seats they occupy at present.

It would be wrong to construct an answer only in terms of guesses about the outcome of the elections impending in both countries, or only in the intriguing remark by Putin on October 18 that Russia has invented a "completely new" nuclear weapon about which he declined to give any detail.

Little can be said about the election in America because little can be guessed as yet about the policies that either of the likely winners - Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama - will follow in office.

But two things are certain about the election in Russia: one, that Putin will step down, and two, that he will remain close to where the action is going to be, if there is going to be any "action." In fact, Putin out of that chair in the Kremlin will be a clearer successor to the Putin in that chair than anyone else.

Only some months ago, when Putin was still taking all major decisions about the huge oil empire in Russia, there was speculation among oil experts in London that perhaps he was feathering a nest which he could occupy upon retirement as President, or that may be he was of the view that power would still flow out of those millions of barrels of oil and he might as well seize it before anyone else could challenge him.

But such comments underestimate his taste for continuing to have political power after leaving the presidency, or his possible intention to keep himself in proper trim for returning to that chair in the Kremlin after he has served the period of abstinence imposed on him by the Constitution.

He was soon to give people a reason to re-think when reports appeared that he might aim for the presidentship of his party, United Russia, which he can easily lead to power in the next elections which are to take place just a few months hence. But even these reports gave way a little later to something more far reaching.

The current speculation in the Russian press, reflected also in the American reactions to it, is that on retiring from the office of President he could, as leader of the largest party in Parliament, aim to be the Prime Minister. The Constitution does not deny him that post in spite of his two terms as President.

Obviously, he would then once again be at the peak of political power in the country, combining the office of Prime Minister with that of party president, and cohabiting with a President who would have ascended to that post only with his help.

Either way it would mean that Putin, after two terms as President which had made him the most powerful man in the country for eight years, can remain the most powerful for another four years, standing on the huge platform of his past achievements and combining those with his further powers whether as the master of all the oil he surveys or the party he leads or the authority which a man like him would bring to office of Prime Minister.

Whichever way you look at it, this would be a case of Putin succeeding Putin as the man at the top.

And at that point of time, he would only have to face a comparative novice in the White House, be that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. That would be a measure of the distance between the powers of the two persons at the top in Russia and America.

The Asian Age, India

Foreign cases that could haunt Benazir Bhutto

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is preparing for general elections shortly after returning to the country after years of self-imposed exile.

She came back after President Pervez Musharraf granted her a controversial amnesty from the charges in Pakistan.
The Supreme Court may yet rule that amnesty illegal. But even if it clears it, Ms Bhutto, who has been in talks about a power-sharing deal with President Musharraf, could still face several cases outside of Pakistan.

One of the most advanced is in Switzerland, where in 2003 Geneva magistrate Daniel Devaud convicted Ms Bhutto of money-laundering.

In his judgment, he found she and her close associates received around $15m in kickbacks from Pakistani government contracts with SGS and Cotecna, two Swiss companies.

Mr Devaud sentenced Ms Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari to 180 days in prison, ordering them to return $11.9m to the government of Pakistan.

"I certainly don't have any doubts about the judgments I handed down [which] came after an investigation lasting several years, involving thousands of documents," he has told the BBC.

Ms Bhutto contested the decision, which was made in her absence, and the case is being reheard, with the former prime minister now facing the more serious charge of aggravated money-laundering.

Asked about the case, her officials told the BBC: "These allegations are part and parcel of a campaign of a character assassination. Ms Bhutto has not done anything illegal. She and her husband, Senator Asif Zardari, both have defended themselves in every court in every country."

Many in Pakistan assume the Swiss case will now collapse because of the deal struck between Ms Bhutto and President Musharraf.

Yet under Swiss law, even if the government of Pakistan stops co-operating, that would not automatically end legal proceedings in Switzerland.

Vincent Fournier, the Swiss judge in charge of the current case, told the BBC he planned to hand the case over to Geneva's attorney-general this week.

A second international case involving Ms Bhutto is under way in England. In this case, the government of Pakistan alleged that Ms Bhutto and her husband bought Rockwood, a $3.4m country estate in Surrey, using money from kickbacks.

Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari denied owning the estate for eight years. But in 2004, Mr Zardari suddenly admitted that it was his.

Then, in 2006, an English judge, Lord Justice Collins, came to an interesting, though by no means final, conclusion about the estate.

Whilst stressing he was not making any "findings of fact", Justice Collins said there was a "reasonable prospect" of the government of Pakistan establishing, in possible future court proceedings, that Ms Bhutto and/or her husband bought and refurbished Rockwood with "the fruits of corruption".

Asked by the BBC about Rockwood, Ms Bhutto's officials denied any allegations of corruption, but gave no detailed response, although her husband's lawyers told Justice Collins that Pakistan's case was speculative.

The London case is a civil one. That means it could collapse should President Musharraf's government decide not to pursue it.

Ms Bhutto also faces allegations concerning the United Nations oil-for-food scandal.

In 2005, the Independent Inquiry Commission led by former US Federal Reserve head Paul Volcker found that more than 2,000 companies breached UN sanctions by making illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq before 2003.

Among them was a company called Petroline FZC, based in the United Arab Emirates. Mr Volcker's inquiry found it traded $144m of Iraqi oil, and made $2m of illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Documents from Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau appear to show that Ms Bhutto was Petroline FZC's chairwoman.

If these documents are genuine, and the oil-for-food allegations are proven, this would be especially damaging for the former prime minister.

The Spanish authorities are investigating financial transactions thought to be linked to Petroline FZC. In addition, President Musharraf's amnesty dropping corruption charges against public officials only covers the period 1986-1999.

The Petroline FZC transactions came after that, which means that in theory a charge is possible.

Ms Bhutto has always denied all corruption allegations, and her supporters say the allegations against her are politically motivated. But her legal difficulties may not be over yet.

BBC News, London