Bhutto murder: The key questions

Several days after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the exact circumstances of her killing remain unclear. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Karachi has been examining the differing accounts of her death and the direction in which the murder inquiry is heading.

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, police said that Miss Bhutto had safely escaped the attack. But later it became apparent that she had been taken to the Rawalpindi General Hospital's emergency section.

A seven-member team of doctors which examined her sent a report to the health ministry saying Ms Bhutto had open wounds on her left temporal region from which "brain matter was exuding". The report did not say what caused the wound, apparently because no autopsy had been performed on the body.

A day later, an Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, told the media that Ms Bhutto died of a skull fracture caused by a lever attached to the sun-roof of her bullet-proof vehicle. He said she must have hit her head against the lever when she ducked to escape the assassins' bullets. He denied that her body carried any gunshot wounds.

These differing accounts inevitably fuelled speculation about a possible cover-up at worst, and an attempt by the government to sidestep its responsibility at best.

The interior ministry's version has been rubbished by Miss Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) which says that she was shot in the neck, and that the bullet exited from the back of her head.

Party spokeswoman Sherry Rehman said that she was with Miss Bhutto when the attack took place, and later cleaned her body at the hospital. She says that she saw two wounds that were bleeding profusely.

Why does it matter?

One point of contention between the PPP and the government has been the security provided to Ms Bhutto.

Given Ms Bhutto's status as a former prime minister and her popularity, the government would not like to be seen as having failed to provide adequate security to her, more so since the government itself had warned Ms Bhutto about threats to her life.

But if the PPP's version is held to be true and the assassin indeed got so close to Ms Bhutto as to be able to hit her at almost point-blank range, then all sorts of questions are raised, ranging from lax security to complicity by elements within the government.

Just how lax was the security?

At least two pieces of information that have come to light since the assassination suggest that security for Ms Bhutto was indeed lax. One is an e-mail she sent to her long time friend and lobbyist in the US, Mark Siegal, on 26 October.

She wrote in the e-mail that she had been made to feel insecure by (President) Musharraf's "minions" and had not received the requested improvements to her security.

She said she was being prevented from using private cars or vehicles equipped with tinted windows.

She said that she had also not been provided with jammers to prevent remote controlled bombs or police mobile outriders to cover her vehicle on all sides.

The other material is amateur video footage that appears to show a man in sunglasses shooting her from close quarters and another man draped in a white robe blowing himself up soon afterwards.

No security presence is seen in the entire video clip.

Media reports suggest that the police and rangers guarding checkposts around the exit gate of Liaquat Bagh, where Ms Bhutto addressed the rally, left their posts before Ms Bhutto's vehicle drove out of the park.

Why did Bhutto's husband refuse an autopsy?

Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, said that he was contacted by the Punjab home secretary who wanted permission to hold a post mortem examination, but that he refused the request.

"We know how these autopsies are conducted and how the reports can be manipulated. We also know how she died," he told the media on Sunday.

In conservative Pakistani society, women's bodies are rarely allowed by their relatives to be subjected to a post mortem examination. It is even avoided in the case of men due to the belief that it constitutes disrespect to the deceased.

Why was the scene of the blast hosed down?

The scene of the blast was washed with a high pressure hose of the fire brigade hours after the incident, apparently to clean the road.

The interior ministry spokesman said the spot was washed after all the required evidence had been collected by the investigators.

He brushed aside observations by the media that the investigators may still have had to revisit the site for verification of evidence they had collected earlier.

What evidence is there that the attack was ordered by the Taleban?

After the attack, the interior ministry provided the media with transcripts of a telephone conversation between a top Taleban commander in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, and an unnamed person.

The two congratulate each other on a job well done, but Miss Bhutto's name is not mentioned in the brief conversation.

The ministry spokesman says an audio tape of the Pashto language conversation can also be provided to the media, adding that the government has Mr Mahsud's voice signature to prove that it is him talking.

The transcripts were made public on the day an Italy-based news agency - Adnkronos International - quoted an al-Qaeda spokesman, Mustafa Abu al-Yezid, as claiming responsibility for the assassination.

Shortly before Ms Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October, the Daily Times newspaper carried a statement from Mr Mahsud, saying he was determined to kill her because she was an American agent.

A senator from South Waziristan who had reportedly passed the statement to the newspaper denied having done so two weeks later, when Ms Bhutto's convoy was bombed in Karachi on 18 October.

Mr Mahsud's spokesman has promptly denied the interior ministry's allegation, claiming that the audiotape of the alleged telephonic conversation is a fake.

He has also demanded investigation into the killing by "independent" agencies to identify the actual culprits.

BBC

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Bhutto successors face tough challenge

Pakistan's largest political party (PPP) has appointed Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the 19-year-old son of its slain leader Benazir Bhutto, as its new chairman.

The party has also decided to contest parliamentary elections, due on 8 January. The first decision appears to be aimed at preventing internal divisions in the party, while the second is meant to take at high tide the sympathy wave for the PPP that has been caused by Ms Bhutto's assassination last Thursday.

But in effect, the PPP would be run by Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, until Bilawal completes his studies and is ready to assume the party's leadership.

This brings Mr Zardari into direct focus as the party's de facto chief, faced with the immediate challenge of guiding it through the elections.

And the shrewd manner in which the question of succession has been decided indicates that he may well prove to be as tough a customer for President Pervez Musharraf as his late spouse.

Ms Bhutto represented the dynastic legacy of her charismatic, populist father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who ruled the country in the 1970s.

And she bore resemblance to him in everything, including her populist style of politics, her charisma, and even her death.

Her father was overthrown in a military coup and hanged in 1979, following a controversial trial. Her assassination last Thursday appeared to have turned back the clock for PPP supporters.

This time the succession issue has been resolved by a hand-written will that the party's 55-member executive committee says Ms Bhutto left behind and in which she has nominated her husband as her successor.

Aware of the divisions it may cause in a party that was unlikely to accept a non-Bhutto at the top, Mr Zardari has passed the mantle on to his son, who has renamed himself as Bhutto.

BBC

Roberts' role as working mother

Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts, who is starring in the film Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks, talks about how the film industry has changed and how she juggles her film career with motherhood.

Julia Roberts is glad she is not starting out as an actress today.

"I wouldn't want to be 20 and in movies now, it just looks awful," she says. In fact she has just turned 40 and her new movie, Charlie Wilson's War, opens in the UK on 11 January.

"There weren't 1004 media outlets and now it just seems like sport. The coverage of celebrities and celebrity lifestyle, it just seems like a load of crap to me.

"It doesn't look fun. It just looks scary, crazy and chaotic. It's all about superficial, hollow things. You don't hear anybody talking about acting."

Nonetheless if you are Julia Roberts, how you look matters.

'Nice face'

When we meet on a cold, wet day in Los Angeles, she is wearing a casual, long-sleeved patterned dress, thick black tights and chunky boots.

Like most movie stars she is much thinner in the flesh. Her auburn hair is loose and those famous lips highlighted with just a hint of pink gloss.

She says she does not wear make up much. But can she really ignore the march of time in an city obsessed with youth?

"On a day to day basis it's about if you're happy in you're life. Someone said you wear your face in your life till you're 40 and then you wear your life on your face. So I think that gives me a nice face."

However she admits she did worry about stripping down to a floral fuchsia bikini for her role as a wealthy Texas socialite in Charlie Wilson's War. She was four months pregnant and pleaded with director Mike Nichols to let her keep her clothes on - he said no.

"That day was really nerve-wracking," she says.

"Fortunately it wasn't a terribly long scene. You know when you're pregnant, some days you look really pregnant and some days you just don't. That was one of those divine days when I just looked less pregnant."

Five months later and her son Henry was born, a brother for twins Phinnaeus and Hazel.

Her husband is cinematographer Danny Moder, and after a day of interviews that accompany every major movie release she is keen to get home to them.

They live a quiet life in California, away from the spotlight.

"I am a stay-at-home mum now, which is great, but a whole lot harder than making a movie - it is a much longer day!" she says.

But the drive which saw her rise to the top and made her one of the world's most bankable stars has not disappeared.

"I want to strive to accomplish things for me as an individual and as an actor, as long as it doesn't take away from what I want to accomplish as a wife and a mother."

It is a tough trick to pull off, as any working parent knows. Still, if you are Julia Roberts you are in with a chance.

"I have a really great husband, who's also a great father. I have great girlfriends and I'm in a position where I can have somebody help me with my kids when I need that - I'm not doing it by myself."

BBC

2008: The year of Palestine?

Will 2008 see the creation of a Palestinian state, or will November's Annapolis peace conference prove another false dawn?

US President George W Bush shows no inclination to become a lame duck, pledging no let-up during his last year in office.

He is due to visit the Middle East early in 2008, a sign of his personal commitment to advancing the peace process there.

But he will not find it easy to cut through the scepticism that is widespread in the region.

With the problems of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon unresolved, few believe the Middle East is going to become more stable any time soon.

Stagecraft or statecraft ?

Veteran US peace envoy Dennis Ross is left wondering whether the Annapolis peace conference, which Mr Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted in November, was stagecraft or statecraft.

Addressing a conference organised in December by the Transatlantic Institute, a Brussels think-tank, he questioned whether the Bush administration was sufficiently engaged to bring about a meaningful peace process.

There had to be real change on the ground, he said, for people to believe peace was coming.

At Annapolis, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to start continuous negotiations, with the aim of bringing about a two-state solution by the end of 2008.

But can they meet this ambitious goal?

David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says that for the first time we have an Israeli and a Palestinian leader who trust one another.

Time wasting

But many observers argue they are both politically too weak to make the hard compromises peace requires.

Avraham Sela, an Israeli academic and former intelligence officer, thinks it counter-productive to exclude Hamas, the Islamist movement which now runs Gaza.

In his view, the Palestinian Authority run from the West Bank by Hamas's great rival, Fatah, is virtually dead - and efforts by the West to resuscitate it are a waste of time.

The conference debated other challenges ranging from demography to nuclear proliferation.

Sir Mark Allen, a former British diplomat, pointed out that by 2050 the population of the Middle East will have grown from 430 million to 720 million.

Will the young prove co-optable by dynasties resistant to change?

Off the table

Steven Cook, of the Council on Foreign Relations, assessed the meagre results of the Bush administration's promotion of democratic reform in the region.

But in his view there could be no going back to uncritical support of authoritarian regimes. George Bush's successor, whether a Democrat or a Republican, would find the issue still firmly on the foreign-policy agenda.

Speakers evinced little optimism about either Iraq or Iran.

There was a real risk the so-called "surge" in Iraq would buy short-term success at the expense of long-term gains, according to Michael Rubin, a neo-conservative at the American Enterprise Institute. One of his colleagues, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said the new US intelligence estimate on Iran had "demolished" the administration's policy - and meant that a military strike against Iran was now "off the table".

Wrapping up the conference, Lebanese analyst Kassem Jaafar saw no reason why Iran was likely to change course - and warned of the danger that the fledgling peace process initiated at Annapolis would prove another missed opportunity.

BBC

Crunch year ahead for Iraq

More so than any other since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, 2008 is set to be a make-or-break year for Iraq.

The country ended 2007 on a high. The last third of the year saw a dramatic improvement in the security situation in many of the most troubled areas, including much of Baghdad.

The number of attacks of all sorts, and the ensuing casualties, showed a sustained decline.

But none of the threats to Iraq's stability and future has been definitively defeated. None of the factors feeding into the improvement is irreversible.

Window of opportunity

And there have been many warnings that if the security gains are not underpinned by political and economic measures, they risk being squandered.

So there is a window of opportunity which could close sharply if it is not exploited. If things go well, 2008 could see the security improvement consolidated further, with revitalised Iraqi army and police forces taking the lead.

The centre could be strengthened by nation-building legislation and political reconciliation, and the new stability could give birth to an economic surge that would add to the positive dynamic. But that vision could turn out to be a pipe dream - it is not hard to imagine a much grimmer scenario, such as:

bickering Iraqi politicians fail to rise above their differences and agree vital legislation, which is already months behind schedule and would weld the country together

as US forces start to thin out to pre-surge levels by July 2008, al-Qaeda begins to make a comeback

Sunni "local security" forces established by the US, clash with Shia militias, which laid low until the American grip loosened

Iraq disintegrates into sectarian strife, perhaps descends into unequivocal civil war.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said that 2008 will be the year of reconstruction and development, following what he says is the defeat of al-Qaeda and terrorism.

Few others are so starkly optimistic, least of all the Americans, whose claims are more modest and qualified.

"You're certainly not going to hear from me that al-Qaeda is defeated and that victory is at hand," said the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker. "Al-Qaeda has shown an extraordinary persistence, and they are persisting now, although clearly, their abilities have been badly damaged."

Troop surge

The past 12 months saw a double body-blow dealt to al-Qaeda and the Sunni-based insurgency, which had many strands.

The US troop surge, built up over the first half of 2007, saw the Americans directly and more proactively tackling the militant Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda under the umbrella of the "Islamic State in Iraq".

At the same time, a number of the more Iraqi nationalist insurgent groups, such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Islamic Army in Iraq, turned against the al-Qaeda radicals and joined Sunni tribal leaders in urging their followers to join the Americans against them.

The result: by the end of the year, around 80,000 Sunni youths were on the US payroll as local guards looking out for al-Qaeda infiltrators.

This had a big effect in pacifying troubled Sunni areas such as Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. But the campaign is unfinished, with frequent violence in areas to the north of the capital, and displaced Islamist radicals surfacing at Mosul in the far north too.

Many of the Sunni vigilantes have Shia blood on their hands, and their emergence as virtual militias has raised fears of future sectarian battles if things go wrong.

On the Shia side of the equation, the order given in August by the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr to his Mehdi Army militia to halt hostilities for six months had a big effect in reducing violence.

Direct talks

That decision may have been influenced by Iran, which, also in August, promised Prime Minister Nouri Maliki that it would stop supporting Shia militias and put its weight behind the Baghdad government. Starting in March, Iranian and US officials held several rounds of direct talks on Iraq, a dialogue that is set to continue.

US commanders have said there are signs of a drop in help from Iran for radical Iraqi militias, and also in the flow of Arab fighters coming across the border from Syria.If the current signs of a slight thaw in Washington's relations with Tehran and Damascus are sustained in 2008, that would benefit Iraq.

But it will not be an easy year.

In the south, British forces have already handed over security control to Iraqis and taken up a background role, which will see UK forces cut by half to a mere 2,500 or so in the spring.

BBC

France extends ban on cigarettes

Smoky cafes - a hazy memory:

France, the nation that coined the words cigarette and nicotine, bids adieu to centuries of smoking tradition today with the start of a ban on lighting up in caf‚s and restaurants.

Nostalgia for the old caf‚ society was running high last night as smokers greeted the new year with sardonic moans over un-Gallic intolerance. Nonetheless, the new clean-air law was welcomed by the great majority.

At the Royal Pereire, an old-style brasserie near the Arc de Triomphe, Jean-Daniel Prevost, 55, stubbed out his last butt on the floor and mourned the end of the caf‚-clope (espresso-and-fag). "They're taking away another part of life, but you can't fight them any more," he said.

Ban on smoking in public and work spaces was extended to "places of entertainment and conviviality". These locations, which also include night clubs, casinos and discos, had been given a reprieve to prepare for the shock.

To soften the blow further the prohibition will be policed only from tomorrow, initially sparing smokers from the ?68 (œ50) fine and proprietors the ?750 penalty for allowing the breach. The ban is not absolute because smoking will be tolerated on terraces, even if they are covered. Sealed and ventilated smoking chambers are also allowed but their specifications are strict.

Under fire from tobacconists and country caf‚ owners, Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, promised zero tolerance for offenders yesterday and said that the ban was a revolution that would improve everyone's health. About 66,000 smokers and 6,000 non-smokers die annually from inhaling the fumes of the quarter of the adult population who still smoke, the Government says.

Ms Bachelot ruled out an exception for rural caf‚ owners who say that community life will come to an end when smoking is barred from the only village bar-tabac. Ren‚ Le Pape, the militant head of the tobacconists' association, predicted chaos and said that Ms Bachelot did not know what she was talking about.

"I invite Ms Bachelot to come and see if the ban is so easy to apply as she makes out," he said. The Government's efforts to promote the new smoke-free life have not been helped by a glossy magazine spread last month showing President Sarkozy puffing a fat cigar at his desk in the �lys‚e Palace. The teetotal "Super-Sarko" is an unrepentant fan of large Havanas.

Media and the catering industry expect France to adjust to smoke-free dining, just as Britain, Italy and Ireland have done, despite resistance from die-hard addicts and proprietors. Lib‚ration, the newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, the chain-smoking existentialist philosopher, predicted: "The tobacco war will not take place.

The majority of smokers and non-smokers are in favour of the end of cigarettes in restaurants and caf‚s. Everyone recognises that smoke is harmful."

BBC