January 2008 - Posts
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
Long before I returned to Beijing this week, I knew winter had turned bitter in the Chinese capital when everyone's Facebook status entries started bemoaning the subzero temperatures.
So and so was "so thrilled to be freezing in Beijing."
Such and such cameraman wanted to know why his producer couldn't schedule shoots at noon, the (barely) warmest time of the all-too-short day.
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| EPA/STR |
| Two migrate workers walk past an overturned truck on a blocked road following a snowstorm in the village of Maoba, Youyang country, south-western China, on Jan. 30. |
Another joked that ten below zero was nothing: "Bring it on!"
But what we have seen in Beijing is nothing compared to what's swept across the country hundreds of miles south of us.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza – Yusuf Tayem is a victim, yet he is ultimately a story of inspiration. In some ways, he's a victim of his environment – both Palestinian rhetoric and Israeli occupation – which encouraged him to throw stones at Israeli soldiers. All the kids did on the way back from school. In America, kids may ride a skateboard home. In Gaza in 2001, kids threw stones.
One day, the stone-throwing turned especially nasty and an Israeli soldier fired back, shooting Yusuf, who was 12 years old at the time, through the neck, leaving him paralyzed below the waist. That's when we first met him – lying in his bed, pale and weak, saying, although I didn't believe him, that he was glad he could make this sacrifice for Palestine.
That was then. Today, he's also a victim of the Hamas government. He told me that because his family supports secular Fatah, Hamas refused him batteries for his electric wheelchair, although they gave them to their own disabled people.
And that's why Yusuf wasn't able to join the fun at Gaza's border with Egypt, which Hamas fighters blew open a week ago. As many as 700,000 Gazans, half the population, crossed to breathe some freedom, and to go shopping, but Yusuf wasn't among them. He couldn't propel his wheelchair through the sand of the Khan Younis refugee camp.
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By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer
RAFAH, Egypt – I will never look at bread the same way again. When we were driving through the
Egyptian border town of Rafah on Sunday, the pouring rain had turned the street into muddy, water-filled ruts.
A bent old man in a thin white gown and a ragged jacket slogged with difficulty through the cold rain, along the line of idling cars in his overlarge plastic sandals. He stopped at our window and asked for bread. One of the people in our group hastily prepared a bag of sandwich makings and bread and handed it to him. The old man turned red-rimmed eyes on us, and asked, "How much does it cost?"
He was not alone. The sidewalks were filled with Palestinian boys and men huddled under metal awnings. They had crossed the broken border between Gaza and Egypt looking for whatever they could buy due to the almost complete absence of the most basic goods in their own cities. But these stragglers, driven to Egypt by sheer need, were greeted by rain and shuttered shops.
Egyptian police, worried about the security threat posed by thousands of unmonitored visitors, have tightened the cordon around Rafah. One shopkeeper explained that Egyptian security officers ordered them to close their shops to discourage Palestinians from crossing the border. Shipments of Egyptian goods to the border town have been stopped. The attendant at a gas station packed with dozens of Palestinian trucks and cars complained that authorities had turned off the electricity so they couldn't pump gas.
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By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief
Nearly half a decade since the big bangs of "Shock and Awe," the United States and the Iraqi government are about to start writing a plan for U.S. forces to exit the war in Iraq, but not the country.
Senior U.S. and Iraqi officials will soon begin negotiating a strategic agreement to answer critical questions about the future role and commitment of U.S. forces in Iraq.
The agreement, being tentatively called the U.S.-Iraq Friendship and Cooperation Agreement, could be the most important bilateral arrangement since the war, setting up U.S.-Iraqi relations for years, if not decades, to come.
American and Iraqi negotiators so far seem to have similar visions for the agreement. Both sides see a long-term U.S. military commitment to support, equip and train Iraqi forces.
CONTINUED >>
RAFA, EGYPT -- Egyptian authorities tried to control the thousands of Palestinians flooding from the Gaza Strip into Egypt on Thursday through the breached border brought about by an explosive attack on Wednesday.
With a bird's eye view on the Rafah crossing, NBC News' Martin Fletcher reports on the scene of thousands of Palestinians racing across the border to escape Gaza and buy everything from cigarettes to cooking oil in Egypt.
Wajie Abu Zipra, a Palestinian who lives in the Gaza Strip and is an NBC News employee, describes why life is so unbearable in Gaza and why so many Palestinians are jumping at the chance to escape the area and get a taste of freedom in Egypt.
By Mark Mullen, NBC News Correspondent
The other day at a coffee shop in Beijing, I noticed a group of college students in line in front of me sharing stories of a fun night out. The students were all Westerners and, as one told me, they were here for a year of study in China.
The presence of Western students reminded me of the inverse: The large number of Chinese students on U.S. campuses, such as those at the University of California, Berkeley, many of whom I met when I lived in the Bay Area.
But there’s one big difference between these two groups of students: Since 1978, according to the Chinese government, more than 70 percent of all the Chinese who studied abroad – in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world – chose not to return home.
According to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Services, between 1978 and 2006, about 1.06 million Chinese went to study overseas – but just 275,000 returned home during that period. Of those who stayed overseas, many proceeded to graduate, find work, and become citizens of their adopted countries.
The trend often had mutually beneficial results: for example in the U.S., employers had access to many of China’s top students, and the graduates had better, more lucrative job prospects without having to compete for work in China’s employment system, which some accused of being influenced too much by nepotism and corruption.
But things now are changing. A reverse brain drain is underway. With China’s economy on fire – it’s growing at a double-digit rate each year – and the prospects of a better lifestyle available, many of China’s best and brightest are starting to return home.
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As the Chinese New Year approaches, the journey home to visit loved ones begins. For some, it's the only time of the year to visit family. NBC's Mark Mullen reports from China.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
NABLUS, West Bank – It is hard for me to describe Ahmed Sanakreh as a terrorist, although I know it's true. Hard, because I got to know him and his family quite well, and when you understand people, it's hard to hate them: Twenty-year-old Ahmed, baby-faced with black hair sticking up in gelled spikes, and a passion for his Nokia 90 cell phone; and his elder brother, Alaa, the intense, hollow-cheeked leader of the Palestinian al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. They are the hard core of the hard core.
Although Alaa was the leader, Ahmed was the one Israel most wanted dead. I often asked Alaa why his younger brother had so many bodyguards, and Alaa would only smile mysteriously. But one day he confirmed Israel's claims: that Ahmed blew up an Israeli officer, and was the bomb-maker behind other suicide bombers.
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| Samir Bazbaz / NBC News |
| The last photo of Ahmed Sanakreh, right, with NBC’s Martin Fletcher, center, and his older brother, Alaa, left, taken in his home in December 2007. He was killed by Israeli Army forces on Jan. 18. |
Alaa, Ahmed and their friend Nasser abu Aziz were my de facto guides to the Palestinian side of the second Intifada (uprising). They were terrorists to the Israelis, freedom fighters to their neighbors, and sources to me.
I quizzed them often about the latest developments. My NBC colleagues and I met them in their safe houses, hid with them in the alleys, sat in their home with their parents, and listened as their mother cried that she did not want her boys to die.
I wrote about my relationship with this band of gunmen in my book, "Breaking News," which comes out in New York on March 4. Now I'll have to update it.
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By Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief
UNICEF released its annual report on the state of the world's children on Tuesday. NBC's Richard Engel takes a look at how children in Iraq are coping with the effects of violence and poverty.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Cubans voted Sunday in national parliamentary elections — the first step toward determining whether Fidel Castro will continue as the country’s president or retire after almost 50 years in power.
The ailing Cuban leader — who has not been seen in public for about 18 months — is running for one of the 614 seats on the national legislature, making him eligible to run for president.
That presidential vote takes place Feb. 24, when the newly-elected Parliament holds its first session to elect the executive Council of State and then ratify the president.
If Fidel Castro is again elected president, his term runs for five years — making him 86 years old when his mandate would end in 2013.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Five years ago, Ian Padrón made a documentary about Cuban baseball and ran afoul of government censors.
He took government money from the Cuban Film Institute and told a story about Cuban baseball, "Out of this League" ("Fuera de Liga").
In his daring piece of work, Padrón touched on a number of taboo subjects. He looked at the tough conditions players face on the island and included interviews with athletic icons who defected to the United States to play Major League Baseball.
No surprise, government censors considered it too controversial for the Cuban public. So it ended up on a shelf – barred from playing in state-run theaters or on television.
Which can often backfire in communist Cuba – anything censored often becomes an overnight success. Cubans love nothing better than passing around forbidden material.
In fact, "Out of this League" became one of the hottest pieces of contraband circulating on Cuba’s underground market. Lots of people here in Cuba saw the 68-minute film.
Still, Padrón was frustrated.
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| AFP/Getty Images |
| Cubans play baseball in a park in Havana. |
"My work deserved a wider audience. I always argued that the Cuban public is more than capable of debating our reality," said Padrón.
Finally, someone in authority seemed to agree with him.
Out of the blue, "Out of this League" aired on Saturday night primetime TV – making television history here.
It’s not often government censors change their minds.
It also marks the first time state-owned television ran images of defectors, considered turncoats by the Cuban government.
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By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
Since Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and well before, Pakistan has been a nation battered by all sides. The frequent scene of suicide bombings, it has also been suffering under its worst energy crisis ever, often enduring blackouts in its major cities, frequent unrest on its streets and a worrisome shortage of flour and basics.
For all of its problems, it is a beautiful country, the people especially.
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| Michelle Kosinski/ NBC News |
| One of the many colorful trucks rolling down Pakistan's streets. |
If there is one image that seems to keep returning to mind whenever I think about Pakistan, it is something that is utterly unique to this place, in a world where such peculiarities are ever more rare: the eye-popping, elaborately painted trucks that suddenly jump out from the dusty brown roads like exotic birds in the sand.
The trucks are riotous explosions of color, motoring along drab city streets.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
We were on our second pass of the eastern edge of Beijing National Stadium, aka the "Bird's Nest," in the Chinese capital.
"What? Which gate?" Lao Guan, our driver, shouted into his cell phone as he reversed the minivan a second time. "This whole street has changed the past month!"
I could understand his frustration. A native who can count back to at least three family generations born in Beijing, Guan knows this sprawling city inside out. But these days he finds himself regularly stumped by its wholesale physical changes.
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| Adrienne Mong/NBC News |
| Construction around the Bird's Nest stadium. |
Our contact at the Bird's Nest construction site had arranged entry for us through the northern gate. But the northern gate Guan knew was no longer there. Instead, there were several other entrances buried in the morass of fences, upended pavement, piles of rubble, temporary workers' housing units, earthmovers, and trucks.
The swift construction of the Bird’s Nest is emblematic of Beijing's sprint towards the Summer Olympics.
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By Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com London Editor
I became a British citizen last week. During the official ceremony in the town hall of Camden Council, one of London’s 32 councils, sat several dozen people, the sorts I see every day in my adopted home.
Some women were dressed in headscarves and long skirts, others tight jeans and leather jackets. One man wore an expensive-looking pinstripe suit, while another trudged in with a knitted cap and a long t-shirt. Nobody really stood out, except maybe the young woman with electric blue dreadlocks and thigh-high moon boots.
The CD player balancing precariously on a chair in the corner lent the event an unfinished feeling, a surprise in a country that practically invented pageantry.
Nevertheless, after we listened to a welcome speech, pledged our loyalty and stood for ‘God Save the Queen,’ the woman to my right held up her new nationality certificate.
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| Brinley Bruton/ msnbc.com |
| Brinley Bruton takes her official photograph with the Mayor of Camden after becoming a British citizen. |
"I’m going to hold onto this and I’m not going to let go," she said, smiling broadly.
Most of us ‘queued’ (that’s the term for lined-up here) for an official photograph alongside a portrait of the queen and the real life Mayor of Camden, who wore a lace collar and a fur-trimmed red cloak.
Outside the hall after the event, another woman hugged an older companion, her long pink veil trembling, whether from laughter or tears I couldn’t tell.
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By John Yang, NBC News' White House Correspondent
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – It's no secret that President Bush is a man who follows the adage, "Early to bed, early to rise ... " He likes to be in bed by 9:30 p.m. and is so particular about sleeping that during the 2000 presidential campaign he was known to travel with his own pillow.
In her famous 2005 monologue at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, First Lady Laura Bush joked: "I said to him the other day, ‘George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later.’"
He appears to be following her advice.
Monday’s palace meeting with Saudi Arabian King Abdullah – an 83-year-old night-owl who often does business after midnight – is scheduled for the unheard (for Bush) hour of 9:05 p.m. In another departure from the president's usual pattern, the meeting is after dinner, not before. White House officials say the schedule was set at the king's request.
"You know, this is a matter of great sensitivity," a senior administration official said with a smile.
National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was asked if it was the latest meeting Bush has ever scheduled.
"I don't know," he said. "It sort of depends on which time zone – are we on Washington time? Are we on Saudi time? I don't know."
Scheduling official meetings late in the day is an Arab custom – the tradition stems from the fact that is so hot during the day for most of the year. Monday’s meeting with the Saudi king will be the latest night during Bush’s eight-day Mideast trip which has included stops in Israel, the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
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By NBC local journalist in Iraq*
"Wake up, it's snowing! Don't miss the view!" Those were my 13-year-old niece's words when she called me early this morning.
I felt pleasure and joy in her words, jumped out of my bed and ran to the window. It was much more beautiful than can be described; a scene I have not seen before in my lifetime in Baghdad.
My family used to call my niece Snow White because she has pale skin, very blue eyes, and dark hair – plus she was a fan of the cartoon. So today she was especially pleased, because for the first time she felt what the taste of snow was really like.
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| AP |
| An Iraqi man and his child enjoy light snow fall in Baghdad on Friday. |
Then one of my colleagues called and said, "It's snowing, dear." I answered, "Yes, it’s awesome."
We started our day at work on the balcony holding a hot cup of tea in one hand and stretching the other hand into the air to catch snowflakes. My colleagues and I were breathing in the cold air while chatting. In Baghdad, it rains, it hails, it storms, but it almost never snows.
I thanked God for granting Iraqis the chance to watch the snow falling and I prayed that God will bring peace, happiness, success, and love in each white pure piece of snow.
* The names of local journalists are not used to protect their identity.
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By Mark Mullen, NBC News Correspondent
It stands to reason that China, spending a staggering $40 billion to stage the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, wants to use the international spotlight to show how it is quickly becoming a strong, modern and sophisticated player on the world stage.
But activist groups from virtually everywhere also want a piece of that spotlight to remind the world what they think China is doing wrong – especially on issues related to civil rights, free speech, religion, its annexation of Tibet and its controversial oil trade with Sudan.
But truth be told, the prospect of demonstrating during the Olympics is nothing new. Politics, controversy and even tragedy, history shows, have often punctuated the Games regardless of the host.
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By John Yang, NBC News' White House Correspondent
After meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, President Bush made a bold prediction Thursday about a solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
"I believe it's possible – not only possible, I believe it's going to happen – that there be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office. That's what I believe."
It is a goal that has been so elusive for so many of Bush's predecessors for so long, most recently when the President Clinton-hosted Camp David summit in 2000 collapsed without agreement.
VIDEO: Bush says 'Now is the time' for Mideast peace
And as if to remind Bush of the obstacles to Middle East peace, the president's morning was full of snags.
As their news conference began in the West Bank, the two leaders couldn't even hear each other's translated remarks.
"I'm not getting it," the president said as Abbas spoke in Arabic.
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By John Yang, NBC News' White House Correspondent
At home, it seems it is the rare politician who wants to embrace President Bush.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee assails his foreign policy. Huckabee’s GOP rival, Mitt Romney, says Bush has not done enough to cut spending.
But in Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert practically tried to drape Bush, who is enormously popular among Israelis for his staunch support of the Jewish state, around his shoulders.
Thursday morning, an Israeli newspaper columnist described the display as an "embarrassing amount of obsequiousness, flattery and sweet talk."
Speaking in English, Olmert turned to his American counterpart and said: "When I look at you, and I know what you have to take upon your shoulders and how you do it, the manner in which you do it, the courage that you have, the determination that you have and your loyalty to the principles that you believe in, it makes all of us feel that, you know, we can also – in trying to match you, which we can't – we can move forward."
In Hebrew, Olmert said: "Thank God I can conduct political discussions with George Bush at my side, as one of my partners."
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
It was only a few months ago that Maulana Fazlullah, a 33 year-old firebrand Muslim cleric, was galloping through the villages and over the hills of Pakistan’s scenic Swat Valley in the Northwest Frontier Province.
Astride a white horse, sporting his trademark black turban and a black beard which engulfed the entire lower half of his face, he seemed to some at first, more of a modern day Zorro, than a deadly terrorist. But that was then. Today, the Pakistan army is at war with Fazlullah, and he is in hiding.
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| Maulana Fazlullah, seen in a photo exclusively obtained by NBC News. |
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NBC News has received this photo; the first picture of Fazlullah that revealed a clear image of the face of one of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorists.
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By John Yang, NBC News' White House Correspondent
JERUSALEM – Whenever a president participates in an event, he's carefully briefed on what's planned.
No doubt President Bush was told that when he went to call on Israeli President Shimon Peres at his official residence in Jerusalem, there would be a "children's performance," which was the guidance that was given to the press.
But from the look on Bush's face Wednesday, it seemed he didn't quite expect what he got. Outside the residence, a line of children waving U.S. and Israeli flags sang what sounded like a club remix version of the Hebrew celebratory folk song "Hava Nagilah."
At one point, both Bush and Peres stepped behind the singers. The two men started swaying slightly to the music, but stopped themselves before getting fully carried away. As they moved out of the group, Bush had to duck to avoid a waving flag.
That seemed to be the end of it.
But after the two men moved inside, a young girl appeared and sang "Over the Rainbow" in Hebrew and English. She gave each leader a red rose. Then back-up singers appeared to sing more verses. Then came a dance troupe.
At one point, Peres rid himself of his rose, handing it to one of the performers. Bush tried to follow his lead, but it was too late – the troupe had turned its back to him. So there he stood, looking a bit awkward, blushing deeply and holding the flower.
All in a day's work.
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By Stephanie Gosk, NBC News Correspondent
Maj. Andrew Olmsted was shot and killed by a sniper in Diyala province on Jan.3. His was a dangerous job in a still-dangerous place in Iraq.
Before he left for this tour, Olmsted knew he might not make it home. As an avid blogger for the "Rocky Mountain News" paper, he prepared for his own possible death by writing a final entry to be posthumously posted on his own Web site should he be killed.
He wrote, "This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published…"
The 3,000-word blog thanks his friends and family, quotes Plato and the sci-fi show "Babylon 5," and urged his readers not to politicize his death.
"If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted by our mission in Iraq," he wrote.
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By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
NAIROBI, Kenya – I was drinking lemon tea in the Bambara lounge of the Serena Hotel in Nairobi on Tuesday, as two conflicting images kept tripping over each other in my mind.
Earlier, on the way into the hotel, I had passed a long line of drivers standing by their black sedans – Mercedes, Chrysler, and SUVs of all kinds, all gleaming clean. Once inside the hotel, I was surrounded by their passengers – laughing, excited Kenyans in dark suits and ties and shiny shoes. I sat and listened and watched. They stood and hugged each other, laughed uproariously, and slapped and shook hands vigorously. I understood immediately: These are the politicians who won the elections that sparked a week of mayhem and murder.
That’s one image.
I witnessed a very different spectacle earlier in the day at the agricultural fairground, where tea with milk was all a group of refugees had to consume. An angry young man in a black shirt had pulled at my arm and jostled me, not in a hostile way, but in a bitter way, and shouted that his home was burned, his business looted, his neighbor killed, and he had nowhere to go. There were hundreds like him scattered around the benches inside the stadium sitting on the grass outside, staring blankly.
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By NBC News' Chapman Bell
Scores of members of the international press corps descended on a west London hotel on Tuesday for the political coming out of the new leader of the Pakistan’s People’s Party, 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of assassinated opposition figure and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
But surprising as it may seem just weeks after his mother was killed by a gun and bomb attack Dec. 27 during a campaign stop, little obvious security surrounded Zardari, an Oxford student who now finds himself heir to a Pakistani political dynasty.
I was only assigned to cover the event in Kensington at the last minute. Our bureau was told not to worry about accreditation but rather just to show up at the site of the press conference and we could gain access.
We arrived at the hotel and immediately knew we were at the right place due to all the satellite trucks parked on the street.
We walked up to the door just 30 minutes before the beginning of the event and entered the venue at the same time as a couple of other journalists.
No questions were asked.
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Markets are brimming, business is brisk and schools are full in Fallujah as a result of a highly restrictive security plan being enforced by the U.S. Marines. Not everyone is happy with the checkpoints controlling movement within the city, but many agree that the increased security has helped usher in a dramatic drop in violence in the city. NBC News' Stephanie Gosk reports from Fallujah.
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
MASAI MARA, Kenya – A safari guide, a baggage handler, a passenger, and a co-pilot were standing under the wing of a propeller plane waiting for a flight to Nairobi.
It sounds like the beginning of a joke.
It's not.
Here in one of the great wildlife parks, the Masai Mara National Reserve, these four people were animatedly discussing Kenya's political future in a mixture of Swahili and English. Specifically, they debated whether another presidential election could be held in three to six months. The original contest, which was held Dec. 27, has resulted in allegations of vote-rigging and a wave of violence that's killed more than 300 people.
I’ve been on vacation here, spending some time away from my usual post as an NBC News producer in Beijing, and for days, most of the Kenyans I’ve encountered in the popular safari area of Masai Mara have alternated between looking after worried tourists and monitoring the political climate in the country.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| The government sends out a text message urging for restraint. |
My safari guide, Eliud, a very well-read and thoughtful Kikuyu (the largest of Kenya's 40-odd tribes and one that is generally said to be supporting incumbent President Mwai Kibari), spent hours taking me around the Mara plains, patiently answering questions about Kenyan wildlife and politicians.
On Thursday, the morning of the opposition party's planned rally in Nairobi (the protest was later cancelled), Eliud's cell phone beeped several times.
"It's all going very high-tech," he said mysteriously. Then he showed me two text messages from the government:
"The Government of Kenya advises that the sending of hate messages inciting violence is an offence that could result in prosecution."
"The Government of Kenya advises you not to take part in any unlawful assembly that may result in violence!"
As we drove through Oloololo Gate into the Masai Mara reserve, park guards sat in the shade of a lone tree listening to the BBC World Service radio, waiting for the latest news.
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By Mark Mullen, NBC News Correspondent
With Beijing's bitter cold this time of year and Chinese schools out for the holidays, the indoor children's play area at the shopping mall where we brought our three-year-old the other day was packed.
In one netted enclosure of oversized balloons, my happily crazed daughter honed-in on one red balloon – as did two other boys – leading all three to converge from different angles at top speed. The kids safely collided about the same time with the balloon in the middle, which made for a humorous scene.
But the boys weren't amused. As my daughter fled with the prize in hand, one boy started yelling at the other and an angry push may have been involved. It was hard for me to be certain, because by then the bench where all of the grown-ups were sitting had been cleared as multiple generations of relatives rushed to the aid of their respective heirs.
While the scene was one that could be repeated in playgrounds around the world, it was a good reminder of the task all parents face in trying to teach manners to kids – a task getting more and more attention here in China.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
It was just three days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that her husband, Asif Ali Zardari announced that Bhutto, in her last will and testament, had appointed him to lead her party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
At least that is Zardari's version of Bhutto's last wishes.
Zardari then added, contrary to his late wife's wishes, he wanted to pass her mantle on to their oldest son, 19-year-old, Bilawal Zardari. In keeping with the burden of blood and dynasty, the younger Zardari quickly added his grandfather's name, calling himself Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. His grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People’s Party. The name change was symbolic. Bilawal was now a Bhutto; he had asserted his birthright to lead the party.
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| Naeem Ul Haq / EPA |
| Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, right, the son of Benazir Bhutto, carries his mother's portrait as his father Asif Zardari talks with journalists during a press conference at the Bhutto residence on Sunday. |
The elder Zardari would manage the party for his son until he finishes university; in effect he would become "prince regent." He would be the kingmaker.
He also said that Bhutto’s will would not be made public.
My immediate reaction upon listening to the Zardari was, Why not make Bhutto's will public?
I asked around and many Pakistanis felt the same as I did. Some doubt there even was a will.
CONTINUED >>
