LAHORE, PAKISTAN — A day of religious gatherings by Shiite Muslims across Pakistan was violently disrupted Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid thousands of marchers in the southern port city of Karachi, leaving at least 30 dead and 60 injured.

The bombing was the fourth to occur in Pakistan during the final, climactic days of Muharram. The 40-day religious mourning period includes frenzied self-flagellations to protest the death of the third Shiite imam, Hussein, who was killed in battle more than 1,300 years ago. Hussein was a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.  Read more... (711 words, 1 image, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)

ISLAMABAD December — Rumors of a Pakistan coup sparked by a government minister being barred from leaving the country have been dismissed after briefly causing flutters in financial markets.

Political tension has risen in Pakistan since the Supreme Court on December 16 struck down an amnesty that protected President Asif Ali Zardari, several of his ministers and thousands of others from corruption charges.

Zardari can still not be prosecuted because he is protected by presidential immunity, but some opposition politicians have nevertheless called on him to step down. His spokesman said he wouldn’t.  Read more... (619 words, 1 image, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

George McGovern was a world war II hero, a principled politician and absolutely right about the foolishness of the war in Vietnam. He is thoroughly wrong about Afghanistan, though. As President Obama painstakingly explained in his West Point speech, Vietnam is a false–indeed, a facile–anology. The war in Vietnam was based on lies–the Tonkin Gulf incident–and a false premise, the notion that Vietnam would be the next domino to fall in a communist campaign to conquer Asia. (The total wrongness of this theory was soon demonstrated by the China-Soviet split and subsequent, tacit U.S.-China alliance against the Soviets–as well as a thousand years of tension between the Vietnamese and the Chinese.)  Read more... (829 words, 1 image, estimated 3:19 mins reading time)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A car bomb near the home of a Pakistani provincial government minister killed 20 people on Tuesday, a police official said, in another sign authorities are struggling against Taliban militants bent on grabbing power.

Militants who want no Western influence in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which Washington sees as critical in the battle against Islamist hardliners in Afghanistan, have not let up attacks, despite security crackdowns in their strongholds.

The blast took place in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in a market, the kind of site frequently targeted by militants seeking to inflict maximum casualties.  Read more... (674 words, 1 image, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)