On the day she was killed, Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto intended to give two US lawmakers a dossier accusing the ruling regime and Pakistan's intelligence service of rigging upcoming elections, an aide said yesterday.
Senator Latif Khosa, a lawmaker from Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), said she planned to meet representatives Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island last Thursday evening, a few hours after the rally where she was killed.
She was preparing to give them a 160-page report of complaints on "pre-poll rigging" the government of President Pervez Musharraf and the military-run Inter-services Intelligence Service (ISI) was engaged in, Khosa said.
"[She] herself was supposed to give it to them," said Khosa who, as head of the party's election team, wrote the report.
Khosa said he did not know if Bhutto's assassination was linked to the report.
"The elections were to be thoroughly rigged and the king's party was to benefit in the electoral process," he said, referring to the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party.
In one case, an ISI major was sitting with an election official when the official rejected nomination papers of PPP candidates, he said. Another official stopped a candidate from filing his nomination in the southwestern Baluchistan Province, Khosa said.
Meanwhile, US officials said on Monday the US had provided a steady stream of intelligence to Bhutto about threats against her before she was assassinated and advised her aides on how to boost security, although key suggestions appeared to have gone unheeded.
Senior US diplomats had multiple conversations, including at least two private face-to-face meetings, with top members of the PPP to discuss threats on the Pakistani opposition leader's life and review her security arrangements after a suicide bombing marred her initial return to Pakistan from exile in October, the officials said on Monday.
The intelligence was also shared with the Pakistani government, the officials said.
Much of what was passed on dealt with general threats from Taliban extremists and al-Qaeda sympathizers and "was not actionable information."
The officials said Bhutto and her aides were concerned, particularly after the October attack, but were adamant that in the absence of a specific and credible threat there would be few, if any, changes to her campaign schedule ahead of parliamentary elections.
"She knew people were trying to assassinate her," an intelligence official said. "We don't hold information back on possible attacks on foreign leaders and foreign countries."
The official said, however, that while the US could share the information, "it's up to [the recipient] how they want to take action."
A senior election official said yesterday that Pakistan would delay elections until next month to give officials more time to prepare after the unrest that followed Bhutto's assassination.
But with the government facing calls from the US not to put off the Jan. 8 vote too long and opposition parties arguing against a delay, the official said the election commission could not hold off longer than that.
"Elections will not be delayed beyond February. We expect it to be towards the later part of next month," the official said.
The commission was to make the announcement public later in the day but was holding an urgent meeting yesterday morning to review security reports from around the country before deciding on the exact date, the official said.
"We want the delay to be minimal. But the election commission needs a realistic amount of time to get things back on track," he said.
Also See: EDITORIAL: Musharraf's empty promisesAlso See: Pakistan without Benazir Bhutto
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique