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BBC just had Nawaz Sharif on the phone.  They asked him "who benefits."   I wasn't paying full attention, but it sounded like he sort of dodged the question.  Which is probably smart.

On a side note, been switching channels around (English-only at this point, no energy to parse the Arabic coverage of this yet) and have to say BBC coverage has been a lot better than the competition.

CNN has been fairly staid.  Not terribly insightful, but not really terrible, except in flashes.  They cut away to their White House correspondent for a moment, and she had something like this to say:  "It's a holiday week in Washington, but I was just talking to a spokesperson..."  In other words, everyone was caught off guard and she had nothing to add because only the third-string is in the office today.  But CNN does seem to have this institutional need to cut away to the White House for comment, even when there's no comment.

Al Jazeera English, sadly, is completely hopeless.  This is too bad, because I usually like them, but I don't think they've done well with breaking news in the past, either.  Their correspondent was really floundering and started into a long digression on gender in Islam that I found utterly incoherent.  Poor guy, seemed a bit out of his depth.  At the moment it looks like the whole channel is run by very handsome 22-year-olds.

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 09:52:05 AM EST
I just watched BBC News coverage and found it quite good. They had an expert in the studio who had to end his intervention by saying "I don't mean that Pakistan is hopeless and will become a failed state" or something to that effect, after saying that neither civilian not military people in pakistan have any real control of the situation and that Bhutto herself had told him that nothing could be done about islamic extremism except wait for it to burn itself out.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 05:57:18 PM EST
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There was also a complete non-sequitur about "Pakistan's nuclear weapons are firmly under control of the military". I wonder whether there was something more substantial they wanted to say and it was edited out.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 06:03:11 PM EST
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The PRC has been Pakistan's ally balancing India.  The Chinese are starting to have problems with their Muslim minorities and can't be pleased with the prospects of loose Nukes in their own little 'stans.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 06:22:03 PM EST
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For all the coverage this has gotten, especially for Sharif, it remains universally unmentioned that SHARIF IS THE GUY MUSHARAFF DEPOSED IN A COUP.

At the time it was accused that Sharif tried to kill Pervez but denying his low-fueled planes the right to land at the airport, inciting the events.

I would think it highly relevant to mention this political context yet NO coverage I have seen that included Sharif and his opinions has seen need to mention this, uh, glaring 80lb gorilla when discussing Musharaff and Sharif.

by paving on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 08:25:49 PM EST
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