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Indrani Bagchi Monday June 22, 2009 A week ago, a visit by Pervez Musharraf, former Pakistan president, to Russia alerted Indian authorities.The visit was facilitated by a private businessman, but India realized quite soon that Musharraf wasdoing some facilitation of his own, preparing the way for the visit of Pakistan army chief, Ashfaque Kayani today. Musharraf, who remains very much a part of Pakistan's military establishment reportedly had a very "productive" meeting with Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin. The upshot of that meeting seems to be that Russia is willing to take another look at a defence relationship with Pakistan. Kayani went off on a short visit to Russia today, where he is to meet defence and foreign ministers and the army chief. The key question is, can this be the turning point in Russia's defence relationship with Pakistan? If Russia starts selling arms to Pakistan, it will actually be a hugeturnaround – in all these decades, Russia is pro...

Revealing excerpts from Benazir's memoirs. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] As Mr Asif Zardari, the widower of Ms Benazir Bhutto, becomes the new President of Pakistan, We look back into his wife's autobiography, Daughter of Destiny , to find out just how he became Pakistan's First Husband. So, here is the story of how Pakistan's most famous woman got attracted to a rich man's son who would, due to his connections to her , would one day lay claim to his nation's top post. In Ms Benazir Bhutto's own words: Family pressure My personal life had taken a dramatic turn on July 29, 1987, when I agreed to an arranged marriage on the prompting of my family. First whispers started earlier Soon before the family was to gather in Cannes in July 1985, my mother and Auntie Manna approached me with a proposal from the landowning Zardari family on behalf of their son, Asif. Old crush? When we were teenagers, he'd watched me enter and leave the movie theater his father owned. A...

Was President Zardari too embarrassed to decorate China's envoy that he needed to balance it with Boucher? Why Boucher was awarded Pakistan's highest civil award, the Crescent of The Great Leader? Because his government killed Pakistanis, displaced thousands of them, turned Afghanistan into a den of anti-Pakistanism, and empowered India against us? Or was the President using an official award to thank the man who helped him get his hands on his – and his late wife's – millions of dollars in illegal wealth? By AHMED QURAISHI Wednesday, 7 January 2008. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan— Why would the Pakistani president decorate a deserving Chinese official with the country's highest civilian award and then follow it up the next day by awarding an undeserving U.S. official? President Asif Zardari couldn't wait after decorating Luo Zhaohui, the Chinese ambassador, on Saturday. Come Monday, the first thing he did was to decorate Bush admin official Richard Boucher with the same aw...