PAKISTAN

If one Pakistan ruling party rally with awkward speeches, empty audience chairs and distracted crowds in a dustbowl is anything to go by, President Pervez Musharraf's days in power may be numbered.

Pakistan's Election Commission has upheld an election ban on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his lawyer said on Tuesday, barring a main rival of President Pervez Musharraf from the January polls.

Pakistan was poised to lift emergency rule on Saturday, but critics said it might make little difference for an opposition complaining President Pervez Musharraf can still engineer an election win for his allies.

Pakistan's dominant party published its election manifesto on Monday a day after its rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said his party would take part in the polls raising the prospect of a hung parliament.

Pakistani lawyers and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif took to the streets on Thursday to demand President Pervez Musharraf reinstate sacked judges.

Pakistan's Election Commission on Monday barred former prime minister and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from a January 8 general election because of his criminal record.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday he would end a state of emergency next month, bowing to domestic and international pressure to restore normal government ahead of general elections in January.

General Pervez Musharraf finally quit as Pakistan army chief on Wednesday, trading the post for a second five-year term as president and fulfilling a promise many Pakistanis doubted he would keep.

Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf said farewell to military colleagues on Tuesday as he prepared to become a civilian president ahead of January's general election.

Back in Pakistan from exile, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was due to file nomination papers on Monday for polls in January, but he may not take part unless President Pervez Musharraf ends emergency rule.

An Indian film will be released officially Friday in Pakistan, a first for two countries that have banned each other's films for more than three decades.

Nearly simultaneous explosions from homemade bombs planted outside courts in three northern Indian cities killed at least 13 people in what a senior government official said were terrorist strikes. Officials said 59 people were wounded in the blasts at Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow, all in the populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Many of the dead were lawyers.

Naguib Sawiris, the billionaire head of Egyptian cell phone group Orascom Telecom, has approached Vivendi about a possible telecoms tie-up but the pair failed to agree on price, Les Echos said on Friday.

Exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man President Pervez Musharraf deposed, is set to return to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia within days, aides said on Friday.

Pakistan's Supreme Court, stacked with judges friendly to President Pervez Musharraf, on Thursday threw out a final challenge to his re-election and paved the way for him to quit as army chief.

A summit of the 53-nation Commonwealth this weekend will be dominated by a decision on whether to suspend Pakistan for a second time because of President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday expecting to be sworn in as a civilian leader in days, having already freed thousands of detainees held under emergency rule.

Pakistan freed thousands of lawyers and opposition activists held under emergency powers on Tuesday, as President Pervez Musharraf arrived in Saudi Arabia, where old foe Nawaz Sharif lives in exile.

President Pervez Musharraf, defending his decision to declare emergency rule, has said Pakistan's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands if elections led to disturbances.

U.S. envoy John Negroponte spoke to Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday and said moderate forces should work together to put the country back on a democratic path.

Southeast Asian nations plan to sign a charter in Singapore next week aiming for lofty goals in areas such as free trade and human rights even as the 40-year-old group wrestles with how to handle the divisive issue of Myanmar. The West has urged the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) to put more pressure on Myanmar's junta after its crackdown on pro-democracy protests, but the group's principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs is likely to prevail.