Pakistan Braces for State of Emergency

Pervez Musharraf held a meeting this morning to discuss the declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan, says the Guardian. Although the government claimed that recent suicide attacks and recent belligerent talk from the White House—not to speak of the Barack Obama campaign—may necessitate emergency measures, opponents of Musharraf saw the move as a last-ditch effort to stay in power.

The Islamabad stock market took a dive as Pakistanis speculated on the consequences of a state of emergency: limits to press freedom, postponed elections, and most of all a weakening of the judiciary, lately the main counterbalance to Musharraf's regime. In July the Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict reinstating its chief justice, whom Musharraf had suspended, and today it hears a petition to end the exile of Benazir Bhutto. (More Pervez Musharraf stories.)