Umar Mushtaq dissects the prospects of the pro-Musharraf party and says even if it wins the January elections, it will only have a razor thin majority.
This will be the fifth time that Prime Minister Sharif will pick the top commander of the country's nearly 550,000 ground troops.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The apex court within hours took suo motu notice of it and a five-member bench started hearing the case on Monday.
In the Middle East, which is already coping with the Qatar-Saudi Arabia tensions, comes another pressure point.
Ending days of speculation over their meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on September 29 in New York at the hotel where Singh will stay during his United States visit.
Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz said the Jamaat would not be able to participate in the polls as the high court had declared its registration illegal.
Polling started in Pakistan's National Assembly and four other provincial centres on Tuesday to elect a new president who will replace incumbent Asif Ali Zardari in September.
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday dismissed major legal challenges to President Pervez Musharraf's re-election even as the general reportedly made plans to visit Saudi Arabia for talks with its ruler on the possible return of former premier Nawaz Sharif.
Reacting to the embarrassing development, Khan chaired an emergency Cabinet meeting and took back the notification to extend services of General Bajwa.
Two suicide bombers rammed into the All Saints Church in the Kohati Gate area of Peshawar, Pakistan, when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was on his way to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly session.
Authorities arrange helicopters to shift Sharif to jail; 300 PML-N workers arrested.
The new missile is capable of delivering nuclear and conventional warheads up to 350 km.
Mulk, 67, is likely to be sworn in on Friday, June 1.
'It has a natural inclination to foster as much competition among civilian politicians as possible.'
Pakistan on Monday successfully test launched a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads to a distance of 2,750 kilometres, bringing most Indian cities under its range.
The flight test of the Air Launched Cruise Missile, Ra'ad, which is also known as Hatf VIII, was the seventh since it was first tested in 2007.
'The Pentagon has agreed to help suffice the country's defence needs to effectively check the imbalance of power being created by India,' Pakistan Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Hamid Nawaz said.
He said alleviation of poverty from interior Sindh will be among top priorities of his government.
Abbasi will be sworn-in in later at a special ceremony at the President's House.
PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said that they have the required numbers to form government.
'Already, there is talk of a possible extension for Raheel Sharif in the context of his perceived sterling, but incomplete work in the war against terror, as also the cleansing of crime and extortion networks in Karachi,' says Rana Banerji.
The missile, Babur-3, was fired from an underwater, mobile platform and hit its target with precise accuracy,
Amid Pakistan Army's mediation efforts, protesters have stepped up pressure on the embattled government with cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri setting yet another deadline of 24 hours for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to quit.
'Why has the rhetoric gone down on the Indian side, Durrani wondered aloud.' 'I said because almost total normalcy and peace had returned on the ground in Kashmir,' recalls Shekhar Gupta. 'The general gave me that career spook's laser look. And he said: "That situation on the ground can change in no time".' 'This was precisely when the Pakistanis began their first incursions into Kargil.' 'Durrani had been retired for five years.' 'But once the ISI boss, you are always in the know.'
Should India engage Pakistan's generals directly, bypassing Imran? Ambassador G Parthasarathy, India's former high commissioner to Pakistan, ponders Delhi's diplomatic dilemma.
The ceremony will be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The Opposition in the Pakistan Punjab assembly on Tuesday staged a walkout to protest against Saeed's detention.
A single party will need at least 137 of the directly elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
A special court trying embattled former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf ordered the government to include former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, a former law minister and a chief justice as alleged co-conspirators in the high treason case slapped on him.
Setting the ball rolling for the trial of Pervez Musharraf on a charge of high treason, a special court on Friday summoned the former Pakistani military ruler to appear before it on December 24.
General Qamar Bajwa, his colleagues say, is a firm opponent of extremism and terrorism. He may prove even more forceful in the fight against terrorism than his predecessor, who is credited with launching Operation Zarb-i-Azb, which helped lower the frequency of terrorist attacks.
Pakistani authorities executed two men convicted for attacks on the army headquarters and former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on Friday night, days after Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty.
Pakistan called in the Army to restore order after violent clashes.
'Will Muhammad Habib Zahir -- who was part of the team that arrested Kulbhushan Jadhav and went missing in Nepal -- figure in a Jadhav-for-Zahir deal?' asks Aditi Phadnis.
While ruling out the possibility of a military takeover, observers warned that the "military may move in if there is a major public disorder in the country".
'Had they struck on the night of the 1st, there would have been hell to pay and had they been able to sneak further in, we would have had a greater problem,' says Lieutenant General H S Panag (retd), the former Northern Army Commander.
Pakistan's Punjab province Home Minister Shuja Khanzada was on Sunday assassinated along with eight others when a suicide bomber blew himself up at his house in Shadi Khal village in Attock district.
