The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Karachi

Shops were shuttered, weddings were cancelled and daily life was on hold for tens of millions of Pakistanis as the nation mourned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

On the second day of official mourning for the slain opposition leader, most people were unable to buy food or petrol, with almost all shops, fuel stations, banks and offices closed down.

The streets of the country's main cities -- Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar -- were largely empty, and in many places there was evidence of the unrest that has left more than 30 dead since Bhutto's killing. Stick-wielding gangs roamed the deserted highways of Karachi, the country's normally teeming economic hub of 12 million people, trying to stop anyone who ventured out of the house.

"Karachi was never so quiet, so sad and so scary," said Shahana Rehmat, a housewife. "We are under virtual house arrest and about to run out of fresh food and kitchen supplies." "I have not found anything to eat since Friday," Janat Khan, a labourer, told AFP as he sat on the side of a litter-strewn road in the port city.

Aqib Khan, an IT professional from Islamabad, said he started a 19-hour drive to Karachi for his holidays on Thursday and arrived the following day to scenes of chaos. "As I entered the city we heard gunfire, saw looting and mobs ransacking public property," Khan said. "There is very little fuel left in my car and I don't think that I will be able to get out in next couple of days."

Pakistan's largest private charity, the Edhi Foundation, said they too were victims of the chaos.

"They've smashed up our ambulances," an official from the charity said. "And we don't have any fuel." In Peshawar, a frontier town in the northwest, more than 3,000 people chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and wearing black armbands tried to smash up shops in yet another show of anger. Police beat them back with batons and teargas, witnesses said.

Dozens of protesters also gathered in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's sector of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

"Benazir was the voice of the poor," shouted Nadeem, an 18-year-old bus conductor who goes by only one name.

The southwestern city of Quetta, near the Afghan border, was almost completely shut down, although some public transport was running. In a violence-wracked, alcohol-free country where weddings provide some of the only entertainment for many families, several marriage ceremonies planned for the weekend were cancelled amid the unrest.

"Guests had arrived from other cities," Waqar ul-Haq, the brother of a 23-year-old bride-to-be named Bushra, told AFP after a hotel cancelled a wedding reception in the eastern city of Lahore.

"The reception was cancelled at the 11th hour, just when everything was ready."

AFP, Story City

Hillary Clinton Friday called for an independent, international probe into Benazir Bhutto's murder, as the turmoil wracking US anti-terror ally Pakistan reshaped debate in the White House race.

The Democratic front-runner's intervention came amid rising criticism from the 2008 field of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Bush administration tactics in the war on terror and failure to neutralize Al-Qaeda. "We need an international, independent investigation into the death of Benazir Bhutto," Clinton said during a pell-mell campaign swing through Iowa, which kicks off party nominating contests on Thursday. The assassination of the former Pakistani premier was the kind of sudden, outside event with the potential to quickly roil presidential campaign plans, and revived the issues of national security and experience in the 2008 race.

An unanswered question was how the shockwaves would play out in the minds of voters in Iowa, which kicks off the party nominating season with caucuses next Thursday, and New Hampshire, which has primary elections on January 8. Bhutto's murder, and a story of its political impact, was splashed Friday across the only statewide newspaper in Iowa, but it was unclear if fallout would remain a key issue over the New Year holiday.

Veteran Republican Senator John McCain, among hopefuls taking the chance to bolster his national security credentials, earlier called for extreme care in US dealings with Pakistan.

"We want to do everything we can, but it has to be practical and it has to be achievable, and it has to be not opening another front in a war that we are overstressed with today," McCain said on Fox News. The former Vietnam war hero called for looming Pakistani elections to go forward, though he said it would be tough for the opposition to coalesce around a candidate other than Bhutto.

McCain's Republican rival Mitt Romney raised doubts over whether Musharraf could keep a lid on political unrest.

"I'm not concerned about the quality of his character, but I am concerned about the quality of his judgment in a setting like this," Romney said, and dismissed suggestions foreign policy fears could bolster rivals with more experience on the international stage.

AFP, Des Moines

White House foes renew battle Saturday on multiple fronts, through snow piled prairies and a blizzard of political ads, a tantalizing five days before their fates are first put to voters.

Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, locked in a cut-throat struggle ahead of Thursday's leadoff Iowa nominating caucuses, are straining to outdo one another with clarion calls for political change.

Republican Mike Huckabee, the come-from-nowhere former Baptist preacher meanwhile talks of triggering a political earthquake in Iowa, while the rival he elbowed out of the lead, Mitt Romney, lashes back.

Senator John McCain is plotting a comeback in his favored stamping ground of New Hampshire, which votes in a primary on January 8, with the Republican race nationally wide open with, unusually, no prohibitive favorite.

A pall meanwhile is still draped over the campaign trail after the murder of ex-Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, which refocused debate on national security and the experience and knowledge required of a US president.

Candidates will fan out across the rural midwestern state, which despite its sparse population and mostly-white demographics, plays an outsize role in testing and trimming presidential fields due to its first-in-the nation status.

Obama is vowing to redefine embittered US politics and Edwards is on a populist crusade against big business, while Clinton says only she has the top-level Washington experience to get things done.

AFP, Mumbai

Pakistan cricket legend Imran Khan warned that the South Asian nation was heading "towards chaos" and called for President Pervez Musharraf to quit following Benazir Bhutto's assassination. "General Musharraf's time is up. He should step down as there's no end to terrorism in Pakistan," Khan, who leads Pakistan's marginal Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told reporters in India's financial capital. "Pakistan is going towards chaos. Musharraf kept saying he will crush terrorismt today terrorism is crushing us," Khan added. Khan called for the setting up of a consensus caretaker government and a judicial probe into the assassination of two-time premier Bhutto. Pakistan's main opposition leader was killed in a gun-and-suicide bomb attack Thursday ahead of scheduled January 8 elections. "The upcoming elections in Pakistan are all a sham. (After Bhutto's death) who will now hold political rallies? Who knows what happens next in Pakistan?" asked Khan, who was on a private visit to Mumbai.

AP, Johannesburg

The newly elected leader of South Africa's ruling party was ordered to stand trial on corruption and other charges next year, possibly derailing his attempts to become president. Jacob Zuma will be tried in the High Court in August on charges of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud, his lawyer Michael Hulley said Friday. Zuma, 65, defeated President Thabo Mbeki last week in a bitterly contested election for the leadership of African National Congress. The battle left deep rifts in the 85-year-old ANC that Nelson Mandela led to victory over the racist apartheid state.

The ANC leader is traditionally the party's presidential candidate, and its overwhelming backing has ensured election victories first for Mandela in 1994, then Mbeki in 1999 and 2004. But the prospect of a trial against Zuma raised doubts about whether the party would back his candidacy for the next election in 2009, when Mbeki is constitutionally required to step down. A popular former guerrilla fighter, Zuma was handing out presents Friday to children at an annual Christmas party in his rural home village in KwaZulu-Natal. He would not answer questions from reporters about the charges. Zuma, who was acquitted of rape last year, has denied any corruption and has said prosecutors are trying to smear him for political reasons. In e-mail to The Associated Press, Hulley accused prosecutors of acting "with improper motive calculated to discredit Mr. Zuma and ensure that he claims no leadership role in the political future of our country." He questioned the timing of the prosecution's decision right after the ANC elections.