Zardari

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will see most of his powers stripped and his office turned into a figurehead role under sweeping constitutional changes introduced Friday and expected to be passed by parliament next week. Support is virtually unanimous for a constitutional amendment that returns the bulk of the powers held by the president to the prime minister. Zardari himself backed the change, giving in to political pressure from all sides to relinquish powers that had been acquired by military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

Britain and Pakistan sought to put a rocky week in their relationship behind them as their leaders met Friday to forge what they described as a strategic partnership based on an unbreakable bond between the two nations. British Prime Minister David Cameron and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said the shared goals of expanding trade and fighting terrorism would continue to unite their countries, regardless of diplomatic hiccups along the way. "It's a friendship which will never break, no matter what happens," Zardari said after a meeting with Cameron at Chequers, the British premier's official country residence.

Dealing a heavy blow to Pakistan's embattled government, the Supreme Court on Monday initiated contempt proceedings against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for refusing to revive a long-standing corruption case against the nation's president. Gilani, a top ally of President Asif Ali Zardari in the ruling Pakistan People's Party, must appear before the court Thursday, when the justices will listen to his explanation for not going ahead with the case. If the court moves forward with the contempt proceedings and Gilani is convicted, he could be disqualified from office and forced to step down.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The firebrand cleric who led a massive street rally aimed at bringing down the Pakistani government called off the protests Thursday after negotiating a settlement with ruling coalition leaders. The agreement between religious scholar Tahirul Qadri and government officials ended a four-day standoff that threatened to upend the country's political landscape. It calls for the antigovernment movement to have a say in appointing a caretaker prime minister to run the country leading up to elections this year.

NEW DELHI - Pakistan's president arrived in India on Sunday, the first official visit one leader of the wary neighbors has paid to the other nation in seven years. No breakthroughs were announced, but both sides hailed the meeting as a sign of easing tensions along one of the world's most dangerous borders. Spinmeisters on both sides worked overtime to lower public expectations of the "private" trip that saw Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discuss the 2008 terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, modest if expanding trade links, the disputed territory of Kashmir and efforts to bring various militants to justice.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday sought to secure help from Pakistani leaders in facilitating peace talks with Pakistan-based Afghan Taliban leaders, while the militant group denied any interest in negotiating with an "impotent" administration. Karzai's visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, came amid reports that he had said in an interview that the U.S. and Afghan governments had begun secret talks with the Afghan Taliban. In recent months, U.S. officials have been meeting with Taliban envoys to discuss the establishment of a Taliban office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

The leaders of India and Pakistan met on the sidelines of a summit in Russia on Tuesday, raising hopes that the two nuclear-armed nations may be prepared to improve their strained relations. But it was evident that last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai remain a big obstacle.

  A Pakistani American businessman told a judicial panel Wednesday that Pakistani officials enlisted him last year to deliver a memo urging Washington to help rein in the country's powerful military, saying the idea was pushed by the nation's then-ambassador to the U.S. and endorsed by President Asif Ali Zardari. Mansoor Ijaz testified that during a phone call in the days after the May 2 killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a U.S. commando raid, a noticeably agitated Husain Haqqani, the ambassador at the time, said Zardari's government was "under enormous pressure" fromPakistan's military.

On a day of delirious public celebrations over Pakistan's popular chief justice getting his job back, President Asif Ali Zardari stayed conspicuously out of sight. The 52-year-old president, whose popularity had been flagging even before Pakistan's latest political crisis, was like an unwelcome guest Monday at a raucous nationwide party, pilloried for his heavy-handed treatment of activists who championed the cause of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

In Islamabad, it's not only "the economy, stupid," it's the Islamic insurgency. Those are the most urgent threats to Pakistan, and yet it was the country's weak democratic institutions and political rivalries that nearly provoked sweeping civil unrest this week. Though partly responsible for the crisis, President Asif Ali Zardari nonetheless pulled the nation back from the brink of violence, inadvertently offering glimmers of hope in the process.