Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz sharif reaches out to his supporters outside the Allama Iqbal International airport in Lahore, November 25.

LAHORE, Pakistan, Nov. 25--Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned home Sunday to crowds of jubilant supporters, adding to the volatility of a country shaken by political turmoil and militant violence.
Sharif arrived in his home city of Lahore from Saudi Arabia, where he has spent most of his eight years in exile since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf overthrew him in a 1999 coup. He waved to the cameras from an airport stairwell, dressed in his trademark white shirt and a dark waistcoat, state television showed.
Security forces had rounded up some Sharif activists and attempted to seal off the airport. But 1,000 supporters found a way through tight security around the airport to swarm into the terminal building, waving the green flag of his party and shouting “Musharraf, go!“
Police lifted batons to drive them back from the arrivals area, but had no space to swing them amid the dancing, jubilant crowds.
Hundreds more gathered outside the airport perimeter fence and along the route into the city, where loudspeakers mounted on trucks were blaring out patriotic songs.
Sharif’s return could prove challenging for Musharraf, particularly if the former prime minister makes an alliance with Benazir Bhutto, another ex-premier who was allowed to return to Pakistan last month. But it is also a potential boon for the general, allowing him to claim that he favors a genuine return to democracy.
Both Bhutto and Sharif are seeking to return to power after Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. But the ballot, which the West hopes will produce a moderate government able to stand up to Islamic extremism, has been thrown into confusion by Musharraf’s Nov. 3 seizure of emergency powers.
Major opposition parties--including Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party--have been lining up to take part in the elections with preliminary steps such as filing nomination papers.
But Bhutto and Sharif could still agree to boycott the vote. Bhutto said Friday she had not yet decided whether to participate. On Saturday, a loose coalition of opposition groups including Sharif’s party announced it would boycott the election unless the government lifts the state of emergency, restores sacked Supreme Court justices and releases all political prisoners within four days.
After Musharraf overthrew Sharif, he gave the jailed politician a choice: accept 10 years of exile or face life in prison on charges including hijacking and terrorism. The charges stemmed from Sharif’s desperate attempts to turn away a packed civilian plane carrying Musharraf--then the army chief--back from a trip abroad.
As the Pakistan International Airways plane ran low on fuel, Musharraf used the cockpit radio to contact his senior commanders on the ground, who quickly took over the country. By the time the plane touched down in the southern city of Karachi, Musharraf was Pakistan’s new leader and Sharif was under arrest.
Sharif has been angling for a return ever since. In September he boarded a flight from London to Islamabad, but police in the Pakistani capital swiftly sent him back to Saudi Arabia.
This time, the outcome is likely to be different, with the Saudi leadership reportedly pressuring Pakistan to accept him. Saudi King Abdullah provided the plane that carried Sharif home.

WASHINGTON,
Nov. 25--Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas arrived in the United States late Saturday to take part in an international Middle East peace conference that opens next week in Annapolis, Maryland.
A plane carrying the Palestinian leader touched down at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington at 23:30 pm, reported AFP.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will top the guest list for Tuesday’s meeting that will be opened by US President George W. Bush.
The negotiators are seeking to start negotiations for a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel.
“I am going to Annapolis in an effort to realize the dream of the Palestinian people for an independent state,“ Abbas told reporters aboard his plane.
He expressed the hope the meeting will lead to the implementation of international resolutions on the Middle East crisis, a US- and European-backed international plan known as the “roadmap for peace,“ Arab initiatives as well as a vision for an independent Palestinian state expressed by Bush.
The Palestinian leader added that the anticipated presence of many foreign leaders at the conference “shows that the international community is determined to support the peace process.“
During a three-way summit in Egypt on Thursday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Abbas said they were “optimistic“ over the chances of success of the meeting.
Abbas urged the foreign ministers meeting in Cairo to seize the “historic opportunity“ that the conference provides, despite his admission that talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had failed to reach a joint document for the Annapolis conference.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 25--Prime Minister Fuad Saniora assured his country that the military was in control of the streets while lawmakers struggled to overcome a political crisis that has left the country without a president.
According to AP, the army made clear it will stay out of politics, emerging as the country’s best hope for stability.
After months of trying, the two rival camps were unable to agree on a compromise candidate to succeed pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud who stepped down Friday night, leaving a political vacuum.
In his first comments since Lahoud left office, Saniora defended his government, saying it will continue to function according to the constitution. In the absence of a president, Saniora’s cabinet, which the opposition considers illegitimate, takes executive power under the constitution.
“Our main goal in the coming stage, which we hope will not take longer than few days, will be to exert all possible efforts ... to end this situation as soon as possible,“ said Saniora.
He dismissed a declaration by Lahoud, who before departing the presidential palace at midnight Friday said the country was in a “state of emergency“ and he was handing over security powers to the army.
“There is no state of emergency, and there is no need for that,“ Saniora said. “There is absolutely no need for any Lebanese to be concerned about the security situation.
The army is doing its work and is in full control of the situation on the ground.“
The departure of Lahoud, a staunch ally of Syria during his nine years in office, was a long-sought goal of the government installed by parliament’s anti-Syria majority.

Mikhail Saakashvili

TBILISI, Georgia,
Nov. 25--Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili stepped down Sunday to start campaigning for an early presidential vote, officials said.
Saakashvili resigned as required by national law, handing over his powers to close ally, parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, said presidential spokesman Vano Noniashvili.
The parliament also voted 148-1 to endorse Saakashvili’s order to set the presidential vote for Jan. 5, reported AP.
“I’m sure that Jan. 5 will go down in Georgia’s history as the beginning of a big move forward,“ Saakashvili said in televised statement late Saturday.
Saakashvili called the election to defuse tensions after police dispersed opposition rallies earlier this month with clubs and tear gas, injuring hundreds.
The breakdown has raised doubts about the US-allied Saakashvili’s commitments to democracy and drawn strong criticism in the West.
Saakashvili, who sought to shed Russia’s influence and integrate Georgia into the West, has defended the crackdown on protesters and the state of emergency order as a necessary response to what he described as a coup attempt staged by Moscow.
Russia angrily rejected the allegations.
The US-educated Saakashvili has won praise among many Georgians for his efforts to integrate this small Caucasus nation with the West since his election in January 2004.
But he has faced growing discontent over the slow pace of reforms, persistent poverty and what critics call increasingly authoritarian policies.

SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia, Nov. 25--Russian riot police on Sunday detained opposition leaders and some 150 other protestors in Saint Petersburg as they broke up the second demonstration against President Vladimir Putin in two days.
Exactly a week ahead of December 2 parliamentary elections, anti-riot troops swarmed through Saint Petersburg to prevent a small group of protestors from marching on the historic Winter Palace, home of the tsars until the Bolshevik Revolution.
An AFP correspondent witnessed about 150 arrests, including Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the opposition SPS party and a presidential hopeful in scheduled March 2 presidential elections.
Echo of Moscow radio reported that Nikita Belykh, the top leader in SPS, was also detained.
The disturbances came 24 hours after police broke up a similar anti-Putin march of around 2,000 people in the capital Moscow, arresting chess legend turned opposition leader Garry Kasparov.
A court late Saturday sentenced Kasparov to five days in jail.
In Saint Petersburg, police could be seen clubbing seven activists from the radical leftist youth group the National Bolsheviks before forcing them into a van, along with others gathering for the unauthorized demonstration.
Other political figures detained included Maxim Reznik, local head of the opposition party Yabloko, and other leading activists with the SPS party.
Kasparov’s The Other Russia coalition accuses the Kremlin of corruption, crushing dissent, and rigging December 2 parliamentary elections to ensure victory for Putin’s United Russia party.
Putin is due to step down after a presidential poll in March, but is standing as the lead candidate of United Russia, which is forecast to win at least two thirds of seats in the State Duma.

KHOST, Afghanistan, Nov. 25--Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 65 Taliban rebels when they called in air strikes as the insurgents smuggling weapons across the border from Pakistan, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
Afghanistan has seen a steady escalation of violence this year with up to 30 percent more clashes with Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and eject 50,000 foreign troops from the country, Reuters reported.
Afghan and Western military officials say the Taliban arm and train in Pakistan’s restive border region, largely outside the control of the Pakistani government.
The Paktia provincial governor’s office said 72 insurgents were killed in Saturday’s air strike near the Pakistani border, but a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that number was “way too high.“
It is not ISAF’s policy to release Taliban casualty figures.
The group was smuggling weapons on horses and in two saloon cars when Afghan and foreign forces engaged them and called in air support, the Interior Ministry said.
Elsewhere in Paktia province, Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed four insurgents and detained seven others, the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement.
And near the provincial capital Gardez, ISAF troops called in an air strike to kill three insurgents after they were spotted planting a roadside bomb, ISAF and the Interior Ministry said.