Tying up some loose ends from recent electoral events, plus an advance look at next month’s Iranian election.

There were no big surprises in Pakistan’s election, but the peaceful transfer of power to Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League is itself a major step towards modernisation.

Pakistan votes tomorrow in an election that, for all its violence and unpredictability, marks an important milestone on the democratic road.

An occasional feature. This week it’s Paraguay, Iceland, Malaysia, Pakistan, Venezuela and Italy.

Sorry I’ve been out of town for the last week so there hasn’t been much blogging. I’ll be catching up on a few topics over the next few days, but if you’re looking for some reading material in the meantime, have a look at Terry Friel’s piece in New Matilda on the Pakistani election to [...]

An anti-blasphemy demonstration in Bangladesh raises some questions about our perceptions of religious fundamentalism.

General Musharraf returns to Pakistan with a plan to run for president – provided he can stay alive and out of jail.

Publishers are out to stop Indian universities from photocopying their books, proving that you can fight over intellectual “property” without even going near the internet.

Executions in India are so rare that one might almost forget it still had the death penalty, but Mohammed Afzal Guru yesterday became one of its victims.

Australia’s mission in Afghanistan is a failure, as Hugh White says, but that failure derives from a much larger failure of American policy.