In news from Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf has returned home after a four-nation trip to Europe aimed to bolster support for his government following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. In London, Musharraf met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and said elections would proceed next month.

Pervez Musharraf: “On the democratic transition, I did inform the Prime Minister our strong desire to go forward with the elections and to ensure that the election will be fair — free, fair and transparent. And that is what our resolve is, and we will have the elections on the 18th of February.”

Critics of Musharraf rallied outside 10 Downing Street. Speakers included Pakistani opposition figure and former cricket star Imran Khan.

Imran Khan: “I am here to show the contradiction of British so-called New Labour ethical foreign policy, where they are backing a military dictator in Pakistan who’s destroyed democracy in Pakistan, who sacked 60 percent of our judiciary, who’s put our supreme court chief justice under house arrest. And there is a prime minister who’s supposed to be promoting democracy and freedom all over the world. They have killed hundreds and thousands of people in Iraq in the name of freedom and democracy, and they are entertaining a military dictator.”