Musharraf visit: a grilling

Agenda this morning commented at length on the cancellation of their interview with President Musharraf and issues surrounding his visit. They also reported on his speech to the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Auckland last night, during which it sems he received quite a grilling about human rights and the Mukhtaran Bibi case in particular. His response was to say that he had personally ordered Mukhtaran's travel ban and detention as he did not want her to tarnish Pakistan's image abroad. He also called human rights NGOs "westernized fringe elements" which are "as bad as the Islamic extremists". I think that makes it quite clear where he stands on human rights...

Meanwhile, according to Stuff, both Helen Clark and the Governor-General reportedly raised human and women's rights issues with Musharraf yesterday, so there's been some progress since the beginning of the week.