Pakistan Feature: The Secret, Dirty War in Balochistan (Walsh)

The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.

This gruesome parade of corpses has been surfacing in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, since last July. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accounted for more than 100 bodies --- lawyers, students, taxi drivers, farm workers. Most have been tortured. The last three were discovered on Sunday.

If you have not heard of this epic killing spree, though, don't worry: neither have most Pakistanis.

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Wikileaks Special: Dissecting the Claim "Saudi Arabia A Cash Machine for Terrorists"

A fine example this weekend of keeping a careful eye on press coverage of the WikiLeaks documents and using the original cables to reach a more considered judgement....

The Guardian of London headlines, "WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists". This is supported by the sub-headline: "Hillary Clinton memo highlights Gulf states' failure to block funding for groups like al-Qaida, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba".

Not exactly.

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