Bhutto widower sworn in as president

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has been sworn in as president. Mr Zardari won the election on Saturday when members of the two-chamber parliament and four provincial assemblies voted on a replacement for former army chief Pervez Musharraf. Mr Musharraf resigned last month, nine years after taking power in a coup. A spokeswoman for President Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said he would strengthen democracy and help the poor. Farzana Raja said: "Asif Ali Zardari is a shield, protection to strengthen democracy and provide relief to the masses. "Democracy will work and this government will complete its five years and you'll see after five years, Pakistan will appear on the world map as new country with new hope." But President Zardari must now deal with not only a collapsing economy and a raging Taliban insurgency, but also an angry nation. Authorities have slapped on trading limits to prevent a free-fall in a stock market that has plunged 40 per cent since peaking in April. Meanwhile, the rupee is at all-time lows and foreign currency reserves have hit a nadir. Meanwhile, the US, becoming increasingly impatient with Pakistan, is intensifying its efforts to kill militants in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun lands on the Afghan border, while the militants are responding with ever more deadly strikes against the country's security forces. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is on the front line of the US-led campaign against militancy and Mr Zardari has vowed to defeat the Taliban and buttress the West's mission in Afghanistan which Mr Musharraf had supported. But many people see Pakistan's support for the US-led campaign as the cause of the blood letting and the civilian coalition has to pay more heed to public opinion than Mr Musharraf did.

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ITN | September 9, 2008