Assassinated Pakistan ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal has been appointed chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) along with his father, Asif Ali Zardari.

Bilawal, 19, is a first year undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, studying history. It is believed that due to his age and inexperience, he will take a figurehead role while he finishes his studies.

His father Asif Ali Zardari will likely take immediate control of the party until Bilawal is ready to take over.

“My mother always said democracy is the best revenge," Bilawal told journalists.

Bilawal is the latest in a political dynasty that has been marked with bloodshed. His mother was assassinated on Thursday; Grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the PPP, was executed in 1979 after a military coup; and his uncles both died under unexplained circumstances.

The PPP has come out strongly in favour of contesting the planned January elections, and has appealed to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to reconsider his threat to boycott them.

It is believed Bilawal will play a key role in campaigning, the party hoping that the succession of another Bhutto will rally supporters. He will then return to Oxford to continue studying.

A Keble student has died of hypothermia on a skiing holiday after becoming lost trying to get back to his chalet.

Jonathan Hard, 21, who was studying PPE, left a late-night party without an outdoor coat and took the wrong direction back to the chalet where he was staying.

The alarm was raised the next morning after he was missed at breakfast. He was still alive when found, but died shortly after from hypothermia.Jonathan was on a ski trip organised by students at Keble, at St Sorlin d’Arves in France. He had been joined by about 100 other students.

Jonathan’s father, David, told The Times that Jonathan had been at a “Rubik’s cube party”, where guests came dressed in six different colours and swapped clothes until by the end of the night they were dressed in a single colour.“[The party] came to an end at about 1am. [Jonathan] went back to the chalet and didn’t pick up his coat. He had obviously had a fair bit to drink, but he’s done it before. He didn’t have to be terribly drunk to do that. But he headed back in the wrong direction.“I’ve no idea what he was wearing. Knowing Jon, just a sweatshirt. He collapsed and cold overcame him,” he said.The warden of Keble College, Dame Averil Cameron, said, “Everyone in the college is shocked and totally stunned by Jon’s death. He was an intelligent and friendly student who was hoping to study in the US after obtaining his degree. “Our thoughts are with his family and his friends, to whom we extend our heartfelt sympathy.”

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has today been assassinated. Bhutto was killed at a campaign rally when a suicide bomber shot her in the neck before blowing himself up, killing more than 15 people.

Benazir Bhutto studied PPE at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford between 1973 and 1977, and became the first Asian woman to be elected President of the Oxford Union in 1976.

Bhutto was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, first in 1988 when her administration was dismissed after 20 months over allegations of corruption, and second in 1993 where she was again removed in 1996 over similar charges.

While she and her party often enjoyed wide popular support, she was dogged by controversy over corruption and bad governance. From 1999 she lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai until President Musharraf signed in legislation giving her immunity from corruption charges.

She returned to Pakistan on 18^th October 2007, when her motorcade was hit by a double suicide attack that killed 136 people. Bhutto was unhurt and went on to launch herself into campaigning for the parliamentary elections in January.

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has been condemned by the US, UK and others. UK Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, said he was “deeply shocked by news of the latest attack in Rawalpindi, which has claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto and killed at least 15 other people."

Dr Frances Lannon, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, said she was “appalled and upset to hear this news.”

“Benazir Bhutto was an Honorary Fellow of the College and was held in enormous respect by myself and the Fellows of the College. We admired her bravery and her determination to play a positive role supporting democratic values in Pakistan. Our thoughts are with her husband, children and friends,” she said.

The Appellate Board investigating this term’s Union tribunal against Krishna Omkar has fully upheld the original verdict and sentence.

The appeal hearing held on 15^th December did not hear any convincing arguments to question the tribunal’s original ruling. However, the appeal process continued after the hearing while they examined the sentence and issues over eligibility for running in the re-poll that must happen at the beginning of Hilary Term.

An interim report issued today has upheld the original sentencing: that the Michaelmas Term election result should be annulled and Krishna Omkar disqualified from running in any subsequent Union elections, including the re-poll.

Following concerns that Charlotte Fischer, who brought the tribunal against Krishna Omkar, may be the only candidate eligible to run in the re-poll, the Board is now re-examining conditions for eligibility.

The final report must be delivered by 3^rd January, with the re-poll to be held Friday of 2^nd Week.

More updates soon from Cherwell24.

The PC stagnation hasn’t quite hit the banks of the River Main yet. Blair’s Christmas card bloomer a few years ago changed things slightly in the UK, but no such return to tradition seems to have taken place in Germany.

You barely feel it’s Christmas around the Frankfurt streets. In fact, the only indication of the festive season near my flat is the splattering of hoardings from local politicians eager to get their twopence (twocents?) in before the regional elections in the new year.

I’m back in London now, but I think I’m right in remembering that the left-wing Die Linke kept Weihnachten out of it completely on their ad; the centre-left SPD mentioned it in small print; and the conservative CDU splashed a massive picture of local MP Ulrich Caspar hiding inside a Father Christmas suit (which itself is a rather secular symbol). That’s a clear shift in style from the left to the right, but still it’s all rather anti-Christian, isn’t it?

Maybe the fact that 25% of Frankfurters are foreigners is a factor. It surely is. But it’s not racist to celebrate Christmas, is it?

Anyway, I should stop turning into Richard Littlejohn and wish you all a happy festive season. Or a merry Christmas, if you’re a fascist white supremacist bigot.

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Three months ago I launched this blog as a German press review. Well, ideas have moved on, and I’m now re-launching it with a view to comment on everything and anything going on in Germany — from current affairs to media to culture, or just whatever crops up. Keep posting comments below too!

The Appellate Board held today to hear Krishna Omkar's appeal against the tribunal verdict that found him guilty of electoral malpractice, disqualifying him from any future Union elections, has upheld the majority of the original tribunal's findings, Cherwell24 has learned.
The appeal process is still ongoing, as the Appellate Board will now investigate the sentencing process and the eligibility of candidates to stand in the re-poll that must now happen at the start of Hilary Term. It has been suggested that under the original tribunal stipulations, the only eligible candidate may be Charlotte Fischer, although Union sources were unable to confirm this.
More to follow on Cherwell24.

I came across a "German Newspaper Front Pages" application on Facebook. I thought it went well with this blog. Its description tells us:

This application shows a random front page of one of today's German newspapers.

Slight problem: I added it, and the page it shows on my profile reads "'Great Communicator' dies" – the headline after Ronald Reagan's death in, erm, The Sun in the USA. Mistake, surely?Add the application here.
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A book review by Christopher Perfect The obituary pages of a newspaper do not immediately strike one as the richest resource for a life-affirming celebration of the journalists’ art. On picking up Marilyn Johnson’s book, you may be taken aback by the blurb, which describes her quest to ‘search for the best bits in the English language and to seek out those writers who spend their lives writing about the recently dead’. However, despite the odd, bordering on the morbid nature of the subject, Johnson’s book is a fascinating look at an aspect of journalism which, to say the least, is unlikely to leap to mind when an average Oxford undergraduate begins to consider their future career.One aspect of the obituary writers’ task which Johnson brings out superbly is the alternating rhythm of the job. We are all aware, for example, that the obituaries of the great, the good, the notorious and the disgraced are filed neatly away in every newspaper’s archives, waiting, as it were, for the appropriate bell to toll. But what do you do when, as in one case detailed by Johnson, a journalist, famous in the 70s, but mostly forgotten, suddenly commits suicide in the middle of a 3-day snowstorm and the only available writers are too young to know anything about his life? The chapter on the sudden pressure on the New York obituary writers after 9/11 is similarly revealing.A self-confessed obituary obsessive, (and that’s quite a confession to make, after all) Johnson is expert at bringing out the characters of the men and women (mostly men, it has to be said) she meets. As you might expect, the task of writing entirely about the dead affects those who have to do it; the life of one man who combined his work as an obituary writer with a job in counter-intelligence is just one of many striking individual stories which Johnson has discovered. Whether, as she claims, many newspaper readers go straight to the obituary pages of their daily newspaper rather than the news or the sport, or whether that is simply her own way of admitting to a rather idiosyncratic hobby, is less relevant than her ability to bring out interest and entertainment in a variety of journalism that will be unfamiliar to many of her readers.

The good news: We beat Germany, and it wasn't even in a war.

The bad news: It wasn't a penalty shootout either. It was a sleaze contest.

It doesn't take much to gather that from the exhibition of post-war scandals opening at the Museum of German History in Bonn tomorrow. The curators have managed to identify 20 scandals to rock the Federal Republic since 1945, and frankly it's a poor showing.20? From 62 years? We've had enough in just 10 years for bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes to compile both The Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze and The Big Red Book of New Labour Sleaze (Dale kindly gave us this huge list too), and Major's Tories were more scandalous than a Union tribunal between Harriet Harman and a teddy bear called Mohammed.So they really shouldn't be satisfied with just 20. Am I the only one thinking Germany's a boring place to be?
Photo: Der Spiegel exposes Germany's 1971 match-fixing scandal. Reproduced under conditions specified by Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
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