The Pakistani government has been told by its electoral commission to delay the poll scheduled for next week because of violent unrest in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The commission today advised the government to postpone the election, and a senior government source has indicated the recommendation will be accepted.

Elections are now expected to take place in six weeks. They had been scheduled for January 8 before Bhutto’s killing on Thursday during a rally of her Pakistan People’s party.

The electoral commission secretary, Kanwar Dilashad, said the new election date would be announced tomorrow.

The commission made its decision after hearing from regional officials on the “law and order situation” in the country.

Offices of the commission in 11 districts in Bhutto’s home state of Sindh province have been burned and voting material including electoral rolls destroyed.

The news will anger Pakistan’s opposition parties, which had demanded the elections take place on time despite concerns the country remains too volatile.

It will also disappoint western allies that had supported the opposition parties’ calls for no change to the date.

The commission has been accused of politically motivated decisions in the past.

For McMahon, Wrestling Means Millions Wrestling Means More Than Entertainment By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ABC NEWS Business Unit

June 26, 2007

When World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler Chris Benoit killed himself, his wife and 7-year-old son last weekend, company Chairman Vince McMahon not only had a public relations nightmare on his hands, he also stood to lose millions.

Once news of the incident spread, shares of WWE — which McMahon founded and runs — fell sharply, costing McMahon and his family a $20.5 million drop in stock value.

But don’t feel too bad. That family’s stake in the company is still worth more than $761 million. Analysts familiar with the company said the stock drop might be temporary, and shares of WWE had already started to rebound Thursday.

“It’s obviously a tragedy. We don’t expect it to have an impact on the long-term value of the WWE franchise,” said Alan S. Gould, an analyst with Natexis Bleichroeder.

Michael A. Kelman, senior media analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group, agreed that there will be little if any long-term impact.

“This is more headline noise,” than anything else, he said. WWE still has a wide range of characters and storylines, he said.

McMahons the Majority Shareholders

Media stocks in general have been down recently, Kelman said, and WWE shares took a hit after the poor performance of the movie “The Condemned,” which starred WWE personality and wrestler Steve Austin.

McMahon and his wife Linda have an iron-grip control over their company. There are 71.15 million shares of the company and the couple own 67 percent of them.

Additionally, their shares are of a special class, giving them 10 votes for every one other investors have. This gives them more than 95 percent of the voting power.

McMahon also owns more than 47 million shares of this class B company stock. His wife owns another 567,000 shares.

Stock Fluctuations

Like most other companies, WWE stock has had its ups and downs in recent weeks, and this week’s sell-off was a direct result of the Benoit killings.

On Monday, before news of Benoit broke, shares were trading at $16.38. They closed Wednesday at $15.95, down about 2.6 percent.

The stock has since rebounded and is now trading at $16.10 a share. That’s a far cry from where the stock was just on June 4, when it closed at $18.04 a share.

The McMahons’ share of the company was worth $79.2 million more on June 4 than it was on Monday, before the smaller killing-related drop.

Corporate Planes and Golden Parachutes

The McMahons waived all pay from November 2004 through the end of 2007, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Starting in 2008, they will start collecting a salary again: $850,000 a year for Vincent and $500,000 for Linda.

But just because they didn’t collect a paycheck, it doesn’t mean they didn’t get other corporate perks. For instance, last year WWE spent $44,026 for the couple’s personal use of the corporate aircraft. The McMahons are now paying for all airplane use themselves, according to a company filing with the SEC.

The couple is also well insulated against any firings.

If he is involuntarily fired for cause, McMahon would get a $4.34 million payout. His wife would get $3.4 million. The same amount of money would be paid out to their benefices if either executive dies.

If the couple decides to sell the company and the new owners toss them out they stand to gain even more. Under that scenario, WWE would also cover the couple’s tax liability from the payout: a total of nearly $10.7 million for the couple.

A Family Affair

The McMahons have also given their children lucrative jobs within the company.

Their son Shane McMahon is an executive office and earned $471,000 in 2006, according to a SEC filing. Daughter Stephanie Levesque also works for WWE and took home $353,000 in 2006. Her husband Paul Levesque is an impendent contractor with the company, earning an undisclosed sum.

Burmese police in riot gear fired warning shots to disperse more than 100 Buddhist monks who defied the military government’s ban on public assembly today by trying to penetrate a barricade blocking Rangoon’s Shwedagon pagoda.

The junta has banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a night time curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks in the capital and other areas of the country, including the largest protest in nearly two decades.

Firing shots into the air, beating their shields with batons and shouting orders to disperse, the police chased some of the monks and about 200 of their supporters while others tried to stubbornly hold their place near the eastern gate of the pagoda . Some fell to the ground amid the chaos and at least one monks was seen struck with a baton. There were unconfirmed reports of others being beaten and arrested.

Soldiers with assault rifles had earlier blocked all four major entrances to the site, one of the most sacred in Burma, and sealed other flashpoints of anti-government protests.

A comedian famed for his anti-government jibes became the first well-known activist rounded. Zarganar, who uses only one name, was taken away from his home by authorities shortly after midnight. His family said today that they were told he had been “called in for temporary questioning”.

Zarganar, along with actor Kyaw Thu and poet Aung Way, led a committee that provided food and other necessities to the monks who have spearheaded the protests. He had earlier been imprisoned twice and his comedy routines were banned for their satirical jokes about the regime.

The fates of the actor and poet were not immediately known, but there were unconfirmed reports from dissident groups of more than half a dozen other arrests.

Burma’s leaders warned monks to stop the protests after some 100,000 people joined marches in Rangoon on Monday in the largest anti-government demonstrations since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising was violently suppressed.

The junta imposed the dusk-’til-dawn curfew and ban on public assembly after 35,000 monks and their supporters defied the warnings to stage another day of protests yesterday.

In Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, more than 100 soldiers armed with assault rifles were deployed around the Mahamuni Paya pagoda, erecting a barricade and barbed wire at the gate through which monks have been leaving each day to protest.

Five military trucks were seen inside the monastery compound, while other soldiers were stationed along the road leading to the site.

“We are so afraid, the soldiers are ready to fire on civilians at any time,” a man near the pagoda said, asking that his name not be used.

If the military responds to new protests with force, it could further isolate Burma from the international community. It would almost certainly put pressure on Burma’s top economic and diplomatic supporter, China, which is eager to burnish its international image before next year’s Olympics in Beijing.

If monks who are leading the protests are mistreated, that could outrage the predominantly Buddhist country, where clerics are revered. But if the junta backs down, it risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters, which could escalate the tension.

When faced with a similar crisis in 1988, the government harshly suppressed a student-led democracy uprising. Security forces fired into crowds of peaceful demonstrators and killed thousands.

Foreign governments and religious leaders have urged the junta to deal peacefully with the situation. They included the Dalai Lama and South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel peace prize laureates - an accolade they share with Burma’s detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The US president, George Bush, announced new US sanctions against Burma, accusing the military dictatorship of imposing “a 19-year reign of fear” that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

Mr Bush said the US would tighten economic sanctions on leaders of the regime and their financial backers, and impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for human rights violations and their families.

The European Union also threatened to strengthen existing sanctions against the regime if it uses violence to put down the demonstrations.

Britain’s ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, met some of Burma’s leaders yesterday, urging continued restraint. Mr Canning said he told ministers that the “demonstrations have been peaceful and well-disciplined”.

“It will be disastrous in the eyes of the world on Burma if the authorities use force,” he told them, saying that they assured him the situation would be handled with caution.