This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.

• Hope and change Pakistan candidate Imran Khan draws huge crowd in Karachi
• Turkey accuses Sarkozy of breaking promise on genocide bill
• Boko Haram claims responsibility for church bombings on Christmas
• Armed Christians and Muslims clash in Jos after Nigeria killings

Hope and change Pakistan candidate Imran Khan draws huge crowd in Karachi

Imran Khan

Anti-American hope and change candidate and former cricket star Imran Khan on Sunday drew an amazing 100,000 people to a rally in Karachi, Pakistan, the stronghold of his political opposition. In a recent interview, he said, “During a [cricket] match there comes a time when you know you have the opposition on the mat. It is exactly the feeling now, that I have all the opposition by their balls.” In a rousing speech to the biggest rally the city has seen in two decades, he said, “I promise we will end big corruption in 90 days.” This reminds me of Barack Obama’s promise to heal the world shortly after taking power, and Khan has a similar weakness in lack of experience in governing. However, like Obama in 2008, Khan has huge favorability in the polls, especially among young people and the urban middle class. He says that if elected prime minister, he would end cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against militants based in tribal areas, end the covert campaign of bombings by U.S. drones and refuse all U.S. aid, which totals some $20 billion since 2001. Telegraph and Reuters

Turkey accuses Sarkozy of breaking promise on genocide bill

Relations between Turkey and France continued to deteriorate on Sunday, as Turkey accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of breaking a promise he had made to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that France would not pass a bill criminalizing the denial of genocide in Armenia. The bill that passed France’s lower house on Thursday requires a one-year jail term for anyone who denies that Turkey committed genocide in 1915. “I myself heard that during the meetings we had together. What happened last week then? Where is the promise?” asked Turkey’s deputy prime minister Ali Babacan. “[Keeping] a promise is very important in politics. If this promise is being made by a statesman, then this binds the state and the country.” The genocide bill will go to France’s upper house for a final vote early next year. AFP

Boko Haram claims responsibility for church bombings on Christmas

Nigeria, showing major historic tribes. Northern tribes (Fulani, Hausa) are generally Muslim, southern tribes (Yoruba, Igbo, Berom) are generally Christian.

The terrorist group Boko Haram is claiming responsibility for a series of coordinated Christian church bombings in cities across Nigeria on Sunday that killed at least 39 people. Most were killed in a church in Ajuba, and others where killed in the town of Jos, in central Nigeria, and Maiduguri in the northeast. Boko Haram is an indigenous Nigerian terrorist group, but it’s believed to be developing links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and to al-Shabaab in Somalia, in order to gain international prominence. Nigerian tribes are generally split along religious lines, with Christian tribes in the south, where they were converted by French colonists, and Muslim tribes in the north, to where they migrated from the Maghreb (North Africa). AP

Armed Christians and Muslims clash in Jos after Nigeria killings

Clashes broke out between armed Christian and Muslim groups near the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, after the bombings that killed dozens of people in the region. The tensions are rooted in disputes between the Christian and Muslim tribes over control of fertile farmlands in the country’s central plateau. Guardian