Shops closed in Pakistan over tax

Traders in Pakistan have again overwhelmingly supported a strike in protest against plans by the military authorities to impose a new sales tax.

Most shops are closed, with exemptions given by traders' organisations to pharmacies to allow people to buy emergency medicines.

Saturday is a full working day in Pakistan whereas on Friday, the first day of the action, many areas had local holidays -- prompting Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohadin Haider to say this made assessment of the strike difficult.

But the BBC Islamabad Correspondent says there can now be no doubting traders' opposition to the new tax. The government says that -- with only one and a half million people in Pakistan currently paying any tax -- it must increase the tax base, and the new sales tax is a major test of the extent of the military's resolve to introduce unpopular long-term reforms.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service