Here's a round-up of reaction from a variety of Canadian, U.S. and British publications.

The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee took a harsh, if realistic, line on Bhutto's legacy:

Few world leaders have raised such extravagant expectations as Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto.

Smart, brave, glamorous, she charmed the world when she became the first woman elected prime minister of a Muslim nation at age 35 and charmed it again when she returned from exile this fall to defy death threats and campaign for democracy.

Here, dreamed the outside world, was the woman who might "fix" Pakistan, transforming a chaotic nuclear-armed nation of 160 million into a functioning, progressive Islamic state.

Fond hope. The sad truth is that in two terms as prime minister and a quarter century in the political game, Ms. Bhutto made very little difference to the feudal, often poisonous nature of Pakistani politics.

In fact, in many ways she embodied it.

Her stints as prime minister were marked by the same corruption that seems to cling to every Pakistani regime. Like every leader of Pakistan, she played footsie with Islamic extremists, helping the Taliban's rise to power in neighbouring Afghanistan. And like every civilian leader of Pakistan, she made backroom deals with the all-powerful armed forces, undermining her claims to be a bold crusader against military rule.

Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah, a student activist in Pakistan in the 1960s, had this to say in the Globe on the corruption issue:

Why did they have to kill her? If she was as corrupt as her critics claim, couldn't they have bought her loyalties? Her killers, however, knew that the woman who spent years in jail, lived in exile for a decade, had one thing on her mind: the end of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. For that, and for the fact that she was a woman, she had to be eliminated.

Also writing in the Globe, Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid had a much kinder view of Bhutto's efforts:

Her death also leaves Pakistan's political system hollow. Twice elected prime minister in the 1990s, twice dismissed on charges of corruption and incompetence by the military, Ms. Bhutto remained a giant of a politician in a land of political pygmies and acolytes of the military.

In recent weeks, she took on the Taliban extremists in a frontal way - something Mr. Musharraf has not dared to do during his eight-year tenure. She demanded an end to interference by the military in the political process but, at the same time, expressed her willingness to work with the army if it supported democracy. She and her party commanded the diehard loyalty of at least a third of the electorate, who were vehemently against army rule and Islamic extremism.

Ms. Bhutto and the PPP were the closest the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has ever gotten to espousing a secular, democratic political culture. In a country where the only recent political advances have been made by the Pakistani Taliban, who have seized large chunks of territory, such a role was immensely brave and necessary.

Rashid, author of Jihad: The rise of militant Islam in Central Asia, said much now depends on Pakistan's army and whether it will allow the formation of a national democratic government in Pakistan.

The NYT's David Rohde had this to say about President Pervez Musharraf:

Analysts said the assassination would hurt Mr. Musharraf politically and place him in one of the most difficult positions of his turbulent eight years in power.

At the core of Mr. Musharraf’s problem is a widespread perception that he did too little to protect Ms. Bhutto or that his government carried out the killing itself, analysts said.

On Thursday, members of Ms. Bhutto’s party accused Mr. Musharraf’s government of exactly that. And Mr. Musharraf’s own supporters blamed the government for lax security.

“The government had responsibility to ensure that she was safe,” said Ikram Sehgal, a Pakistani security expert who served in the military with Mr. Musharraf. “There was a concerted effort to get her.”

Rohde said there are risks in virtually any course of action, from re-imposing martial law to allowing elections to proceed. Ultimately, however, Musharraf's fate is still tied to the army's reaction.

In the end, the arbiter of power in Pakistan will be the country’s powerful army, according to analysts. Under pressure from the United States, Mr. Musharraf resigned last month from his post as army chief and became a civilian president. While the army is headed by generals appointed by Mr. Musharraf, he is not guaranteed their support.

“An awful lot depends on how the army reacts,” Ms. Schaffer said. “Do they clamp down? Are they reluctant to clamp down? Do they blame Musharraf?”

As you may know, the unstable Islamic state of Pakistan is a nuclear power. From the Guardian:

The Pentagon is working on a series of contingency plans to prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamist radicals and insisted today that the arsenal was safe in spite of the upheaval in the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

"Our assessment is that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Gary Keck. "At this time, we have no need for concern."

But he was speaking about the present position. The Bush administration is less confident about the future.

The US administration has spent $100 million (£50 million) over the last six years on improving the security of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

One of the contingency plans would involve US special forces, working in conjunction with Pakistan's military and intelligence services, to spirit away any weapons at imminent risk.

But the US cannot be confident that the Pakistan military would co-operate at such a time.

This Guardian timeline charts the growth of instability in Pakistan since Musharraf tried to dismiss the chief justice of the country's supreme court.

So what could help Pakistan become more stable? Here is author Tariq Ali's suggestion of how some good could come out of this tragedy, as published in the Guardian:

Pakistan desperately needs a political party that can speak for the social needs of a bulk of the people. The People's party founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was built by the activists of the only popular mass movement the country has known: students, peasants and workers who fought for three months in 1968-69 to topple the country's first military dictator. They saw it as their party, and that feeling persists in some parts of the country to this day, despite everything.

Benazir's horrific death should give her colleagues pause for reflection. To be dependent on a person or a family may be necessary at certain times, but it is a structural weakness, not a strength for a political organisation. The People's party needs to be refounded as a modern and democratic organisation, open to honest debate and discussion, defending social and human rights, uniting the many disparate groups and individuals in Pakistan desperate for any halfway decent alternative, and coming forward with concrete proposals to stabilise occupied and war-torn Afghanistan. This can and should be done. The Bhutto family should not be asked for any more sacrifices.

The Guardian's Julian Borger wrote the following:

In the short term,  (the PPP) is likely to benefit from an outpouring of public sympathy, but in the longer term, it does not have a unifying leader to channel that momentum. Bhutto had blocked the rise of any political heirs apparent, and it will take some time for a credible replacement to emerge.

For all those reasons, the (Jan. 8) elections could well be put off. The question then is whether Pakistan's precarious balance can be maintained in the interim. ...

"The political destinies of Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto were seen increasingly as interlocked," Farzana Shaikh, an analyst at the Chatham House thinktank, said. "The question now is whether, with one of them permanently removed, can the other survive, can Musharraf continue at the helm?"

The answer to that depends in part on his successor as army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who, although a protege of the president, must consider whether his mentor has become an impediment to stability.

"He will listen carefully to what Musharraf has to say, but his decision will be geared to security interests of the army, and the country," Shaikh said.