Benazir Bhutto assassinated - Pakistan in crisis
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a suicide bombing at an election rally she had just addressed in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Ms Bhutto, 54, who was rushed to hospital after the attack, died on the operating table.
“At 6.16pm, she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Ms Bhutto’s party, at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
A senior official of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry confirmed that Ms Bhutto had died but there were conflicting accounts of how she was killed.
A party security adviser said Ms Bhutto was shot in the neck and chest as she got into her vehicle, before the gunman blew himself up.
“The man first fired at Bhutto’s vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up,” police officer Mohammad Shahid said last night.
There were also reports Ms Bhutto had been hit by ball bearings and pellets in the bomb hidden in the jacket worn by the suicide bomber.
Sources close to her family said the former Pakistani prime minister never regained consciousness after taking the full impact of the blast.
Ms Bhutto’s death plunges Pakistan into what many will regard as the gravest crisis in its 60 years of independence, and there were immediate suggestions last night that the national elections due on January 8 will now have to be cancelled.
Up to 20 people were also killed in the attack, which took place just after Ms Bhutto addressed the crowd of supporters.
The suicide bombing came only hours after pro-government party supporters clashed with backers of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif near the Pakistani capital, killing four people and wounding three.
The two attacks marked the worst day of violence so far in the campaign for the elections after eight years of military rule under recently retired army chief, President Pervez Musharraf.
The United States condemned the attack. Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said: “We obviously condemn the attack that shows that there are people out there who are trying to disrupt the building of democracy in Pakistan.”
Ms Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan from exile two months ago, had planned an earlier rally in the city, but Mr Musharraf forced her to cancel it, citing security fears.
In October, suicide bombers struck a parade celebrating Ms Bhutto’s return from exile, killing more than 140 people in the southern city of Karachi.
Reporters at the scene said body parts and flesh were scattered at the back gate of the Liaqat Bagh park where Ms Bhutto had spoken.
In recent weeks, suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted security forces in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital where Mr Musharraf stays and where the Pakistan army has its headquarters.
Ms Bhutto, born on June 21, 1953, in Karachi was the first woman elected to lead a post-colonial Muslim state.
She was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan being sworn in for the first time in 1988 but removed from office 20 months later under orders of then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption.
In 1993 Ms Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges.
Ms Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, where she remained until she returned to Pakistan on October 18, after reaching an understanding with Mr Musharraf under which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.
Bhutto’s father, also a Pakistani prime minister, was assassinated in 1979.
Ms Bhutto is survived by her husband, Asif Zardari, and three children, as well as her elderly mother, Begum Nusrat Bhutto.
Two arrested for Christmas Eve family murders
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A man and a woman were arrested today in connection with the brutal Christmas Eve slayings of six people in a rural community in northwestern Washington state, police said.
Sergeant John Urquhart, a King County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said a couple were being held following the grisly discovery of six bodies at a remote home in Carnation, 33.8km east of Seattle.
The victims, including a six-year-old girl and three-year-old boy, represented three generations of the same family - a couple in their 50s, a couple in their 30s and the two young children.
They were killed on Monday “apparently by gunshot”, Sergeant Urquhart said. No further information about the victims’ identities or their relationships to each other was immediately available.
Police said the alarm was raised after a co-worker of one of the victims visited the property on Wednesday when a colleague had failed to arrive for work, and subsequently discovered the bodies of three people.
Police were called and found the bodies of three more people during a search of the property, which sits on 11 acres and includes numerous outbuildings.
Sergeant Urquhart said the couple arrested in connection with the killings were in their “20s or 30s” and that they “did know the family but we don’t know the relation”. The police spokesman said it was possible that the couple lived in a home on the property.
It is the fourth high-profile shooting in the US this month, after a 19-year-old gunman killed eight people in a shopping mall in Nebraska on December 6, and a gunman carried out two shooting sprees in Colorado on December 10.
Soccer referee pulls out red card, then gun
December 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The referee, who was also a policeman, ran to his patrol car to get his gun after players mobbed him for showing the red-card to one of them, the New Straits Times said.
“We are investigating as to whether the policeman was justified in taking out his firearm and discharging it, and also why he had it with him during the match,” it quoted Hussin Ismail, police chief in the southern Johor state, as saying.
The policemen was taken into custody for suspected misuse of firearms.
Five players, aged between 23 and 40, were also being held for questioning and could be charged for rioting, the paper said.
Escaped tiger kills man at San Francisco zoo
December 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
An escaped tiger killed a visitor at San Francisco Zoo and mauled two other men today, a year after the same animal attacked a park employee.
The Siberian tiger fatally attacked the unidentified man just after the zoo’s 5pm closing time.
The tiger, a 136kg female called Tatiana, was shot and killed by police while it was on top of another victim, said zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca.
She did not have details about the victims but reports said the dead man, aged 23, was attacked near an outdoor tiger enclosure.
A group of four responding officers came across his body when they made their way into the dark zoo grounds, said police department spokesman Steve Mannina.
Then they saw another victim about 300m away, in front of the Terrace Cafe.
The man was sitting on the ground, blood running from gashes in his head. Tatiana sat next to him. Suddenly, the cat attacked the man again, Mr Mannina said.
The officers started approaching the animal, bearing their handguns. When Tatiana started moving in their direction, several of the officers fired, killing the animal.
The two injured men were in “stable but critical condition” at San Francisco General Hospital, said Lieutenant Ken Smith, a spokesman with the San Francisco Fire Dept.
Local news radio KCBS said they suffered cuts and slashes all over their bodies.
Ms LaMarca could not say how the nine-year-old tiger escaped but police were investigating.
The 40ha park was evacuated after the attack, but attendance was low at the time because of the Christmas holiday and early darkness, Ms LaMarca said.
The incident follows a December 22, 2006, attack when Tatiana ripped the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm during feeding time as horrified visitors looked on.
The public feeding house was immediately closed, and only reopened in September after a $US250,000 safety upgrade.
The zoo has four tigers but only Tatiana left the cage.
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said he was deeply saddened by the incident and said a thorough investigation had begun.
I saw mummy groping Santa Claus
December 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Santa, whose real name was not released, claimed Sandrama Lamy touched him inappropriately while sitting on his lap at Connecticut’s Danbury Fair mall over the weekend.
Lamy was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and breach of peace.
She was released on a promise to appear in court on January 3
