This is tragic news. Benazir Bhutto’s death reminds me on how a similar situation might happen in the Philippines. I first heard of her death in Twitter. Soon , other news reports came out all over the world.
From CNN
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday outside a large gathering of her supporters where a suicide bomber also killed at least 14, doctors and a spokesman for her party said.
President Pervez Musharraf held an emergency meeting in the hours after the death, according to state media.
Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.
Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto’s vehicle
While Bhutto appeared to have died from bullet wounds, it was not immediately clear if she was shot or if her wounds were caused by bomb shrapnel.
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With her death, confusion is sure to ensue and will bring Pakistan in a worse situation.
Technorati Tags: Benazir Bhutto
Vladimir Putin is TIME’s 2007 Person of the Year
Vladimir Putin’s mission is not to win over the West. It is to restore to Russians a sense of their nation’s greatness, something they have not known for years. This is not idle dreaming. When historians talk about Putin’s place in Russian history, they draw parallels with Stalin or the Tsars. Putin, one can’t stress enough, is not a Stalin. There are no mass purges in Russia today, no broad climate of terror. But Putin is reconstituting a strong state, and anyone who stands in his way will pay for it. “Putin has returned to the mechanism of one-man rule,” says Talbott of the Brookings Institution. “Yet it’s a new kind of state, with elements that are contemporary and elements from the past.”
Runners up for the TIME’s 2007 Person of the Year include Al Gore, nobel laureate and famous for addressing the global warming issue; J.K. Rowling, the author of the best-selling 7-part Harry Potter books; Hu Jintao, China’s leader depending on both ancient wisdom and communist doctrine; and David Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq.
At least 4 died in the Glorietta Mall explosion today at around 1:30 PM. Around 45 persons were also wounded. To think Glorietta was always a favorite hangout when we used to live in Makati. I doubt that the explosion emanated from a gas leak because the explosion even blast the roof of Glorietta 2.
I am now watching the live coverage in the ANC channel and right now, the bomb squad and canine units are scouring Glorietta mall to make sure that there are no explosive remnants left behind. They have a large area to cover. Imagine 6 million square feet. There is no official report that it was due to a bomb that might have caused it.
The Glorietta is closed and there is no word when the mall will reopen.
3:30 PM
Deputy Director Gen Geary Barias declares red alert in Manila to give a sense of security in Metro Manila. According to him, the damage is extensive. There are now 5 dead .
- Confirmed explosion originated in the lobby of Glorietta 2.
- The wounded were brought to Makati Medical Hospital
October 20 update
9 people were killed by the blast now. read more here
and here is an amateur video after the blast
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NICKEL MINES, Pennsylvania A dairy truck driver, apparently nursing a 20-year-old grudge, walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse here Monday morning and systematically tried to execute the girls there, killing four and wounding seven before killing himself, the police said.
The heavily armed gunman first ordered the 15 boys in the room to leave, along with several adults, and demanded that the 11 girls line up facing the blackboard. As the gunman lashed the students’ legs together with wire and plastic ties, the teacher dashed from the room and called the police around 10:35 a.m.
The gunman, identified as Charles Roberts, 32, killed himself as the police stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School, which is set back in a cornfield on a street of stone houses, barns and silos in Lancaster County, about 50 miles west of Philadelphia. Several of the wounded were in critical condition in area hospitals.
“He wanted to find female victims,” said Colonel Jeffrey Miller, commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. “This was a target of opportunity.”
Source: International Herald Tribune
Just goes to show that “bullying” or some “childhood trauma” can be buried in one’s mind. This is a resentment that turned to revenge. Why oh why didn’t he talk to someone? Teachers need to pay attention to their students..those that are sensitive to class bullies. My heart goes out to these innocent children who are peaceful by nature.
The 44-year-old Steve Irwin’s heart was pierced by the serrated, poisonous spine of a stingray as he swam with the creature Monday while shooting a new TV show on the Great Barrier Reef, his manager and producer John Stainton said.
Marine experts called the death a freak accident. They said rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually just causes a very painful sting for humans.
Mate tells of Irwin’s last moments
A LIFE-long friend of Steve Irwin today told how the Crocodile Hunter pulled a deadly stingray barb from his own chest before losing consciousness and dying.
Friend John Stainton said he had viewed footage of his friend’s last moments and the images were “shocking”.
“It’s a very hard thing to watch because you’re actually witnessing somebody die … and it’s terrible,” he said.
“It shows that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here (in the chest), and he pulled it out and the next minute he’s gone.
“That was it. The cameraman had to shut down.”
Irwin, 44, was filming a television program on the Great Barrier Reef off far north Queensland when the drama unfolded yesterday.
Mr Stainton said Irwin’s wife, Terri, who rushed to Queensland from a holiday in Tasmania after being told of the tragedy, was putting on a brave face for the sake of her children.
“I think she’s being very strong,” he said in Cairns, where Irwin’s body has been taken.
“I think for the children’s sake she has to be strong because they’re at a very impressionable age, as you know.
“Bindi’s eight and little Robert’s coming up to three, so he may not totally understand, but Bindi certainly does.
“She’s very mindful of how she has to control her emotions to get the kids through it.”
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Can you imagine being held in captivity for 8 years. A 10 year old girl who is now 18 was able to escape from her kidnapper.
Vienna- A young woman escaped to freedom Wednesday afternoon after eight years’ captivity in Austria’s most sensational post-war kidnapping case, said initial police reports. The report said Natascha Kampusch, who disappeared without trace aged ten on March 2, 1998, had been held captive in a cellar within 30 kilometres of Vienna.
Natascha’s disappearance happened at a time when Europe was preoccupied by the notorious Belgian Dutroux case of child abduction and murder.
In 1998 she vanished on her way to school in Vienna. A nationwide search was immediately launched. Hundreds of police scoured the whole of eastern Austria. Helicopters were brought in, and rivers dragged. No trace of her was ever found.
On Wednesday afternoon a young woman suddenly appeared at Deutsch Wagram in eastern Austria. First reports said she was thrown out, or had jumped out, of a car. Austrian ORF television reported she had been seen “staggering around” in a garden.
The woman told police her name was Natascha Kampusch. Comparative DNA tests were immediately started. A nationwide search was launched for the driver of the car. Natascha’s parents were called in to possibly identify their daughter.
continue reading
Other sources : CNN-Kidnap girl: Family never gave up
From the Daily Inquirer
“This is for all the Filipinos who always watch me fight and support me,” Pacquiao said in Filipino after yesterday’s noontime bout at the Big Dome.
Egged on by the crowd that had shelled out their hard-earned money to purchase pricey tickets to watch him live, the General Santos native knocked Larios down midway in the seventh round with a solid right to the jaw and then floored the challenger again 45 seconds before the final bell with a combination set up by a crisp left jab.
There’s more to the Manny Pacquiao’s coverage. Read the Manny Pacquiao’s files where a blow by blow account is given on his every move. He’s like a hero to the Filipinos. I hope he sets a good example as a father, husband and family man.
