Musharaff : Bhutto's Death Her Own Fault
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Pervez Musharaff is an innocent man.He claims that neither he nor his cronies had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
"Nobody is involved from the government or agency side."
In fact, if it was up to him Musharaff seems to think it was Bhutto's own fault, asking "Who is to be blamed for her coming out (of) her vehicle?"
Musharraf says he holds Taliban warlords Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah, who are allegedly linked to al-Qaida, also responsible.
Regarding the bungled government report on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Mustaraff stated,"We needed more experience, maybe more forensic and technical experience that our people don't have. Therefore, I thought Scotland Yard may be more helpful."
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Polls: Clinton & Edwards Owned By Obama In Iowa
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Throngs of people in Des Moines braved the cold to head Senator Obama speak and he told them:
"The polls look good, but the polls don't count. The only thing that counts is that you go to caucus, that you call your neighbors, that you knock on doors. That's the only poll that counts."
Dennis Kucinich withheld his endorsement of John Edwards and asked his supporters to back Obama in the second round of voting at the caucus, saying: "I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice. Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: Change."
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Diana, Dodi & Dr. Khan: A Lover's Triangle?
2007 marked the passage of a decade since the tragic car crash that took the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi al Fayed. It also marks ten years of ferocious determination on the part of Harrod's owner Mohammed al Fayed to lay blame squarely on the shoulders of the British royal family. Some see al Fayed as a man driven mad by grief while others share his conspiracy theories.The private letters of the late princess have been read at the official inquest and they clearly illustrate her great affection for Dodi. However, the princess was also clearly fond of her former father-in-law, the Duke of Edinburgh, who she described as a man of "great understanding and tact". One has to wonder at Diana's judgment, considering that Prince Philip is famous for such acid remarks as:
"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."*
There have been reports that the late princess was only seeing Dodi al Fayed to make the true object of her affections jealous. Several publications have claimed that Diana was really in love with Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani heart surgeon. The story first surfaced in former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown's book, The Diana Chronicles.
Mohammed al Fayed is unmoved by any of the rumors. His official blog declares:
"This year has been an eventful one. Not only did we win a drawn-out campaign to have the inquests into the deaths of my beloved son Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales held together, but we overturned the ruling of Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss who wanted to hear the evidence by herself without a jury of ordinary members of the public."
* (From Prince Philip's 1987 book If I Were an Animal)
Love At First Sight For Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie confessed that it was love at first sight when she met one of the most important men in her life: Maddox Jolie-Pitt.The actress and humanitarian confessed that before meeting Maddox, she doubted whether or not she would be a good parent.
"I was always considered so dark and I thought maybe I shouldn't be someone's mom because I'm not so sure about myself - am I going to be the best mom?" says the actress and humanitarian.
But she had a life altering experience when she first encountered Maddox at a Cambodian orphanage.
"They put him [Maddox] in my arms and I stared at him and I started crying and he smiled. I hadn't held children before in my life. The fact that this little kid seemed so at ease gave me the courage to feel I could make him happy and so we became a family."
Since becoming a mother to Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh the actress has become a confident and capable parent. She says she and partner Brad Pitt plan to have more children and mused "Maybe we will have another child in 2008"
Sources: inthenews.co.uk, trandworldnews.com
Benazir Bhutto Had Vote Rigging Report
Of the many reasons Pervez Musharaff would have had to not want Benazir Bhutto alive, a glaring motive has come to light. CNN.com reports that their sources say the former Prime Minister was in possession of a vote-rigging report which she was about to hand over to US lawmakers.Isambard Wilkinson of The Telegraph writes that Bhutto ignored security warnings. In the article a US State Department official commented:
"She knew people were trying to assassinate her. We don't hold information back on possible attacks on foreign leaders and foreign countries.
"We discussed those concerns regularly both with her and officials from her party and with President Musharraf and his government.
"In every instance, we always took those concerns seriously. We were very active in trying to ensure that any information we had that was relevant to her situation was passed on to her as well as those responsible for her security."
Leonardo DiCaprio Says Drugs Are "Evil"
Leonardo DiCaprio described his childhood years as "terrifying"."Seeing the devastation on my block, seeing heroin addicts, made me think twice about ever being involved in drugs. It's evil." says the 33-year-old actor
"My mother and I lived at Hollywood and Western - a drug dealer and prostitute corner.
The absence of substance abuse has helped DiCaprio keep his feet on the ground. Though he has been liked to notorious substance abusers like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, he says:
"I don't really have an extravagant life. I don't fly a private jet. I don't have bodyguards and I don't buy crazy things.
"I'm not the sort of person who tries to be cool or trendy. I'm not interested in being a 'star'."
One of DiCaprio's greatest passions is the environment. He has produced two excellent documentaries : 'Global Warning' and 'Water Planet'. Check them out here.
Robin Thicke & Paula Patton Expecting
Hollywood gossipist Perez Hilton is reporting that R&B star Robin Thicke and his wife Paula Patton are expecting their first child.
The couple have yet to confirm the veracity of this story so stay tuned.
Mrs.Bush? Kim Kardashian & Reggie Bush Engaged
OK Magazine is reporting that 27-year-old reality TV personality Kim Kardashian is engaged to 22-year-old Reggie Bush. This will be Miss.Kardashian's second trip down the isle.
Given that Kim appeared in a graphic sex tape with failed rap artist Ray J, her married name will be most unfortunate
Clinton Trips Up Over Musharaff
From politico.com:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details.
But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot."
In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf's party will be facing off against opposition parties, the president himself is not a candidate.
"He will NOT be on the ballot," said a Pakistan scholar at Columbia University, Philip Oldenburg, in an e-mail. "These are parliamentary elections, where the contests are for a seat in the national assembly.
The prime ministerial candidate typically fights for victory in a local constituency, as well as lead[ing] the party in a national campaign."
A spokesman for Clinton, Howard Wolfson, said Clinton was referring to Musharraf's party, not the president himself.
And Oldenburg said that "how well the PML-Q, the so-called 'King's Party,' does would in effect be a referendum on Musharraf."
But Clinton's words appear unambiguously to describe Musharraf himself as a candidate.
"If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow," she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer (.pdf) Dec. 28.
"He could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election," she told ABC's George Stephanopolous December 30.
Her error was first noted by a conservative American commentator, Thomas Houlahan.
Musharaff Government Prevented Bhutto Autopsy
From cnn.com:
Ministry Backtracks on Bhutto Sunroof Claim
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's Interior Ministry backtracked Tuesday on its statement that Benazir Bhutto died because she hit her head on a sunroof latch during a shooting and bomb attack.
The two suspects (circled) who the Pakistan government believe were involved in Bhutto's assassination.
The government also published a reward offer in several national newspapers to anyone who could identify two suspects from the killing.
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told CNN the ministry will wait for the findings from forensic investigators before making a conclusion about her cause of death.
Cheema said he based his statement Friday about the sunroof latch "on the initial investigations and the reports by the medical doctors" who treated her at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
"I was just narrating the facts, you know, and nothing less nothing more," Cheema said.
"There's no intention to conceal anything from the people of Pakistan," an Interior Ministry news release said.
The reward offer, which appeared with photographs of the dead suspects, said that "the person identifying these terrorists will be awarded a cash prize of 5 million rupees (about $81,400) and his identity will also be kept confidential" -- a total reward available of 10 million.
"The response from the public has been nil so far," Punjab spokesman Ashfaq Gondal said Tuesday afternoon.
Athar Minallah, a lawyer on the board that manages Rawalpindi General Hospital, told CNN Monday that doctors did not make the statements attributed to them by the government.
The medical report -- obtained by CNN from Minallah -- made no mention of the sunroof latch and listed the cause of death as "Open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to Cardiopulmonary arrest." Read Bhutto's full medical report
Pakistan's Interior Ministry said Thursday it was from a bullet or shrapnel wound, but then it announced a day later that Bhutto died from a skull fracture suffered when she fell or ducked into the car as a result of the shots or the explosion and crashed her head into a sunroof latch.
Bhutto's family and political party maintain that the government is lying, and insist she died from gunshot wounds.
Several videos show a gunman firing a pistol toward her just moments before a bomb detonated nearby as she left a rally.
The U-turn on the sunroof claims will only heighten speculation as to the exact cause of Bhutto's death.
Minallah issued an open letter Monday and released the doctors' clinical notes to distance them from the government statement.
In the letter, Minallah said the doctors "suggested to the officials to perform an autopsy," but that Saud "did not agree." He noted that under the law, police investigators have "exclusive responsibility" in deciding to have an autopsy.
Minallah told CNN that he was speaking out because the doctors at the hospital were "threatened."
"They are government servants who cannot speak; I am not," he said. He did not elaborate on the threats against the doctors.
He said the lack of an autopsy has created "a perception that there is some kind of cover-up, though I might not believe in that theory."
"There is a state within the state, and that state within the state does not want itself to be held accountable," Minallah said.
The three-page medical report, which was signed by seven doctors, described Bhutto's head wound, but it did not conclude what caused it. It noted that X-ray images were made after she was declared dead.
The wound was described as an irregular oval of about 5 centimeters by 3 centimeters above her right ear. "Sharp bones edges were felt in the wound," it read. "No foreign body was felt in the wound."
Rawalpindi's police chief was accused Monday of stopping doctors at the hospital where Bhutto died from conducting an autopsy.
It was a violation of Pakistani criminal law and prevented a medical conclusion about what killed the former prime minister, said Minallah.
However, the police chief involved, Aziz Saud, told CNN that he suggested an autopsy be done -- but that Bhutto's husband objected.
Cheema said the government had no objection to Bhutto's body being exhumed for an autopsy if the family requested it.
Her widower,Asif Ali Zardari, has said the family was against exhumation because it did not trust the government.
Minallah said the family could not have prevented an autopsy at the hospital without getting an order from a judge.
The revelations about the exact cause of Bhutto's death came after new videotape of her assassination emerged, showing her slumping just after gunshots rang out.
The tape provided the clearest view yet of the attack and appeared to show that Bhutto was shot. That would contradict the Pakistan government's account.
A previously released videotape showed a man at the right of her vehicle raising a gun, pointing it toward Bhutto, who was standing in her car with her upper body through the sunroof. He fired three shots, then there was an explosion.
In the video that emerged on Sunday, Bhutto was standing, and her hair and scarf appeared to move, perhaps from the bullet. Bhutto fell into the car, then came the blast. Video Watch new tape showing apparent gunman »
These images seem to support the theory that Bhutto died at the hands of a shooter before a bomb was detonated, killing another 23 people.
Bhutto's husband, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday, called for an international investigation into his wife's death, saying the new video proves the Pakistani government "has been trying to muddy the water from the first day."
"Everything is now very clear that she was shot," Asif Ali Zardari said.
Zardari also called on the U.S. government to push for an international probe. "I want them to help me find out who killed my wife, the mother of my children," he said of the Bush administration.
The reward offer announced: "The public is hereby informed that the two individuals in the above photograph are the accused terrorists involved in the Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi Terror Attack, which resulted in the death of the Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and others." 'Mohtarma' is a title of respect in the Urdu language.
"The person identifying these terrorists will be awarded a cash prize of 5 million rupees (about $81,400) and his identity will also be kept confidential," said Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi -- a total reward available of 10 million.
"The response from the public has been nil so far," Punjab spokesman Ashfaq Gondal said Tuesday afternoon.
Bloodbath In Kenya
BBC reports: 30 Kenyans Burned To Death In Church
Yahoo News/AP report that the Death Toll At Kenyan Church Has Risen To 50
The AFP reports the Kenya's Poll Violence Has Escalated To 50
Odinga told the BBC: "I have asked my people to be peaceful, to desist from acts of hooliganism or thuggery, but to continue to protest peacefully, which is what we call the act of civil disobedience until President Kibaki agrees to hand over power,"
Apparently Mr.Odinga's words have fallen on deaf ears. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been trying to defuse the situation and start a dialogue between Odinga and Kibaki. Brown said: "What I want to see is them coming together, I want to see talks and I want to see reconciliation and unity. It is unacceptable that lives are being lost"
Washington withdrew it's endorsement of Kibaki as the winner of the election. US State Department spokesman Tom Casey remarked,"I'm not offering congratulations to anybody."
The tragically the violence has turned ethnic as members of each candidates tribe target one another.
The turmoil in Kenya today begs the question: what now Mr.Kibaki?
However, Mr.Kibaki was unavailable to comment at this time. The Weekly Tribune previously reported Kibaki's government suspended live broadcasting in the wake of the violence that followed the announcement of his supposed re-election. However news media has successful been able to record the horrors that occur daily in Kenya as a result of the power struggle.
Aila Hameed Says Bhutto Succession "Undemocratic" & "Ridiculous"
I think it's all quite ridiculous. He's just a kid. I am not politically inclined but I believe we need to sort out the basic problems in this country. This seems to make a mockery of it all.
At the press conference where his succession was declared, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari looked as if he had been told exactly what to say.
He cited his mother saying that "democracy is the best revenge". How can he say that after he has been appointed leader of this party? It's supposed to be the Pakistan People's Party, not the Bhutto party. It's not particularly democratic, is it?
He knows he is inexperienced and so the party has been left in the hands of his father, Asif Zardari - a man accused of all sorts of terrible things. I feel very uneasy about the future. Bilawal is not up to the task. Even if he does take control, he is going to be dictated to by his father and other party members. It is a family affair. I do not trust any of them.
Islamabad used to be a very nice city when I was growing up. We felt secure but now this country is deteriorating day by day. Life is so uncertain now. It is sad that Benazir Bhutto was killed but so many people die every day.
This is the country that 19-year-old has to understand.
Leona Lewis Slams Animal Abuse & Blood Diamonds
From tonight.co.za:
Congo Slammed By UN For Child Soldier Recruitment
The numbers of children deployed as frontline fodder have reached critical proportions, according to the charity Save the Children, with around 800 children known to have been recruited in the past year.
Current levels are estimated to be as high as 1,800 following the latest discovery, which saw pupils' books and papers burned at a secondary school in Tongo, in the Rutshuru territory, some 60 (40 miles) kilometres north of Nord-Kivu provincial capital Goma.
"Our latest information shows 200 pupils were forcibly recruited on December 17, with school materials and ID cards being burnt," said Kemal Saiki, a spokesman for MONUC, the UN mission to the battle-scarred country.
He added that child soldier recruitment is "a crime of war and a crime against humanity."
Congo's army has deployed almost 25,000 troops in the troubled eastern province to fight an estimated 4,000 men loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, whose men were held responsible by MONUC for taking the children in Tongo.
Other forces active in the volatile area include a Rwandan Hutu militia, Ugandan rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Mai Mai militia.
According to several humanitarian groups, the cashiered general's forces are also continuing recruitment in refugee camps at Kitchanga, some 50 kilometres north-west of Goma.
MONUC also strongly condemned the reported burning of houses and rape of womenfolk in the village of Shomba, again pointing the finger at soldiers loyal to Nkunda.
The spokesman added: "Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that civilians are the first to suffer from the unrest in this area, as with the whole of Nord-Kivu.
"Rape, pillage (and) the recruitment of child soldiers are practised by all Nord-Kivu fighters."
Former Child Soldier Appointed UNICEF Ambassador
From chinadaily.com:
Former African child soldier becomes UNICEF ambassador
Ishmael Beah lost his family in a rebel attack at about age 12, was kidnapped by Sierra Leone's national army and forced, along with other captured children, to fight a deadly war.
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His memoir "A Long Way Gone" was a best-seller this year, recounting his remorse over the war and how he eventually found support from a UNICEF rehabilitation program and from a new adoptive family in the United States.
"I met UNICEF at a time of my life when I had lost hope," Beah said as he was appointed UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War in a ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of the UN's convention on the rights of the child.
Education equipped Beah to become an outspoken defender of children's rights and, now aged 26, he has become a regular public speaker on the plight of children.
He said his new role as UNICEF ambassador would give him "more strength to continue to do what I have dedicated my life to, which is to make sure that what happened to me does not continue to happen to other children around the world."
The use of children in Africa's armed conflicts is still routine. Last week, some 230 child soldiers, whose average age was 14, were released from Congo's pro-government militia, according to UNICEF.
Beah said he did not want to focus only on war-ridden countries. He said social and economic disparities were the root of violations of children's rights around the world.
"Either children are leaving home because they are extremely poor, social conditions are bad, or because they're abused at home," Beah told Reuters after the ceremony.
"All of this is coming from the social, economic disparities in these places," he said, pointing to the poor condition of children in Brazil's "favelas," or slums.
He said the UN's 18-year-old international treaty had helped focus attention on children's rights but added that he was often frustrated by the slow pace of change.
"Especially when it comes to the development of international legal standards and resolutions to these problems, it develops very slowly while the problem goes on."
