Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, after addressing a large gathering of her supporters…

From RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters.

The bomb explodes near Bhutto’s vehicle following a political rally in Rawalpindi.

Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said. The attacker then blew himself up. The bomb attack killed at least 22 others, doctors said.

Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily guarded vehicle to leave the rally.

John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two shots rang out.

Bhutto fell back into the vehicle, and almost immediately a bomb blast rocked the scene, sending twisting metal and shrapnel into the crowd, he added.

Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto’s vehicle. Watch aftermath of the attack.

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital, less than two miles from the bombing scene, where doctors pronounced her dead.

Her body was removed from the hospital, carried above a crowd of supporters, late Thursday night, and a Pakistan Air Force plane is flying the body to Sukkur, accompanied by her husband and three children, said Pakistan People’s Party leader Sen. Safdar Abbasi.

Bhutto is scheduled to be buried in the ancestral graveyard of the Bhutto family at Gari~Khuda Baksh in Sindh province Friday afternoon, he added.

Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death.

Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock. Sharif called it “the saddest day” in Pakistan’s history. “Something unthinkable has happened,” he said. Watch Benazir Bhutto obituary »

Sharif said his party will boycott Pakistan’s January 8 parliamentary elections in the wake of the assassination.

President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning.

Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.

Rioters burned tires and blocked roads in Karachi and other cities, police sources said. Police fired on an angry mob, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, Geo TV reported.

Bhutto’s husband issued a statement from his home in Dubai saying, “All I can say is we’re devastated, it’s a total shock.” He arrived in Pakistan late Thursday.

President Bush said those responsible “must be brought to justice” and praised Bhutto as a woman who had “fought the forces of terror” He said: “She refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.”

The number of wounded was not immediately known. However, video of the scene showed ambulances lined up to take many to hospitals.

The assassination happened in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh Park, named for Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated in the same location in 1951.

The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.

Several other members of Sharif’s party were wounded, police said.

Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, hoping for a third term.

A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.

CNN’s Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday’s blast was not as powerful as that October attack.

Thursday’s attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists.

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf’s government to protect her.

Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers.

“The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf,” Bhutto wrote. **************************
Thank you CNN News and CNN’s Mohsin Naqvi contributed to this report
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I will never understand why people, who are for peace, have to die so violently.

Not only Pakistan will mourn her loss. Her passing will be far reaching…even here, to the states.

R.I.P.

World Peace,
~The Baby Boomer Queen~

Stacy Peterson still missing and Drew Peterson still suspect…

Still in BOLINGBROOK, Illinois, nearly two months after Stacy Peterson was last seen, the investigation into her disappearance and suspicions surrounding her husband have produced many intriguing questions. But few answers.

Stacy Peterson of Bolingbrook, Illinois, hasn’t been seen in public since October 28.

All the story lines, though, have led back to one house on a quiet street, and to Sunday, October 28, the day the 23 year old mother of two small children vanished.

The last time anyone outside the Peterson home talked to her was around 10:15 a.m., when she spoke briefly with a friend, Bruce Ziderich, about helping to paint an apartment he owned in nearby Yorkville.

Ziderich told her to wait until she heard from her sister, Cassandra Cales, before going to the apartment, said Pamela Bosco, a longtime family friend.

After that, the trail goes cold.

Peterson’s husband, Drew Peterson, 53, who resigned from the Bolingbrook Police Department after being named a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, has told reporters that when he awoke around 11 a.m., his wife already had left.

About noon, Sharon Bychowski, a neighbor and friend of Stacy’s, phoned Drew and told him she’d been to the market and had some candy for the kids.

Drew Peterson stopped by about 1:15 p.m., saying he had to run a brief errand, and returned about 15 minutes later, Bychowski said.

By midafternoon, around 2:30 or 3 p.m., Bosco said, Cales tried to call her sister.

Cales said Stacy had told her two days earlier that she feared Peterson might harm her and that she planned to talk to a divorce attorney the following Monday.

Stacy Peterson had told family and friends that her husband, whom she’d met six years earlier, when she was 17 and he was married to his third wife, had become increasingly controlling, following her, tracking her with GPS and calling her incessantly on her cell phone.

Two weeks before she disappeared, she had gotten a new cell number after she found her phone bill in her husband’s briefcase, with some of the numbers highlighted, Bosco said.

But one thing didn’t change: her insistence on always keeping her phone turned on, Bosco said.

So when Cales couldn’t get through that afternoon, she began to worry.

At 2:30 p.m. that day, Drew Peterson, a 29 year Bolingbrook police veteran, called work, saying he could not work his
5 p.m.~5 a.m. shift because his wife was gone and he needed to stay home with his children, Lt. Ken Teppel said.

But other stories have emerged to contradict Peterson’s account.

Around 10 that night, a friend of Drew Peterson’s stepbrother Thomas Morphey said he was home watching the World Series when Morphey called in a panic, saying he needed to talk.

Walter Martineck said Morphey told him that just hours earlier he’d helped Peterson move a large blue container from an upstairs bedroom into Peterson’s SUV. Morphey said he never looked inside the container, but it was warm to the touch and he had a terrible feeling, Martineck said.

“He took me by my shoulders, told me I can’t say anything, and he just told me that he thinks he helped dispose of Stacy’s body,” Martineck said on NBC’s “Today” program.

Peterson has denied that Morphey helped him move anything.

He has told reporters that his wife called him around 9 that night, telling him that she was leaving him. Later, in one of several television interviews, Peterson said his wife told him, “She found somebody else.”

Investigators have never confirmed reports of a container, but volunteers from the Texas based group EquuSearch who helped look for her have said police asked them to watch for a large blue plastic barrel.

For weeks, police divers searched a canal south of Chicago looking for evidence.

Cales went to Peterson’s house around 11 p.m. on October 28 looking for her sister, Bosco said. Drew was not home, but his kids were.

“They said their parents had a fight and that Stacy had gone to Grandpa’s house,” Bosco said.

At 11:26, Cales said she reached Peterson on his cell phone.

“He said, ‘Your sister left me,”‘ Cales recounted on the Web site findstacypeterson.com. She recounted what he told her next: “She called me at 9 p.m. and said she was leaving me and going on a li’l vacation…and she left the car somewhere in Bolingbrook.”

Bosco said Peterson told Cales even more.

“He said, ‘She took $25,000 from the safe, her bikini is missing and her passport is missing, she’s disappeared just like your mom,”‘ said Bosco, the last comment referring to Cales’ and Stacy Peterson’s mother, who vanished when Stacy was a teenager.

Cales said she didn’t believe any of it, starting with Peterson’s contention that he was home. She knew that wasn’t true, she wrote, because she had just been there and was sitting around the corner.

At 1:36 a.m. on October 29, Cales went to the Bolingbrook Police Department to report her sister missing, then filed another missing person report with the Illinois State Police, Teppel said.

By November 9, police were calling Drew Peterson a suspect in his wife’s disappearance and said it was a possible homicide. They also said that they would exhume the body of Peterson’s ex~wife, Kathleen Savio, saying a 2004 death that was originally ruled an accidental bathtub drowning likely was a homicide. They have not called Peterson a suspect in that case and have not released results of a new autopsy.

But for all the searches by police and volunteers, all the tidbits of information and speculation, there still have been no charges and no indication that they’re imminent.

Drew Peterson’s attorney, Joel Brodsky, even raised the possibility that Stacy Peterson’s disappearance might never be solved.

“Not every mystery gets solved,” Brodsky said. “This is not TV, it’s real life.”
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Thank you AP News
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I truly believe that Drew Peterson knows where she is…I pray for her children, family and friends…they will find her one day and it will not be a happy ending.

~The Baby Boomer Queen~

UPDATE:::Police believe that the San Francisco Tigress might have been taunted…more news on that issue…

UPDATE…REPORT:Police believe the Tigress might have been taunted…

SAN JOSE, California, states that the police are reportedly investigating whether one or more of the young men mauled by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo may have taunted the animal before its deadly rampage, a possibility the father of one of the victims said Thursday he hoped wasn’t true.

“I don’t think my son would do something like taunt animals,” Carlos Sousa told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s unbelievable, but only the evidence can prove that. And right now I can’t say much.”

His son, Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, was one of three men attacked by a Siberian tiger around closing time on Christmas. Police shot the 300 pound animal to death after it killed Sousa and severely mauled two brothers who also were visiting the zoo.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, police found a shoe and blood in an area between the gate and the edge of the animal’s 25 to 30 foot wide moat, prompting the possibility that one of the victims dangled a leg or other body part over the edge of the moat.

Police on Thursday could not confirm the Chronicle’s report to The Associated Press.

“I don’t think this deserves to happen to anybody taunting or not taunting,” Carlos Sousa told ABC. “Animals should be protected from the people and the people should be protected from the animals.”

Police Chief Heather Fong said Wednesday the department opened a criminal investigation to “determine if there was human involvement in the tiger getting out or if the tiger was able to get out on its own.”

The zoo was to remain closed Thursday.

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat and “virtually impossible.”

Instead, he speculated that visitors could have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat.

Ron Magill, a spokesman at the Miami Metro Zoo, said it was unlikely a zoo tiger could make such a leap, even with a running start.

“Captive tigers aren’t nearly in the kind of shape that wild tigers have to be in to survive,” he said. He said taunting can definitely make an animal more aggressive, but “whether it makes it more likely to get out of an exhibit is purely speculative.”

The same tiger, a 4 year old female named Tatiana, ripped the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm just before Christmas a year ago while the woman was feeding the animal through the bars. A state investigation faulted the zoo, which installed better equipment at the Lion House, where the big cats are kept.

Zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said Wednesday he gave no thought to destroying Tatiana after the 2006 incident, because “the tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.” As for whether Tatiana showed any warning signs before Tuesday’s attack, Mollinedo said: “She seemed to be very well-adjusted into that exhibit.”

It was unclear how long the tiger had been loose before it was killed. The three visitors were attacked around closing time Tuesday on the 125 acre zoo grounds. Four officers hunted down and shot the animal after police got a 911 call from a zoo employee.

The zoo has a response team that can shoot animals. But zoo officials and police described the initial moments after the escape as chaotic.

The first attack happened right outside the tiger’s enclosure, Sousa died at the scene. Another was about 300 yards away, in front of the zoo cafe. The police chief said the animal was mauling one of the survivors, and when officers yelled at it to stop, it turned toward them and they opened fire.

Only then did they see the third victim, police said.

The two injured men, 19 and 23 year old brothers from San Jose, were in stable condition Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital. They suffered deep bites and claw wounds on their heads, necks, arms and hands, said Dr. Rochelle Dicker, a surgeon. She said they were expected to recover fully.

Sousa’s parents told the AP they didn’t know why their son went to the zoo Tuesday, but it should have been a fun Christmas Day activity.

“It’s not a safe place for kids,” said his mother, Marilza Sousa. “People go there to have a good time, not to get killed.”
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Thank you AP Newa and Associated Press writers May Wong, Jordan Robertson, Louise Chu and Terence Chea in San Francisco and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.
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Police do not rule out HUMAN interaction in Tiger rampage, that leaves one dead and two more men mauled…

In SAN FRANCISCO, The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday as investigators tried to determine whether a 300 pound Siberian tiger that killed a visitor escaped from its high walled pen on its own or got help from someone, inadvertent or otherwise.

Police shot the animal to death after a Christmas Day rampage that began when the tiger escaped from an enclosure surrounded by what zoo officials said are an 18 foot wall and a 20 foot moat. Two brothers who also were visiting the zoo were severely mauled.

Police Chief Heather Fong said the department has opened a criminal investigation to “determine if there was human involvement in the tiger getting out or if the tiger was able to get out on its own.”

Police said they have not ruled anything out, including whether the escape was the result of carelessness or a deliberate act.

Fong said officers were gathering evidence from the tiger’s enclosure as well as accounts from witnesses and others.

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo and a frequent guest on TV, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat, and “virtually impossible.”

“There’s something going on here. It just doesn’t feel right to me,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up to me.”

Instead, he speculated that visitors might have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat.

Sy Montgomery, a naturalist and author whose books include “Spell of the Tiger,” said she thinks such a jump is possible. Not every tiger could do it, she said, “but like human beings, every creature has its own amazing athletes.”

Ron Magill, a spokesman at the Miami Metro Zoo, said it is unlikely a zoo tiger could make such a leap, even with a running start.

“Captive tigers aren’t nearly in the kind of shape that wild tigers have to be in to survive,” he said. He said taunting can definitely make an animal more aggressive, but “whether it makes it more likely to get out of an exhibit is purely speculative.”

The police chief would not comment on whether the animal was taunted.

The same tiger, a 4 year old female named Tatiana, ripped the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm just before Christmas a year ago while the woman was feeding the animal through the bars. A state investigation faulted the zoo, which installed better equipment at the Lion House, where the big cats are kept.

Zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said Wednesday that he gave no thought to destroying Tatiana after the 2006 incident, because “the tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.” As for whether Tatiana showed any warning signs before Tuesday’s attack, Mollinedo said: “She seemed to be very well-adjusted into that exhibit.”

It was unclear how long the tiger had been loose before it was killed. The three visitors were attacked around closing time Tuesday on the 125 acre zoo grounds. Four officers hunted down and shot the animal after police got a 911 call from a zoo employee.

The zoo has a response team that can shoot animals. But zoo officials and police described the initial moments after the escape as chaotic.

The dead visitor was identified as 17 year old Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose.

The two injured men, 19 and 23 year-old brothers from San Jose, were upgraded to stable condition at San Francisco General Hospital after surgery. They suffered deep bites and claw wounds on their heads, necks, arms and hands, said Dr. Rochelle Dicker, a surgeon. She said they were expected to recover fully.

The zoo’s director of animal care and conservation, Robert Jenkins, said the tiger did not leave through an open door. “The animal appears to have climbed or otherwise leaped out of the enclosure,” he said. But the zoo’s director admitted, “We’re still not too clear as to exactly what transpired.”

Hanna predicted other U.S. zoos would reassess their tiger enclosures if it turns out the tiger was able to leap out. He said he never before heard of a zoo visitor being killed by an animal.

“It’s much safer going to a zoo than getting in your car and going down the driveway,” he said.

The first attack happened right outside the tiger’s enclosure, the victim died at the scene. Another was about 300 yards away, in front of the zoo cafe. The police chief said the animal was mauling the man, and when officers yelled at it to stop, it turned toward them and they opened fire.

Only then did they see the third victim, police said.

About 20 visitors were in the zoo when the attacks happened about an hour before the 6 p.m. closing time, officials said. Employees and visitors were told to take shelter when zoo officials learned of the attacks, and some employees locked themselves inside buildings as they had been instructed to do if an animal escaped.

There were five tigers at the zoo, three Sumatrans and two Siberians. Officials initially worried that four of them had gotten loose.

The zoo was closed on Wednesday. Officials said they expected to reopen the place on Thursday, but the big cat exhibit will remain closed “until we get a better understanding of what actually happened,” Mollinedo said. He said colleagues from other U.S. zoos will be brought in to help re~evaluate the big cat exhibit.

After last year’s attack, the state fined the zoo $18,000. The zoo added customized steel mesh over the bars, built in a feeding chute and increased the distance between the public and the cats.

Tatiana arrived at the zoo from the Denver Zoo a few years ago, with officials hoping she would mate with a male tiger. Siberian tigers are classified as endangered and there are more than 600 of the animals living in captivity worldwide.

U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Jim Rogers said his agency is looking into the attack for violations of federal animal welfare laws.

The San Francisco Zoo is as an accredited member in good standing of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

“Animal escapes at accredited zoos are so very rare and each one is different,” association spokesman Steve Feldman said. “But we are always looking for ways to improve safety for our visitors.”
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Thank you AP News and Associated Press writers JORDAN ROBERTSON, Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, Louise Chu and Terence Chea in San Francisco, and Daisy Nguyen in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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There you have it Baby Boomers…more news on the Tiger incident…

~The Baby Boomer Queen~

Chris Brown…Christmas Video…Happy Holidays…music…you tube…

Chris Brown…Christmas Video

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEETviNu_VM&rel=1]]

San Francisco ZOO Tiger killes one and mauls two men…

The San Francisco Zoo was closed to visitors Wednesday as investigators tried to determine how a tiger escaped from its enclosure and attacked three visitors, killing one of the men and mauling two others.

Officials planned to conduct a thorough sweep of the zoo grounds during daylight. They said additional victims were not likely but they were uncertain how long the tiger, a female named Tatiana, had been loose near closing time on Christmas Day before she was killed by police.

Tatiana, a Siberian tiger weighing about 300 pounds, was the same animal that ripped the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm just before Christmas 2006.

The three men, one of them 19 years old and the others in their early 20s, were attacked just after 5 p.m. Tuesday on the east end of the 125 acre zoo grounds near Ocean Beach, police spokesman Steve Mannina said.

The two injured men were in critical but stable condition Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital after undergoing surgery to have their wounds cleaned and closed, authorities said. They suffered deep bites and claw cuts on their heads, necks, arms and hands.

The San Francisco medical examiner had not been able to identify the dead man, investigator Tim Hellman said Wednesday. The man did not have any identification and no one had called asking about him, according to Hellman.

The zoo’s director of animal care and conservation, Robert Jenkins, could not explain how Tatiana escaped. The tiger’s enclosure is surrounded by a 15 foot wide moat and 20 foot high walls, and the big cat did not leave through an open door, he said.

“There was no way out through the door,” Jenkins said. “The animal appears to have climbed or otherwise leaped out of the enclosure.”

The first attack happened right outside the Siberian’s enclosure, the victim died at the scene. A group of four officers came across his body when they entered the dark zoo grounds, Mannina said.

The second victim was about 300 yards away, in front of the Terrace Cafe. The man was sitting on the ground, blood running from gashes in his head and Tatiana sitting next to him.

The cat attacked the man again, Mannina said. The officers approached the tiger with their handguns. Tatiana moved in their direction and several of the officers fired, killing the animal.

Only then did they see the third victim, who had also been mauled.

Although no new visitors were let in after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the grounds had not been not scheduled to close until an hour later, and 20 to 25 people were still in the zoo when the attacks happened, zoo officials said. Employees and visitors were told to take shelter when zoo officials learned of the attacks.

“This is a tragic event for San Francisco,” Fire Department spokesman Lt. Ken Smith said. “We pride ourselves in our zoo, and we pride ourselves in tourists coming and looking at our city.”

There were five tigers at the zoo, three Sumatrans and two Siberians. Officials initially worried that four tigers had escaped, but soon learned only Tatiana had escaped, Mannina said.

On Dec. 22, 2006, Tatiana reached through the bars of her cage and grabbed a keeper, biting and mauling one of the woman’s arms and causing deep lacerations. The zoo’s Lion House was temporarily closed during an investigation.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health blamed the zoo for the assault and imposed a $18,000 penalty. A medical claim filed against the city by the keeper was denied.

Last February, a 140 pound jaguar named Jorge killed a zookeeper at the Denver Zoo before being fatally shot. Zoo officials said later that the zookeeper had violated rules by opening the door to the animal’s cage.

After last year’s attack, the zoo added customized steel mesh over the bars, built in a feeding shoot and increased the distance between the public and the cats.

Tatiana arrived at the San Francisco Zoo from the Denver Zoo a few years ago, with zoo officials hoping she would mate with a male tiger. Siberian tigers are classified as endangered and there are more than 600 of the animals living in captivity worldwide.
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Thank you AP News, LOUISE CHU, Associated Press Writer and Daisy Nguyen in Los Angeles who contributed to this report.
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Hello Baby Boomers…

Large animals or small for that fact…are still animals. We can lock them up in cages but that does not stop them from their most primal instinct and that is to surrvive.

The ZOOs do wonderful jobs of taking car of the animals and are the genetic resouces of all animals…

WILD animals will be wild…it is a shame that lives are lost, but these instances are far and few apart.

I end this post with the hope that family and friends of the man who was killed by the tiger will find peace some way and that the other two men will heal fast.

~The Baby Boomer Queen~

Chris Brown…Christmas Video…Happy Holidays…music…you tube…

Chris Brown…Christmas Video

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEETviNu_VM&rel=1]]

Happy Holidays Readers and Friends
~The Baby Boomer Queen~

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