Walid Ghazal’s Weblog

Hours after surviving a suicide bombing that killed up to 136 of her supporters and maimed more than 250 others, a defiant Benazir Bhutto said today that death threats would not deter her from the quest to bring civilian rule to Pakistan.

Both she and Pakistani authorities blamed Islamic militants for the attack, although accounts of the night’s chaotic events provided by police and by Bhutto and her associates differed on several key points.

Police said the initial investigation pointed to the attack being the work of a single assailant, who first threw a grenade toward the vehicle carrying Bhutto and dozens of party members in a midnight procession through the streets of Karachi, then blew himself up in a thunderous blast a few feet from her steel-fortified vehicle.

Bhutto, however, told a news conference that there had been at least two assailants, and that shots had been fired in an attempt to disable the vehicle in which she was riding.

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 Johnnie Walker billboard in Nahr El Mot, Lebanon. Advertisers are rarely this brave, but I think Johnnie Walker pulls off an amazing bit of visual communication here. Reminds me of what used to be called the “blitz spirit” in England during World War II. Anyway, my friend noted that it give him a smile every time he drives past it, and it certainly seems to have threaded the needle when it comes to a humorous, “on brand” statement, in an incredibly difficult situation

A man leans against a wall while members of the Dominican Republic National Drug Control search his home during the “48 Hours in Action” operation that took place in several neighborhoods in the Dominican city of Santo Domingo.