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Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Former Pakistani Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in an election-rally attack
in Rawalpindi, threatening the stability of a nuclear-armed
nation that is a focal point of the West's war on terror.
Ms. Bhutto's companions said she died at 6:16 pm, of gunshot
wounds.
At least 16 other people died and more than 60 were injured in the
gunfire-and-bomb attack on Bhutto's rally, police said. The
opposition leader, 54, had survived a previous attempt on
her life when she returned from exile two months ago.
Rioting broke out as her supporters gathered outside the
hospital where her death was confirmed and in cities across
Pakistan. Hundreds of Bhutto's supporters followed her
coffin as it was carried from the hospital to an air base,
according to images broadcast on GEO television. They waved
party flags and chanted slogans of `long live Bhutto.'
The time of the attack is difficult to determine, but was
apparently about an hour before Ms Bhutto died, probably
near 17:15 local time (12:15 GMT).
The GCP event period is 8 hours from 11:00 to 19:00, GMT,
which includes an hour before the attack and several hours
following her death, until midnight local time, to capture the
highly emotional period as the news spread.
Chisquare is 28817 on 28800 df, for p = 0.471 and Z = 0.074.
While there is a very strong spike preceding the attack,
the aftermath period shows no significant trend, at least
nothing to parallel the depth of the tragedy and its
implications. Because of the calamitous nature of the event,
we have undertaken some post facto explorations, shown
below.
We have seen several major global events with relatively limited early effects
(e.g. Tsunami, Katrina) that later developed strong trends.
There is some suggestion of this in the following graph,
which looks at some 36 hours following the assassination.
Variance
We also look at the device variance, that is, the variability
among the Eggs each second. The following graph shows the 24
hour GMT day, with the time of the attack marked. This is
the absolute value of the cumulative deviation (meaning that
both increased and decreased variance, or change from
expectation are shown as positive deviations).
There is a noticeable spike around the time of the
assassination. This also occurred for 9/11, but in that case
the spike was almost three times larger. Nevertheless, the
timing is noteworthy.
Finally, a striking anecdotal report of a "premonition" of
this tragedy: A GCP correspondent teaches a Deep Relaxation Meditation, and
had a note on December 23 2007 from a student, thanking him
for meditation advice.
The student also related an unexpected experience:
I wanted to ask you if it
is common to have a vision upon completing a meditation
session because I
had one and this has never happened to me before. I had not
watched any news
prior to the meditation and I had not recently read a
newspaper or even had
any political thoughts. In the vision I clearly see the
former Pakistani PM
Benazir Bhutto at a ceremony where she is surrounded by
people and she is
placing her feet into a large silver bowl and she is going
to have her feet
washed for some reason unknown to me. It is at that moment
when a man runs
into the center of the ceremony and detonates himself from
what is
apparently a bomb harness. The vision ends. I don't know
what this means,
because of course I know who the former PM is, I have seen
her on television
before, but not for at least a month and only in passing. I
don't even
follow the current world situation over there very closely.
So I find it
very bizarre that I would have a vision such as this.
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