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School girl who blogged against Taliban attacked in Pak

[email protected] (PTI)
October 9, 2012

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Islamabad, October 9: A 14-year-old Pakistani girl, who emerged as an unlikely champion of peace in the former Taliban stronghold of Swat, was seriously injured when a suspected militant attacked her car in the country's restive northwest today.

Malala Yousufzai, the first recipient of Pakistan's National Peace Award for Youth, was hit by at least two bullets when the gunman fired at her car in Swat, located 160 km from Islamabad.

Two other children were injured in the attack that occurred outside Yousufzai's school.


Yousufzai was rushed to a hospital in Saidu Sharif town where doctors performed an emergency surgery, TV news channels reported.


Security forces cordoned off the hospital. The attack occurred as the girls were leaving the school after it closed early due to a protest by government employees.


The gunman asked people in the area to point out Yousufzai and then fired at her car, witnesses said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Yousufzai received several threats after she began writing about the excesses of the Taliban in a blog.

In March, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said Yousufzai and social worker Shad Begum were on the militants' 'hit list'.

Shad Begum was among 10 women conferred the International Women of Courage Award by the US. Yousufzai received the first National Peace Award for Youth from former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani in December last year for her "courageous and outstanding services for the promotion of education and peace under extremely hostile conditions" in Swat.

The teenage girl was a victim of the ban imposed by the Taliban on education for girls after the Swat region was overrun by the militants in 2008.

She wrote about her pain and anguish while blogging for BBC Urdu under the pseudonym Gul Makai.

Yousufzai had encouraged her fellow students to continue their studies despite threats from militants before the military launched an operation to flush out the Taliban from Swat in 2009.

Besides being nominated for the International Peace Prize for Children, she was also decorated with the Sitara-i-Jurat.

The government sent the army into Swat in early 2009 after the Taliban began extending their influence to districts located 100 km from Islamabad.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters were captured or killed but most of the top commanders, including Mullah Fazlullah, managed to escape to Afghanistan.



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Agencies
August 8,2020

Washington, Aug 8: The United States has reported 58,173 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total past 4.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

"The first case of COVID-19 in the US was reported 198 days ago on 22.01.2020.Yesterday, the country reported 58,173 new confirmed cases and 1,243 deaths," it said.

The country is expected to cross the 5 million thresholds in the coming days. It leads the world both in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths estimated at over 161,300.

Overall, there have been 19.4 million cases confirmed globally and almost 721,800 people have died from virus-related complications. Another 11.7 million have recovered.

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News Network
April 11,2020

Apr 11: The number of global coronavirus deaths has increased to 102,753, while the total number of cases worldwide has surpassed 1.6 million, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday morning, the overall number of infections increased to 1,698,416, while the tally of those who recovered from the deadly disease stood at 376,677, according to the varsity's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE).

In terms of cases, the US had the highest in the world at 501,301, followed by Spain 158,273, Italy 147,577 and France 125,931.

Italy accounted for the highest death toll at 18,849, with the US in the second place with 18,769 fatalities.

Other countries with more than 10,000 deaths include Spain (16,081) and France (13,197).

Although the pandemic originated in China last December, it now only accounts for 3,343 deaths with 83,003 confirmed cases.

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News Network
June 19,2020

London, Jun 19: Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner who once took a bullet for campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan, was over the moon on Friday after completing her degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Britain's prestigious Oxford University.

Malala, 22, who attended Oxford's Lady Margaret Hall college, took to Twitter to share two pictures that show her celebrating the milestone with her family.

"Hard to express my joy and gratitude right now as I completed my Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford," she said in the tweet, accompanied by two pictures - one showing her sitting with her family in front of a cake that says: 'Happy Graduation Malala', and the other in which she is covered with cake smiling for the camera.

In the tweet, the famed human rights activist also revealed her plans for the immediate future - Netflix, reading and sleeping.

"I don't know what's ahead. For now, it will be Netflix, reading and sleep," she wrote.

Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban militants in December 2012 for campaigning for female education in the Swat Valley in northeastern Pakistan.

Severely wounded, she was airlifted from one military hospital in Pakistan to another and later flown to the UK for treatment.

After the attack, the Taliban released a statement saying that they would target Malala again if she survived.

At the age of 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her education advocacy in 2014 when she shared the coveted honour with India's social activist Kailash Satyarthi.

Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, she moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.

The Taliban, who are against girls' education, have destroyed many schools in Pakistan.

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