MINGORA: Pakistan marked “Malala Day” Saturday on a global day of
support for the teenager shot by the Taliban for promoting girls’
education, but in her home town security fears meant her schoolmates
could not honour her in public.
Taliban hitmen shot Malala Yousufzai on her school bus a month ago in Mingora in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley, in a cold-blooded murder attempt for the “crime” of campaigning for girls’ rights to go to school.
Miraculously the 15-year-old survived and her courage has won the hearts of millions around the world, prompting the United Nations to declare Saturday a “global day of action” for her pakistani girls mobile numbers.
People around the world held vigils and demonstrations honouring Malala and calling for the 32 million girls worldwide who are denied education to be allowed to go to school.
Demonstrations backing Malala took place in Islamabad, Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf saluted Malala’s courage karachi girls mobile numbers.
But in Mingora, the threat of further Taliban reprisals cast a fearful shadow, and students at Malala’s Khushal Public School were forced to honour her in private.
“We held a special prayer for Malala today in our school assembly and also lit candles,” school principal Mariam Khalid told AFP pakistani girls feet.
“We did not organise any open event because our school and its students still face a security threat.”
Though their bid to kill Malala failed, the Taliban have said they will attack any woman who stands against them. Fears are so great that Khalid said even speaking to the media could put students’ lives in danger beautiful pakistani girls.
Two of Malala’s friends were wounded in the attempt on her life and one, 16-year-old Kainaat Riaz, said she was still haunted by memories of the attack.
“I am still terrified. I still get tears in my eyes whenever I think of that incident. I saw Malala in the pool of blood in front of me with my eyes,”she told AFP.
Shazia Ramzan, 13, spent a month in hospital after being shot in the shoulder during the attack, but she said it had made her even more determined to go to school lahore girls mobile numbers.
“The shooting tried to stop us from getting an education, it was our test and we must pass it,” she told AFP.
Malala rose to prominence with a blog for the BBC charting life in Swat under the Taliban, whose bloody two-year reign of terror supposedly came to an end with an army operation in 2009.
Despite the dangers, some children in Mingora were determined to speak out and pledged to follow Malala’s example.
“Malala is a good friend of mine. She is brave and has honour and whoever attacked her did a terrible thing,” Asma Khan, 12, a student in Saroosh Academy, close to Malala’s school, told AFP.
“After the attack on her and her injuries, we have now more courage to study and now we will fulfil her mission to spread education everywhere.”Khan’s schoolmate Gul Para, 12, added: “Malala is the daughter of the nation and we are proud of her.
“She has stood by us and for our education up to now and now it is time that we should stand by her and complete her mission.”
On Saturday Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to search for Malala’s attackers and accused Islamabad of having armed and trained the teenager’s assailants pakistani models.
“Afghanistan will hunt for Malala’s attackers,” he said in an interview with India’s CNN-IBN television network, broadcast as he began a four-day visit to the South Asian nation.
“Terrorism is a snake and when you train a snake, you can’t expect it will only go in the neighbour’s house. When the attack on Malala happened, this proved our point,” he added.
“The earlier they (the Pakistanis) accept it and fight radicalism, the better for us, the better for Pakistan and the better for India.”
Nearly 100,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Malala to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and on Friday UN special education envoy Gordon Brown handed a separate million-strong petition in support of Malala to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Zardari on Friday announced a scheme funded with help from international donors to give poor families cash incentives to send their children to school in a bid to get three million more youngsters into education Islamabad girls mobile numbers.
“As long as there are girls out of school anywhere in the world, Malala will be their beacon of hope,” Brown said on Saturday.
GAZA CITY: Six Palestinians were killed and 30 injured by Israeli shelling and air strikes after militants fired on an Israeli jeep, wounding four soldiers, medics and witnesses said on Sunday.
The flare-up, which began on Saturday, was one of the most serious clashes in a single day since Israel’s devastating 22-day operation in the Gaza Strip over New Year 2009.
In the latest in a spate of attacks and counter-attacks between the army and Palestinians, a militant was killed and two other people wounded in an Israeli air strike near the northern town of Jabaliya just before midnight, medics said.
The dead man was named as Mohammed Shwikani, a 20-year-old militant with the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the group said.
Overnight, the military launched a series of air raids to the north and east of Gaza City, which left two more people injured, Palestinian witnesses and medical sources said.
Early on Sunday, medics reported finding the body of another Islamic Jihad militant who was killed in another air strike which struck east of Jabaliya, raising the death toll to six within 12 hours of bloodshed.
He was identified as Mohammed Abed, 20.
The army confirmed it had attacked seven different targets overnight, including arms dumps, a weapons-making facility and two rocket-launching sites “in response to recent events.”As the air force pounded Gaza, militants fired 36 rockets over the border, injuring four people in the Israeli town of Sderot which lies several kilometres from the border.
The violence first erupted Saturday evening when militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep near the Karni crossing along the border east of Gaza City.
The army confirmed four soldiers had been wounded in the attack, which was claimed by the armed wing of the left-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Military sources said two of the soldiers were in serious condition.
In response, Israel fired a barrage of artillery fire and shells, killing three people and wounding 25, five of them seriously, medical officials and witnesses said.
One of the injured died later in hospital.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said some of the injured were in “serious to critical condition,” adding the dead and the wounded appeared to be civilians.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas government said the four killed were aged between 15 and 20.
Medics also said five Palestinians were wounded in another bout of Israeli shelling near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
Threats of revenge
Late Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with his Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz to discuss the situation in the south, the premier said on Twitter.
“The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) responded severely to the incident and additional responses will be examined in the coming days,” Barak was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.
The bloodshed was swiftly condemned by the Hamas government, as well as by militant groups, which vowed revenge.
“The occupation attacked Palestinian civilians east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis. We consider this escalation as very dangerous. It must stop immediately,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum.
The armed wing of the radical Popular Resistance Committees also released a statement vowing that “the Zionist enemy will pay a high price for this crime against Gaza”.
And Islamic Jihad also issued a warning, saying: “Every aggression against the Palestinian people will be followed by a response from the resistance.”In recent days, tensions have been rising between Israeli troops and Gaza militants.
On Thursday, an Israeli soldier was wounded near the border east of Khan Yunis when explosives packed into a tunnel were detonated in an attack claimed by Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Several hours earlier, a 13-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by gunfire from an Israeli helicopter in the same area, medics and witnesses said.
And on Tuesday, three Israeli soldiers were wounded in an another explosion in the same area.
An earlier flare-up in and around Gaza began on October 22 and continued for three days, with eight militants killed in Israeli air strikes, and armed groups firing more than 100 rockets across the border, severely wounding two Thais.
In December 2008, just six weeks shy of general elections, Israel launched a huge operation in Gaza to stamp out Palestinian cross-border rocket fire that cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
Taliban hitmen shot Malala Yousufzai on her school bus a month ago in Mingora in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley, in a cold-blooded murder attempt for the “crime” of campaigning for girls’ rights to go to school.
Miraculously the 15-year-old survived and her courage has won the hearts of millions around the world, prompting the United Nations to declare Saturday a “global day of action” for her pakistani girls mobile numbers.
People around the world held vigils and demonstrations honouring Malala and calling for the 32 million girls worldwide who are denied education to be allowed to go to school.
Demonstrations backing Malala took place in Islamabad, Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf saluted Malala’s courage karachi girls mobile numbers.
But in Mingora, the threat of further Taliban reprisals cast a fearful shadow, and students at Malala’s Khushal Public School were forced to honour her in private.
“We held a special prayer for Malala today in our school assembly and also lit candles,” school principal Mariam Khalid told AFP pakistani girls feet.
“We did not organise any open event because our school and its students still face a security threat.”
Though their bid to kill Malala failed, the Taliban have said they will attack any woman who stands against them. Fears are so great that Khalid said even speaking to the media could put students’ lives in danger beautiful pakistani girls.
Two of Malala’s friends were wounded in the attempt on her life and one, 16-year-old Kainaat Riaz, said she was still haunted by memories of the attack.
“I am still terrified. I still get tears in my eyes whenever I think of that incident. I saw Malala in the pool of blood in front of me with my eyes,”she told AFP.
Shazia Ramzan, 13, spent a month in hospital after being shot in the shoulder during the attack, but she said it had made her even more determined to go to school lahore girls mobile numbers.
“The shooting tried to stop us from getting an education, it was our test and we must pass it,” she told AFP.
Malala rose to prominence with a blog for the BBC charting life in Swat under the Taliban, whose bloody two-year reign of terror supposedly came to an end with an army operation in 2009.
Despite the dangers, some children in Mingora were determined to speak out and pledged to follow Malala’s example.
“Malala is a good friend of mine. She is brave and has honour and whoever attacked her did a terrible thing,” Asma Khan, 12, a student in Saroosh Academy, close to Malala’s school, told AFP.
“After the attack on her and her injuries, we have now more courage to study and now we will fulfil her mission to spread education everywhere.”Khan’s schoolmate Gul Para, 12, added: “Malala is the daughter of the nation and we are proud of her.
“She has stood by us and for our education up to now and now it is time that we should stand by her and complete her mission.”
On Saturday Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to search for Malala’s attackers and accused Islamabad of having armed and trained the teenager’s assailants pakistani models.
“Afghanistan will hunt for Malala’s attackers,” he said in an interview with India’s CNN-IBN television network, broadcast as he began a four-day visit to the South Asian nation.
“Terrorism is a snake and when you train a snake, you can’t expect it will only go in the neighbour’s house. When the attack on Malala happened, this proved our point,” he added.
“The earlier they (the Pakistanis) accept it and fight radicalism, the better for us, the better for Pakistan and the better for India.”
Nearly 100,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Malala to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and on Friday UN special education envoy Gordon Brown handed a separate million-strong petition in support of Malala to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Zardari on Friday announced a scheme funded with help from international donors to give poor families cash incentives to send their children to school in a bid to get three million more youngsters into education Islamabad girls mobile numbers.
“As long as there are girls out of school anywhere in the world, Malala will be their beacon of hope,” Brown said on Saturday.
GAZA CITY: Six Palestinians were killed and 30 injured by Israeli shelling and air strikes after militants fired on an Israeli jeep, wounding four soldiers, medics and witnesses said on Sunday.
The flare-up, which began on Saturday, was one of the most serious clashes in a single day since Israel’s devastating 22-day operation in the Gaza Strip over New Year 2009.
In the latest in a spate of attacks and counter-attacks between the army and Palestinians, a militant was killed and two other people wounded in an Israeli air strike near the northern town of Jabaliya just before midnight, medics said.
The dead man was named as Mohammed Shwikani, a 20-year-old militant with the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the group said.
Overnight, the military launched a series of air raids to the north and east of Gaza City, which left two more people injured, Palestinian witnesses and medical sources said.
Early on Sunday, medics reported finding the body of another Islamic Jihad militant who was killed in another air strike which struck east of Jabaliya, raising the death toll to six within 12 hours of bloodshed.
He was identified as Mohammed Abed, 20.
The army confirmed it had attacked seven different targets overnight, including arms dumps, a weapons-making facility and two rocket-launching sites “in response to recent events.”As the air force pounded Gaza, militants fired 36 rockets over the border, injuring four people in the Israeli town of Sderot which lies several kilometres from the border.
The violence first erupted Saturday evening when militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep near the Karni crossing along the border east of Gaza City.
The army confirmed four soldiers had been wounded in the attack, which was claimed by the armed wing of the left-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Military sources said two of the soldiers were in serious condition.
In response, Israel fired a barrage of artillery fire and shells, killing three people and wounding 25, five of them seriously, medical officials and witnesses said.
One of the injured died later in hospital.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said some of the injured were in “serious to critical condition,” adding the dead and the wounded appeared to be civilians.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas government said the four killed were aged between 15 and 20.
Medics also said five Palestinians were wounded in another bout of Israeli shelling near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
Threats of revenge
Late Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with his Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz to discuss the situation in the south, the premier said on Twitter.
“The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) responded severely to the incident and additional responses will be examined in the coming days,” Barak was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.
The bloodshed was swiftly condemned by the Hamas government, as well as by militant groups, which vowed revenge.
“The occupation attacked Palestinian civilians east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis. We consider this escalation as very dangerous. It must stop immediately,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum.
The armed wing of the radical Popular Resistance Committees also released a statement vowing that “the Zionist enemy will pay a high price for this crime against Gaza”.
And Islamic Jihad also issued a warning, saying: “Every aggression against the Palestinian people will be followed by a response from the resistance.”In recent days, tensions have been rising between Israeli troops and Gaza militants.
On Thursday, an Israeli soldier was wounded near the border east of Khan Yunis when explosives packed into a tunnel were detonated in an attack claimed by Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Several hours earlier, a 13-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by gunfire from an Israeli helicopter in the same area, medics and witnesses said.
And on Tuesday, three Israeli soldiers were wounded in an another explosion in the same area.
An earlier flare-up in and around Gaza began on October 22 and continued for three days, with eight militants killed in Israeli air strikes, and armed groups firing more than 100 rockets across the border, severely wounding two Thais.
In December 2008, just six weeks shy of general elections, Israel launched a huge operation in Gaza to stamp out Palestinian cross-border rocket fire that cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
