Malala Yousufzai wins Nobel Peace Prize for 2014

Teenage education activist Malala Yousafzai has jointly won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi for their work on promoting child rights , Express News reported.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the jury said.

There was no clear frontrunner ahead of Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize announcement, with a Russian opposition newspaper, Tunisia’s democratic leadership, Pakistan schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis among a record number of candidates.

As in previous years, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, will reveal the laureate’s name at 0900 GMT at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The Nobel committee considered a record 278 candidates, but only those made public by their sponsors have been named.http://tribune.com.pk/story/773258/malala-yousafzai-shares-nobel-peace-prize-with-indian-activist/

World's 'largest reservoir' of Polio

ISLAMABAD: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday declared Pakistan's troubled northwestern city of Peshawar as the world’s “largest reservoir” of endemic polio and called for urgent action to boost vaccination.

Almost every polio case in 2013 in Pakistan – one of only three countries where the crippling disease remains endemic – could be linked genetically to strains of the virus circulating in Peshawar, said the WHO.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital, and adjoining tribal districts where Taliban and al Qaeda linked militants have hideouts are particular polio hotspots.

Efforts to stamp out the disease have been hampered by opposition from militant groups, who see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage, as well as long-running rumours about the drops causing infertility.

“With more than 90 per cent of the current polio cases in the country genetically linked to Peshawar, the (city) is now the largest reservoir of endemic poliovirus in the world,” the WHO said in a statement.

Polio is also endemic in Afghanistan and Nigeria, but of the three countries only Pakistan saw a rise in cases from 2012 to 2013, said the global health body.http://www.dawn.com/news/1080926/who-declares-peshawar-worlds-largest-reservoir-of-polio

NSA's spying a big question mark on US as promoter of Human Rights

One of the unfortunate consequences of the spying by the NSA that has now been revealed is that it makes it more difficult for the United States to be effective in promoting human rights internationally. America's ability to exercise a positive influence on the practices of other governments had been severely damaged under the Bush administration. That was because American abuses against detainees at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib deprived Washington of the moral authority to criticise others when they engaged in such practices as prolonged detentions without charges or trials, or trials before irregular courts, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or torture.

President Obama's inability to fulfil his promise to close Guantánamobecause of congressional opposition, and his unwillingness to hold Bush-era officials to account for their abuses, has hampered his administration in recovering lost moral authority. That may help to explain why the Obama administration has been relatively reluctant to speak out forcefully about abuses of rights by governments such as those of China and Russia. Of course, dependence on those governments economically and eagerness for their collaboration in the ongoing global struggle against terrorism were also probably factors in muting American criticism.

Pakistan urged to vaccinate against polio

GENEVA:
World Health Organization (WHO) says that 21 nations have urged Pakistan to vaccinate all of its children to eradicate polio spreading.
Some 21 nations in the Middle East and nearby regions have jointly made the eradication of polio an emergency priority and recognized that Pakistan is a key part of the problem, the WHO said Wednesday.

The joint resolution by nations who are part of the UN health agency's Eastern Mediterranean region have called on Pakistan to urgently vaccinate all of its children to prevent the virus from spreading internationally.

Pakistan also approved the resolution, which the Geneva-based agency says includes Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The problem is particularly challenging in Pakistan, where a UN-backed eradication campaign has suffered from violence and mistrust directed against polio workers and people who want their children vaccinated.

Earlier this week, WHO officials said the polio virus has now been confirmed in 13 of 22 children who became paralyzed in a northern Syrian province.

World Report 2013, Human Rights

Pakistan had a turbulent year in 2012, with the judicial ouster of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, attacks on civilians by militant groups, growing electricity shortages, rising food and fuel prices, and continuing political dominance of the military, which operates with almost complete impunity. Religious minorities continued to face insecurity and persecution as the government failed to provide protection to those threatened or to hold extremists accountable. Islamist militant groups continued to target and kill Shia Muslims—particularly from the Hazara community—with impunity. In September, the southwestern province of Balochistan experienced massive flooding for the third year running, displacing some 700,000 people.

Ongoing rights concerns included the breakdown of law enforcement in the face of terror attacks, continuing abuses across Balochistan, ongoing torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects, and unresolved enforced disappearances of terrorism suspects and opponents of the military. Abuses by Pakistani police, including extrajudicial killings, also continued to be reported throughout the country in 2012.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States —Pakistan’s most significant ally and its largest donor of development and military aid—remained tense for much of the year due to the “Salala Attack” in November 2011, in which US forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers during a military operation near the Afghan border.http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/pakistan

Two Journalists abducted, killed

Two French radio journalists were killed by gunmen in northern Mali on Saturday shortly after being abducted in the town of Kidal, French and Malian officials said.

The French government confirmed that 58-year old Claude Verlon and Ghislaine Dupont, 51, both journalists at RFI radio, had been found dead.

"The French president ... expresses his indignation over this heinous act," Francois Hollande's office said in a statement.

Kidal is the birthplace of a Tuareg uprising last year that plunged Mali into chaos, leading to a coup in the capital Bamako and the occupation of the northern half of the country by militants linked to al Qaeda.

A French-led military intervention drove out the militants but there are still pockets of insurgents and the incident dramatically highlighted the continuing security risks.



France still has about 3,000 soldiers in the country, alongside Malian troops and U.N. peacekeepers (MINUSMA), although it only has about 200 troops in Kidal and another 100 in Tessalit, several hundred kilometers away in the northwest.http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/02/us-mali-france-kidnap-idUSBRE9A105K20131102

Ban shooting the Love Messengers, the pigeons

Three-fourths of all Pennsylvanians want to see an end to live pigeon shoots.

A statewide survey by the Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Company reveals not only do 75 percent of Pennsylvanians want to see legislation to ban live pigeon shoots but only 16 percent of Pennsylvanians oppose such a ban.http://en.wordpress.com/tag/animal-rights/