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