Malala Yousafzai injured in Swat by Taliban

Gunmen shot and wounded a teenage children's rights activist Malala Yousafzai as she boarded a school bus on Tuesday in Swat, police said.

14 years old Malala Yousafzai: A proponent of female education [Photo: Business recorder]

Yousafzai was shot in the forehead and will be taken to Peshawar for further treatment but is stable, said Doctor Taj Mohammed at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex in Mingora.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, won international recognition for highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat by blogging for the BBC.

She received the first ever national peace award from the government of Pakistan last year and was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by advocacy group KidsRights Foundation in 2011.

Read more: Business Recorder

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Defaced Buddha sculpture gets facelift

During Taliban rein of terror in Swat, they destroyed almost every structure that did not fit into their convoluted plans. Apart from the schools, multimedia shops, and government offices, the seven-century-old Buddha rock-carving in Jahanabad also took a share of their ire.

Defaced sculpture at Swat by the terrorists [Photo: The Express Tribune]

The Taliban tried to demolish the nearly 20-foot-tall sculpture in 2007 and managed to disfigure a portion of the Buddha’s face. The sculpture is the second largest rock-carving of Buddha, after the one in Bamyan valley of Afghanistan, which too the Taliban managed to deface.

Now the structure has been conserved by the Archaeological Community Tourism (ACT), under a joint project of Italian Archaeological Mission and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Department of Archaeology and Museums. The project was funded by the Italian government through a debt-swap agreement with Pakistan.

Read more: The Express News

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11 years old girl from Pakistan nominated for International Peace Award

Full Story: The Times of India 21 Nov

An 11 years old school girl from Pakistan has been nominated for the International Peace Award. Malal Yousafzai, now 13, was a victim of the ban imposed by the Taliban on education for girls in the troubled Swat Valley over two years ago. She wrote about her pain and anguish in a diary for BBC Urdu online.

Yousufzai, a Class 8 student, beat 93 contestants from 42 countries to be nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize 2011. The prize is due to be announced today and if she wins, she will be given the award by Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu.

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