tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post6416348789063871306..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Eid Mubarak; Please Don't Forget Terror Victims Riaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-37477960285048675762013-10-15T22:27:05.024-07:002013-10-15T22:27:05.024-07:00Malala inspires girls school enrollment surge in K...Malala inspires girls school enrollment surge in KP, reports <a href="http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131013/taliban-intimidation-backfires-as-shot-teenager-inspires-school-enrollment-surge" rel="nofollow">Bloomberg</a>:<br /><br /><i>MINGORA, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban's attempts to deter girls from seeking an education, epitomized by the shooting of 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the face last year, are backfiring as school enrollments surge in her home region.<br /><br />While Yousafzai missed out last week on the Nobel Peace Prize, her plight is helping change attitudes in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which lies at the center of a Taliban insurgency. The four-month-old provincial government boosted education spending by about 30 percent and began an enrollment drive that has added 200,000 children, including 75,000 girls.<br /><br />Yousafzai's story "is certainly helping us to promote education in the tribal belt," Muhammad Atif Khan, the province's education minister, said by phone. "Education is a matter of death and life. We can't solve terrorism issues without educating people."<br /><br />Taliban militants targeted Yousafzai in retaliation over her campaign for girls to be given equal rights to schooling in a country where only 40 percent of adult women can read and write. Though the Nobel award went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Yousafzai was showered with accolades in a week in which she published her memoir: she won the European Union's top human rights prize and met President Barack Obama at the Oval Office.<br /><br />The shooting occurred a year ago as Yousafzai traveled home on a school bus in Mingora, a trading hub of 1.8 million people where a majority of women still cover their faces and girls aren't comfortable answering questions from reporters. The bullet struck above her left eye, grazing her brain. She was flown for emergency surgery to Britain, where she lives today.<br /><br />The increased media attention on Swat since the shooting is pressuring government officials to improve educational standards and encouraging locals to send their kids to school.<br /><br />Three days ago in Mingora, as local channels flashed the news that Yousafzai didn't win the peace prize, high school student Shehzad Qamar credited her for prompting the government to build more institutions of higher learning.<br /><br />"She has done what we couldn't have achieved in 100 years," Qamar said. "She gave this town an identity."..<br />------------<br />"Taliban wanted to silence me," Yousafzai said in an interview with the BBC last week. "Malala was heard only in Pakistan, but now she is heard at the every corner of the world."<br /><br />Sadiqa Ameen, a 15-year-old school girl in Swat, said she wanted to read Yousafzai's book, titled "I am Malala." The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, has threatened to kill Yousafzai and target shops selling her book, the Dawn newspaper reported, citing spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.<br /><br />"This is probably the first ever book written by a Swati girl," said Ameen, who lives near Yousafzai's school. "I am sure her story will be something we all know and have gone through during the Taliban rule."<br /><br />Musfira Khan Karim, 11, prayed for Yousafzai's success in the Nobel competition with her 400 schoolmates in Mingora.<br /><br />"I want her back here among us," Karim said in her school's playground. "I want to know more about her. I want to meet her."<br /></i><br /><br />http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131013/taliban-intimidation-backfires-as-shot-teenager-inspires-school-enrollment-surgeRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-27538666745761345892013-08-21T11:35:34.956-07:002013-08-21T11:35:34.956-07:00Gallup Pakistan finds 59% of Pakistanis have posit...Gallup Pakistan finds 59% of Pakistanis have positive view of Musharraf....31% favorable and 28% satisfactory. <br /><br />http://www.gallup.com.pk/pollsshow.php?id=2013-08-16Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-43032322633842209712013-08-18T17:12:59.652-07:002013-08-18T17:12:59.652-07:00Is this becoming a PATTERN?
http://alturl.com/ur3...Is this becoming a PATTERN?<br /><br />http://alturl.com/ur3hw<br /><br />"Nearly half the top police commanders in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province were killed Thursday when insurgents shot and killed a police inspector, then bombed his funeral hours later, where most of the province’s police commanders had gathered."<br /><br />"The attack was similar to one June 15 in which a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi suicide bomber targeted a bus full of female university students in Quetta and other Lashkar-e-Jhangvi fighters then besieged the hospital where survivors had been taken for treatment"<br />---<br /><br />So what is the lesson here? <br /><br />If you see people lying wounded from a terrorist attack, you should not help them, else you will become the next target. If people get killed in a terrorist attack, you should not attend their funerals, else you will become the next target.<br /><br />Where does this end? Will all people just abandon the wounded, the dying, the dead and the survivors? Will all people just run away to save themselves?<br /><br />What are your thoughts?<br /><br />Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.com