By the time Malala Yousafzai took to the podium in Oslo in December 2014 to become the youngest Nobel prize winner in history, her story was known around the world.
"It is the story of many girls," she told a rapt audience. Malala was talking in general terms but also specifically about her friends Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz who were sat, proudly, in the audience as their old school pal took her place alongside Mandela, Obama, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama as a Peace Laureate.
Those two girls were also hit by the shower of Taliban bullets in the back of their school bus as they returned from a morning of exams in Mingora, north-west Pakistan, in October 2012. Like Malala, they survived, but were faced with life-changing consequences.
Solidarity in Sweden after arson attacks on mosques
Three arson attacks on mosques in the space of eight days - Sweden has been shocked by a wave of xenophobia. But is it actually increasing, or is it simply becoming more visible?
Scores of red paper hearts hang on the entrance to the mosque in Uppsala. Hundreds of demonstrators are standing outside, and all of them shouting "Rör inte min Moské!" - or don't touch my mosque! Thirty different civil rights groups called for protests in Sweden, for the protection of the country's mosques, and against the suspected arsonists, who are generally assumed to have come from Sweden's violent neo-Nazi milieu.
Three arson attacks in just eight days, xenophobic graffiti on the door: It's no coincidence, believes Sweden's Minister for Public Administration, Ardalan Shekarabi. "This is now a matter for the police," he says. "But we are seeing a very clear upsurge in Islamophobic propaganda. We have to be just as clear about taking a stand." Everyone in Sweden should feel safe, he said.
Amal Clooney threatened with arrest in Egypt
January 3, 2015 - 12:19PM
Louisa Loveluck
Cairo: Leading human rights barrister Amal Clooney was threatened with arrest by Egyptian officials after she identified flaws in the country's justice system that led to the jailing of three Al-Jazeera journalists, it has emerged.
The British-Lebanese lawyer, who married American actor George Clooney last September, represents Mohamed Fahmy, one of three journalists convicted of the extraordinary charges of colluding with a terrorist organisation – the Muslim Brotherhood – to broadcast false news and tarnish Egypt's reputation.
SA's revolution in a political and ideological Gordian knot
Those who claim to be the prime champions of the drive for “radical transformation” must be willing to radically transform themselves.
Breaking news! In case you missed it, 2014 was the first full year of South Africa’s “radical second phase” of the national democratic revolution (NDR).
For a moment at least, forget about the return of rolling blackouts, the record-breaking wealth and conspicuous consumption of the rich, the ongoing crisis of local government service delivery, the palpable intensification of racial discord and the invasions of Parliament by armed riot police. Also, ignore the split in the trade union federation Cosatu, the continuing epidemic of corruption and fraud in both the public and private sectors, the increasingly out-of-control conduct of our police force and many of the other defining features and events of 2014.
Ancient Indian aircraft on agenda of major science conference
Indian Vedic myths tell of ancient pilots flying craft around the world and out of this world. But some think the myths were true, and that modern science has it all wrong.
The Wright brothers were a little late to the aviation game when you consider that pilots in ancient India were flying aircraft not only around the world, but from planet to planet as well. At least, that's one of the claims scheduled to be presented at the Indian Science Congress beginning Saturday at the University of Mumbai, in a session titled "Ancient Indian Aviation Technology."
The presenters of the session are apparently serious in their belief that ancient Indian planes were not only able to travel across the solar system, but also "could move left, right, as well as backwards, unlike modern planes which only fly forward," according to one of the speakers, Captain Anand J Bodas, quoted in the
Mumbai Mirror.
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