Breaking News: Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi Are Awarded Nobel Peace Prize 2014

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2014 peace prize to a 17 years Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India for their work in helping to promote universal schooling and protecting children worldwide from abuse and exploitation.

There were a record 278 nominations this year, 19 more than ever before – including US whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Pope Francis. Also on the list of nominees was an anti-war clause in the Japanese constitution and the International Space Station Partnership.

Malala Marches Toward the Nobel Peace Prize

Complement video:

By Aryn Baker

Malala Yousafzai said: ‘I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education.’ Photograph: Liz Cave/Getty

This Friday, the Nobel committee announces the 2013 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. As far as global opinion is concerned, the award is a 16-year-old Pakistani girl’s to lose.

Long before she became a global symbol of children’s education, Malala Yousufzai was one girl squirming under the thumb of the Pakistani Taliban, whose draconian interpretation of Islamic law saw girls’ schools closed in her hometown of Mingora in early 2009. In a frank and witty blog published on the BBC Urdu  website under a pseudonym, Malala, then 11-years-old, chafed at the new regulations that limited her freedom, stopped her from learning and kept her from seeing her friends. The pseudonym, of course, was meant to protect her identity, but it was not long before her private persona—the outspoken daughter of a prominent school administrator—meshed with her public one, and she took her demand that a girls’ right to education be recognized across Pakistan to a national audience, appearing several times on TV talk shows and eventually in an international documentary. “I wanted to speak up for my rights,” she told the BBC on Monday, when reminiscing about her early activism. “And also I didn’t want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children. I didn’t want to see my life in that way.”

The bravest girl Malala’s 16th birthday (Videos)

Update:

Malala speech in the UN

Hello there,

Today is Malala’s 16th birthday.

Soon she’ll take to the UN floor with more than 3,500,000 of our voices behind her and tell the world about her fight for education for every girl and boy in the world. The support for her campaign has been overwhelming, and we’ve got much more to do,  but now is our time to celebrate.

It’s been a long road, but today the bravest girl we know will spend her birthday fighting for others. So let’s show her how important her strength and courage are to all of us.

Malala Yousafzai sells life story for a reported £2m

‘I am Malala’ will be published in the autumn and will tell the story of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban gunmen

Conal Urquhart

Malala Yousafzai said: ‘I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education.’ Photograph: Liz Cave/Getty

The life story of a 15-year Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban will be published later this year, in a deal reported to be worth around £2m.

“I am Malala” will be published in the autumn and will tell the story ofMalala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban gunmen after she became an advocate for woman’s education in the Swat Valley. She now attends a school in Birmingham.

Yousafzai said: “I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education.

“I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61m children who can’t get education. I want it to be part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school. It is their basic right.”

The book, which will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the UK and Commonwealth and by Little, Brown in the rest of the world, is the latest stage of Yousafzai’s public life which almost ended in tragedy.

Yousafzai began writing a blog on the BBC Urdu service under a pseudonym about life in the Swat Valley in 2009. The Taliban were expanding their influence and at times banned girls from going to school and the Pakistani army fought to re-establish control.

Her real identity became known and she frequently appeared in Pakistani and international media advocating for the right of girls to go to school. In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize and in December 2011 she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize.

In October last year, gunmen boarded a school bus and asked: “Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all”. When she was identified, a gunman shot her in the head and the bullet passed through her head, neck and embedded itself in her shoulder.

Malala Yousafzai up for Nobel Peace Prize

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot for promoting girls’ education, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

The 15-year-old was shot by a Taliban gunman at point blank range as she travelled on a bus to school on October 9, targeted for promoting girls’ education.

She has since become an internationally recognised symbol of opposition to the Taliban’s drive to deny women education, and against religious extremism in a country where women’s rights are often flouted.

“A prize to Malala would not only be timely and fitting with a line of awards to champions of human rights and democracy, but also … would set both children and education on the peace and conflict agenda,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo.

Others known to have been nominated are human rights activists whose names have been mentioned in previous years, including Belarussian human rights activist Ales Belyatski – currently behind bars – and Russia’s Lyudmila Alexeyeva.

Belarus, which former US President George W. Bush’s administration had branded as the “the last dictatorship in Europe”, is governed by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has cracked down even further on opponents of late, rights groups charge.

Runner-Up: Malala Yousafzai, the Fighter

By Aryn Baker / Mingora

Ayesha Mir didn’t go to school on Tuesday, Nov. 27, the day after a security guard found a shrapnel-packed bomb under her family’s car. The 17-year-old Pakistani girl assumed, as did most people who learned about the bomb, that it was intended for her father, the television news presenter Hamid Mir, who often takes on the Taliban in his nightly news broadcasts. Traumatized by the near miss, Ayesha spent most of the day curled up in a corner of her couch, unsure whom to be angrier with: the would-be assassins or her father for putting himself in danger. She desperately wanted someone to help her make sense of things.

At around 10:30 p.m., she got her wish. Ayesha’s father had just come home from work, and he handed her his BlackBerry. “She wants to speak to you,” he said. The voice on the phone was weak and cracked, but it still carried the confidence that Ayesha and millions of other Pakistanis had come to know through several high-profile speeches and TV appearances.

Inspired by Malala, We Must Make School Accessible to the World’s Children

By Gordon Brown,  Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; UN Special Envoy for Global Education

When Malala Yousafzai was targeted and shot by the Taliban in Pakistan on October 9th, simply for wanting to go to school, the whole world of education was changed forever.

Globally, 32 million girls do not yet go to primary school and since October 9th, thousands of children have demonstrated, signed petitions and registered their demand that Malala and girls like her should be able to go to school free of fear and intimidation.

Elsewhere in South Asia, children have started to assert their rights to schooling. In Bangladesh, a new movement led by girls and boys is demanding an end to child marriage. In district after district ‘child marriage free zones’ are being declared as children themselves assert their right not to be sold into loveless marriages they did not choose.

In India this weekend a 300 kilometer march of children started from Assam province, calling for a ban on child labor. Led by 100 child laborers rescued from trafficking, they will demand their right to be at school.

So long as there are children denied the chance of school, Malala will be the standard bearer for their rights. Now and for every day until all young children have the chance to go to school, ‘I am Malala’ will be the banner under which millions of girls throughout the world will demand their right to education.

Malala Yousafzai should win Nobel Peace Prize, petition says MaLA

Malala speech:

More than 90,000 people have already signed an online petition calling for Malala Yousafzai to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

At Change.org, Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah said no person deserves the award more than the 15-year-old Pakistani girl who survived an assassination attempt.

A Unified Global Moment to Honor Malala Yousafzai

By Gordon Brown,  Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; UN Special Envoy for Global Education

On November 10th we will celebrate ‘Malala Day,’ the moment the whole world honors the sacrifice of Malala Yousafzai, the young girl shot by the Taliban simply for trying to go to school.

Fortunately, Malala is starting on the road to recovery and Malala Day, one month after Malala was left for dead by Taliban assassins, is an opportunity for people everywhere to come together to support the cause that Malala so valiantly represents: a girl’s right to education.

The right to education is denied to 61 million children of primary school age around the world. Girls, boys, the marginalized, rural children, child laborers — the hopes of these 61 million are represented by the struggle and voice of Malala. November 10th is our opportunity to continue to speak out in support of Malala’s vision of every child in school, learning and reaching their full potential.

This Saturday, on Malala Day, new initiatives will be announced in support of Malala and in support of the cause she has risked her life for.

The Malala Yousafzai Children’s Education Institute, named in honor of Malala, will be announced to help educate the world on the need for universal education. The Malala Institute, supported by the Good Planet Foundation, will publish research reports leading the fight for education for every child still denied the right to school.

NGOs such as Plan International are already stepping up their efforts to educate girls. I have also been approached by dedicated teachers and philanthropists wishing to start Malala schools.

While the final figures will not be announced until Saturday, already some one million people have signed petitions urging Pakistan to ensure every girl has a place at school and calling for the United Nations to continue the advance of universal education.