LONDON: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education, yesterday denounced the Saturday attack on a bus carrying female students in Quetta as “cowardly”. At least 25 people were killed when militants blew up the bus in the capital of restive Baluchistan province and stormed a hospital where survivors had been taken. “This was a cowardly and desperate attempt to deny girls their right to education,” Malala, 15, said in a statement. Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, said it was the “bloodiest atrocity yet in escalating violence against female students”. Malala was shot at point-blank range by a Taliban gunman as her school bus travelled through northwest Pakistan’s Swat Valley on October 9 last year, in an attack that drew worldwide condemnation. She was flown to Britain for surgery on her head injuries and returned to school in Birmingham, central England, in March. Malala has become a global symbol of the campaign for the right of girls to education and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Khan to take oath as MP
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will take oath as member of National Assembly tomorrow, it was learnt yesterday. In a message on social networking website Twitter yesterday, the cricketer-turned-politician said he would be taking oath in National Assembly on June 19. “Speaking on the budget the same day,” he added. “My address to parliament will lay out PTI’s policy on crucial national issues and how the government of the northwestern province of Khyber Paktunkhwa will be a role model of clean, efficient governance,” he said. Khan could not take oath on June 1 with other MPs as he was recovering from injuries he sustained in a fall during campaigning last month.
Sharif may visit Turkey
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to visit Turkey after Ramadan as he has been invited by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey’s Ambassador to Pakistan Mustafa Babur Hizlan said Pakistan prime minister is eagerly awaited by the brotherly people of Turkey.
New policy on food security
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ministry of National Food Security and Research, created almost two years ago has yet to come up with an action programme. The only activity it was engaged in after its creation was the Zero Hunger Project launched in March, 2012 but it came to a standstill after the exit of then-premier Yousaf Raza Gilani who had shown interest in it. In February this year, the ministry’ said it had prepared a policy to reduce the current food insecurity situation by 50 percent by 2030 and to zero percent by 2050.”
Earthquake hits Pakistan
Islamabad: A quake admeasuring magnitude 5.1 on Richter Scale jolted Chitral and other parts of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province yesterday. The US Geological Survey said that the epicentre was in 269km deep on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border.
Agencies
