Shot schoolgirl records video message

Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai, seen here last November, has recorded a new video message to her supporters. Source: AFP

MALALA Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, says she is getting better in her first public statement.

"Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and I am getting better day by day," said the 15-year-old in a video message made before she underwent surgery on her skull on Saturday.

Speaking clearly in English, she said: "It's just because of the prayers of people. Because all people - men, women, children - all of them have prayed for me.

"And because of all these prayers God has given me this new life - a second life. And I want to serve. I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated. For that reason, we have organised the Malala Fund."

In an attack that drew worldwide condemnation, a Taliban gunman shot Malala at point-blank range as her school bus travelled through Pakistan's Swat Valley on October 9.

Surgeons in Pakistan saved her life with an initial operation to relieve the pressure on her brain before she was flown to Britain to be treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England.

Doctors say the bullet grazed Malala's brain and travelled through her head and neck before lodging in her left shoulder.

In the surgery last weekend, she had a titanium plate fitted to replace part of her skull and surgeons inserted an implant to help restore her hearing in her left ear.

The Malala Fund is a charity set up in late 2012 to promote education for girls.

Malala first rose to prominence aged 11 with a blog for the BBC's Urdu-language service charting her life under the Taliban.

Since her attempted murder, millions of people have signed petitions supporting her cause, while the United Nations declared a global Malala Day last November.

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'Aussie' journalist's court date delayed

The portrait of French-Australian journalist and director Nadir Dendoune. Source: AFP

THE court appearance of a French-Australian journalist arrested in Iraq for taking photos without permission in Baghdad has been postponed.

Muayad al-Lami, the head of the Iraqi Journalists' Syndicate, said that Nadir Dendoune, 40, was to be presented in the court overnight

"The appearance will take place (tomorrow). We have to find an interpreter," the judicial source said on condition of anonymity, adding that Dendoune will be accompanied by a lawyer.

The Iraqi Journalists' Syndicate said "it has mandated lawyer Nama al-Rubaiye to defend the journalist after obtaining a green light from the French consulate" in Baghdad.

Iraqi judicial sources claim that Dendoune was arrested carrying a camera with which he took pictures of the Iraqi intelligence service headquarters, army and police.

"It is banned to take such pictures without prior authorisation," the source said.

The French consul in Baghdad met Dendoune for the first time on Saturday, the foreign ministry said.

"He seemed in good health and well treated," a spokeswoman of the embassy said.

Lami said he too visited Dendoune on Saturday, and that during the visit a doctor from the French embassy checked the journalist and found him to be in good health.

The journalists' syndicate chief said Dendoune, who also holds Australian and Algerian nationalities, was arrested for taking pictures in southern Baghdad of a military checkpoint and a hospital.

Dendoune's sister Houria said from Paris, however, that her brother was arrested while taking pictures of a water treatment plant.

Dendoune was arrested late January while reportedly visiting Iraq to compile a series of stories on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion of the country for French monthly magazine Le Monde Diplomatique.

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China's thick smog arrives in Japan

Tourists wearing masks in Tiananmen Square during severe pollution in Beijing last week. China's smog has now spread to Japan. Source: Getty Images

THE suffocating smog that blanketed swathes of China is now hitting parts of Japan, sparking health warnings for the young and the sick.

The Japanese environment ministry's website has been overloaded as worried users log on to try to find out what is coming their way.

"Access to our air-pollution monitoring system has been almost impossible since last week, and the telephone here has been constantly ringing because worried people keep asking us about the impact on health," said an environment ministry official.

Pictures of Beijing and other Chinese cities shrouded in thick, choking smog played out across television screens in Japan last week.

News programs have broadcast maps showing a swirl of pollution gathering strength across China and then spreading out over the ocean towards Japan.

Pinks, reds and oranges that denote the highest concentrations form a finger of smog that inches upwards to the southern main island of Kyushu.

Relations between Tokyo and Beijing are already strained, over the sovereignty of a chain of islands in the East China Sea. And on the streets of Tokyo, reaction was tart.

"China is our neighbour, and all sorts of problems happen between us all the time," said Takaharu Abiko, 50.

"It is very worrying. This is dangerous pollution, like poison, and we can't protect ourselves. It's scary."

Officials were coy about lumping all the blame on their huge neighbour, but Yasushi Nakajima of the environment ministry said "we can't deny there is an impact from pollution in China".

Air pollution over the west of Japan has exceeded government limits over the last few days, with tiny particulate matter a problem, said Atsushi Shimizu of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES).

Prevailing winds from the west bring airborne particles from the Asian mainland, he said.

Of specific concern is the concentration of a particle 2.5 micrometres or less in diameter, which has been as high as 50 micrograms per cubic metre of air over recent days in northern Kyushu.

The government safe limit is 35 micrograms.

Yellow sand from the deserts of Mongolia and China is a known source for these particles, as are exhausts from cars and smoke from factories.

"At this time of year they are definitely not yellow sands, so they're toxic particles," Mr Shimizu said, warning that "people with respiratory diseases should be careful".

Toshihiko Takemura, an associate professor of Kyushu University who runs another air pollution monitoring site, said "the impact of air pollution originating from China on Japan was scientifically discovered more than a decade ago".

"Especially in Kyushu, the level of air pollution has been detectable in everyday lives since a few years ago," he told AFP.

"People in eastern and northern Japan are now belatedly noticing the cross-border air pollution."

Mr Takemura noted that pollution in Japan over the last few days has not been quite as bad as it was in February 2011, when "very hazy days continued for several days in western Japan".

He agreed with Mr Shimizu that people with respiratory diseases, as well as small children, should take extra care to avoid the problems.

Mr Takemura's website forecast an "extremely large" amount of air pollutants would arrive in part of Kyushu yesterday and today.

Mr Shimizu said information-sharing with China on air pollution has been difficult but "there are many things Japan can do, for instance encouraging China to use pollutant-filtering equipment in factories".

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Activist dies 'after torture from cops'

In this Saturday February 2 picture demonstrators hold candles in memory of another protester, Mohammed Qorany, after police were said to have used heavy force on him which resulted in his death. Source: AP

AN EGYPTIAN activist, who slipped into a coma following days in police custody, has died, setting off a storm over police brutality in the new Egypt.

Mohammed al-Guindi, 28, went missing last month after joining protests demanding change on the second anniversary of Egypt's uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak.

According to the health ministry he was brought to Cairo's Al-Helal hospital by ambulance on January 28 - three days after he went missing - unconscious and suffering from internal bleeding.

Activists detained with Guindi and later released said he had been taken to a police camp and subjected to torture, his mother Samia told the private Al-Nahar satellite channel.

The Popular Current, to which Guindi belonged, said in a statement the activist died "as a result of torture."

A preliminary medical report showed that he suffered beating with hard objects, broken ribs and electric shocks, activists said.

Photos of Guindi, his face bruised and battered, lying on a hospital bed have been circulating on social media networks.

Tributes have poured in for Guindi on Twitter and Facebook, with activists dubbing him the "new" Khaled Said, an Egyptian man who was beaten to death by police in 2010 and who became a symbol of the fight against police brutality.

Hundreds of people turned out for Guindi's funeral prayer, which was held in in Tahrir Square.

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'It does get better for gay teens'

Gays and lesbians experience less bullying as they get older, a study has shown. Source: AP

IT REALLY does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 per cent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 per cent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appeared online today in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in US middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Prof Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centres around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theatre major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Mr Johnson hasn't been bullied at university, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theatre crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Mr Johnson said.
 

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Ahmadinejad 'ready to go to space'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he is ready to take one giant leap for Iran-kind. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is ready "to be the first man in space" under Iran's ambitious program which aims to send a human being into orbit by 2020.

"Our youth are determined to send a man into space within the next four, five years and I'm sure that will happen," he said during a ceremony in Tehran where two new Iranian-made satellites were unveiled, according to ISNA news agency.

"I'm ready to be the first Iranian to be sacrificed by the scientists of my country and go into space, even though I know there are a lot of candidates," Mr Ahmadinejad quipped.

He added to the buoyant atmosphere, saying he was willing to "auction (himself) and donate" the money to the Iran's space program, which has shrunk because of international economic sanctions over Tehran's controversial nuclear drive, ISNA reported.

Iran, which last week announced it had successfully sent a small monkey into space, has said it wants to send a man into orbit by 2020.

Mr Ahmadinejad yesterday unveiled two small satellites, named Nahid and Zohreh (Venus in Farsi and Arabic, respectively).

Scientists surround a monkey Iran says it successfully launched into space. Picture: AP

Nahid, an observation satellite equipped with solar panels, is intended to orbit at an altitude of between 250 and 370 kilometres. Iran has put three other small satellites into the same orbit since 2009.

Zohreh is a geostationary communications satellite that will be placed at an altitude of 36,000 kilometres, something Iran has never tried before.

No launch date was given.

Iran's space program deeply unsettles Western nations, which fear it could be used to develop ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads they suspect are being developed in secret, despite denials from Tehran.

The technology used in space rockets can also be used in ballistic missiles. The Security Council has imposed an almost total embargo on the export of nuclear and space technology to Iran since 2007.

Tehran denies its space program has any link with its alleged nuclear ambitions.
 

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Bombing kills 22 anti-Qaida fighters

Iraqis inspect a crater caused by a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, on Sunday. There was another attack overnight, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a group of anti-Qaida fighters, killing 22 people. Source: AP

A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up near a group of anti-Qaida fighters as they were receiving salaries north of Baghdad, killing 22 people, the second bloody attack to hit Iraq in as many days.

The blast, which also wounded at least 44 people, came soon after officials raised the salaries of the Sunni militiamen in a bid to placate weeks of anti-government demonstrations in mostly-Sunni areas of the country.

It also comes just a day after a coordinated assault on a police headquarters in a disputed city in the north killed 30 people amid a spike in violence nationwide.

The attacker struck at 11:00 am (7pm AEST) in Taji, which lies 25 kilometres north of Baghdad, as the fighters were collecting their salaries.

In total, 22 people were killed, the vast majority of them militiamen but also two soldiers, according to a security official and a medical source. At least 44 others were wounded, among them eight soldiers.

Members of the Sahwa, otherwise known as the Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq, are made up of a collection of Sunni tribal militias that sided with the US military against Al-Qaida from late-2006 onwards, helping turn the tide of Iraq's bloody insurgency.

They are often targeted by Sunni militants linked to Al-Qaida who regard them as traitors.

Violence was also reported in the capital and in the ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a police officer and wounded three of his colleagues, while four people were shot dead overnight in Kirkuk, officials said.

The latest unrest came a day after a coordinated attack on Kirkuk's police headquarters - a suicide car bomb followed by an assault by grenade-throwing gunmen - killed 30 people and wounded 88 others.

The violence comes as Iraq grapples with a political crisis pitting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his government partners amid weeks of protests calling for him to resign.

No one has claimed responsibility for the spate of attacks but local security officials blame Al-Qaida's front group in Iraq, which often targets security forces and officials in a bid to destabilise the country and push it back towards the sectarian bloodshed of 2005 to 2008. 

Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city 240 kilometres north of Baghdad, lies at the heart of a swathe of disputed territory claimed by both the central government and Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region.

The unresolved row is persistently cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest threat to Iraq's long-term stability.

The violence was the latest in a spike in unrest that saw 246 people killed last month, the most since September, according to an AFP tally.

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Paedophile killer seeks release

Belgian killer Marc Dutroux, in court in 2004, has applied for an early release 16 years into his life sentence for the kidnap and rape of six girls, and the murder of four of his victims. Source: AFP

NOTORIOUS Belgian child serial killer Marc Dutroux has appeared before a special court seeking to be released and placed under house arrest with an electronic tag.

His appeal for early release comes just three months before he completes 16 years of his life sentence for the kidnap and rape of six girls, and the murder of four of his victims, in one of the darkest episodes in Belgium's criminal history.

The 56-year-old appeared behind closed doors yesterday with the Brussels court house sealed off by 125 police and security officers, with all other cases wiped from the statute books for the day and journalists blocked from view. Security confirmed to AFP his passage before the bench.

A handful of protesters outside demanded Dutroux be hanged, chanting "the rope for paedophiles".

A decision on Dutroux's request is not expected before February 18. Even if it were granted, it would not be implemented before April 30.

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