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A former police officer has spoken about some of his colleagues' attitude to Jimmy Savile in the 1960s - saying that everyone in the force knew "Jimmy liked them young". The ex-officer ... was with Leeds City Police in the 1960s. He used to patrol areas of the city where Savile was well known. Late one night, just before midnight, he noticed Jimmy Savile's Rolls Royce parked in a secluded spot on the edge of Roundhay Park. "As I went past I saw the interior lights were on," he said. "He was sat in the driver's seat and was talking to a young lady in the passenger seat. She looked ... perhaps 15 or 16. "I said, 'What's the matter, Jimmy - what are you doing up here?' "He said, 'Yeah, we're fine, aren't we?' And she smiled. Then he said, 'We're waiting for 12 o'clock, son.' "Why?" I asked. 'Because it's her birthday tomorrow, she's 16.' And he winked at me. "I asked the girl, 'Are you ok?' "She smiled - there was no impression she was being forced to be there. "Jimmy then said, 'Now get back on your bike before you lose your job.'" The former officer said today that the attitudes of the time were "different" and accepts that such actions today would be unthinkable. "Leeds City Police ... turned a blind eye to 15-year-olds but never considered that as paedophilia. The officer ... believes that attitude of the police towards Savile lasted for years afterwards, [and] that police may have informally talked to Savile about the age of his girlfriends in the 1960s. Jimmy Savile, a former TV presenter and radio DJ ... is believed to have abused hundreds.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, said in an extensive interview this month that he did not take any secret N.S.A. documents with him to Russia when he fled there in June, assuring that Russian intelligence officials could not get access to them. He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from Chinas spies because he was familiar with that nations intelligence abilities, saying that as an N.S.A. contractor he had targeted Chinese operations and had taught a course on Chinese cybercounterintelligence. Theres a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents, he said. Mr. Snowden added that inside the spy agency theres a lot of dissent. But he said that people were kept in line through fear and a false image of patriotism, which he described as obedience to authority. He said he believed that if he tried to question the N.S.A.s surveillance operations as an insider, his efforts would have been buried forever, and he would have been discredited and ruined. Mr. Snowden said he finally decided to act when he discovered a copy of a classified 2009 inspector generals report on the N.S.A.s warrantless wiretapping program during the Bush administration. After reading about the program, which skirted the existing surveillance laws, he concluded that it had been illegal, he said. If the highest officials in government can break the law without fearing punishment or even any repercussions at all, he said, secret powers become tremendously dangerous.
Note: For more on the hidden realities of intelligence agency operations, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Alice Herz-Sommer is known for her grace and wisdom. The 109-year-old, who is the oldest living pianist and Holocaust survivor, is undoubtedly one of the most inspirational people in the world. Now, a documentary called "The Lady In Number 6" is telling her incredible story from beginning to end - but just the 11-minute preview in itself is amazing enough. "Every day in life is beautiful," Herz-Sommer says in the video above. The 38-minute-long documentary is directed by Malcolm Clarke and produced by Nicholas Reed and has already been shortlisted for the Academy Awards' documentary short subject category, according to the Los Angeles Times. Kids all over the world grow up on superheroes," Reed writes on the documentary's website. "What we, their parents, must remind them, is documentaries tell stories about real superheroes.' Superheroes are based on great people, real people, like Alice Herz Sommer. Despite everything she's been through, Herz-Sommer insists that she's never hated the Nazis and never will. "I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times - including my husband, my mother and my beloved son," she says on the documentary's website. "Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
It was an innocuous e-mail, one of millions sent every day by spouses with updates on the situation at home. But this one was of particular interest to the National Security Agency and contained clues that put the senders husband in the crosshairs of a CIA drone. Days later, Hassan Ghul ... was killed by a drone strike in Pakistans tribal belt. Documents provided ... by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirm his demise in October 2012 and reveal the agencys extensive involvement in the targeted killing program that has served as a centerpiece of President Obamas counterterrorism strategy. The documents provide the most detailed account of the intricate collaboration between the CIA and the NSA in the drone campaign. [The] collection of records in the Snowden trove [make] clear that the drone campaign often depicted as the CIAs exclusive domain relies heavily on the NSAs ability to vacuum up enormous quantities of e-mail, phone calls and other fragments of signals intelligence, or SIGINT. To handle the expanding workload, the NSA created a secret unit known as the Counter-Terrorism Mission Aligned Cell, or CT MAC, to concentrate the agencys vast resources on hard-to-find [targets]. Former CIA officials said the files are an accurate reflection of the NSAs contribution to finding targets in a campaign that has killed more than 3,000 people [in] Pakistan.
Note: For more on the use of drones to kill abroad and spy at home, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
An Irish family has said their pet dog is helping to protect their three-year-old daughter by warning them when she is about to have an epileptic seizure. The Lynch family, from County Clare, believe their Great Dane, Charlie, can sense changes in their child up to 20 minutes before she has a fit. Brianna Lynch has epilepsy since birth. Her family said Charlie will alert them by walking in circles around Brianna. He also gently pins her against a wall to stop her from falling during a fit. Brianna's condition [can] lead to traumatic seizures, some of which cause her to go into a trance-like state, while others cause violent convulsions during which she is at risk of falling and hitting her head. Brianna's mother, Arabella Scanlan, said Charlie is not a trained "seizure alert dog" but was just a normal, family pet who appears to have developed some kind of special skill through his own instincts. They first noticed it some time ago when the huge Great Dane began to get agitated and walk in circles around Brianna. Minutes later the toddler had an epileptic fit. "Charlie will know about 15 to 20 minutes before she's going into seizure. He'll get ever so panicky and giddy, almost as if you'd think 'this stupid dog is going to knock her over'. But he has never once knocked her over. We kept an eye on this and, sure enough, I went into the yard one day and she (Brianna) was buckled over to the side, on top of him (Charlie). She was actually having a seizure. He stayed with her, he didn't move." Ms Scanlan said that since then, the dog rarely leaves Brianna's side and will gently pin her up against a wall or other surface if he senses she is about to fit. He will guard the child until help arrives.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Some argue [that Genetically Modified Organisms] are the way to feed the world and that an exploding population will require them. Others see GMO technology as part of a corporate plot to take over fields and drive farmers into debt, while everything from pesticide use to allergies are on the rise because of them. [But] the GMO debate is also distracting us from [other] interventions which have worked to dramatically reduce hunger and malnutrition over the last fifty years, and are today in desperate need of our continued support. These successful programs had a remarkable impact on the number in need today because they made small-scale farmers more profitable and families more self-reliant, diets more diverse and children and adults better educated. Success [is] not simply about increasing the physical supply of food, states Millions Fed, a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Rather, [successes] are about reductions in hunger that resultfrom a change in an individuals ability to secure quality food. Nutrition is multifaceted it involves access to food, water and sanitation, hygiene, disease and infection, poverty, says Nancy Haselow, Vice President of the Helen Keller International (HKI). There is no single solution to solve malnutrition, so we need to provide multiple and synergistic interventions, a combination of approaches is best. Sustainable solutions that can be left in the community, are owned by the community, and put tools and knowledge and skills in the hands of mothers and fathers are important to addressing the problem. A myriad of initiatives, non-reliant on GMO technology, have already proven successful in reducing hunger.
Note: For more on the grave risks associated with GMO foods, see the deeply revealing summary available here.
A bogus scientific paper about a new anti-cancer compound was accepted by more than half of 300 scientific journals it was submitted to in the past year, despite having obvious and serious scientific flaws. Science journalist John Bohannon reported the results of his experiment in the journal Science. Bohannon, who holds a PhD in molecular biology and is a visiting scholar at Harvard Universitys program in ethics and health, ... concluded [that] a huge proportion of the journals were not ensuring their papers were peer reviewed. Even in cases where peer review happened, it didnt always function correctly. For example, the Ottawa-based International Journal of Herbs and Medicinal Plants clearly sent the paper out to be reviewed by real scientists, who pointed out some flaws, Bohannon recalled. Even so, when Bohannon submitted a revised version of the paper without correcting any of the flaws, it was accepted. Bohannon said peer review is crucial so that readers of a scientific paper know it has at least passed muster with a couple of experts who are in a position, hopefully, to judge. It could be the whole peer review system is just failing under the strain of the tens of thousands of journals that now exist. He added that if peer review isnt working, then people with what amounts to fraudulent scientific credentials and publication records are slowly filling university departments and government offices, making important science-based policy decisions. In addition, terrible science is polluting the global pool of knowledge."
Note: For more on the corruption of science, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Up to 30 hospitals are now under investigation as part of the inquiry into Jimmy Savile's alleged abuse of patients at NHS hospitals. Inquiries had originally just focused on Broadmoor and Stoke Mandeville and Leeds General Infirmary. Revelations that Savile had sexually abused children prompted hundreds of victims to come forward, including those who said they were attacked on BBC premises and at a number of other institutions. Savile had a bedroom at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, an office and living quarters at Broadmoor, and widespread access to Leeds General Infirmary. Liz Dux, an abuse lawyer who represents more than 70 of the claimants, told the BBC she was worried the extension would prolong the distress of her clients. "These hospitals were known about - all my clients gave their evidence some time ago to the NHS investigation. These victims want the investigation concluded, naturally as efficiently as possible, but they want it over, they need closure," she said. The revelations about Savile have led to a number of inquiries. The police investigation, Operation Yewtree, ... has three strands. One looking specifically at the actions of Savile is due to report in the new year. The BBC understands it will put the number of alleged victims at over 500. The second strand concerns allegations against "Savile and others". The third relates to complaints against other people unconnected to the Savile investigations, made by people who came forward after widespread coverage of the scandal
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children in institutional settings, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Federal grants of $7 million, initially intended to help thwart terror attacks at the port in Oakland, Calif., are instead going to a police initiative that will collect and analyze reams of surveillance data. The new system ... is the latest example of how cities are compiling and processing large amounts of information, known as big data, for routine law enforcement. And the system underscores how technology has enabled the tracking of people in many aspects of life. Like the Oakland effort, other pushes to use new surveillance tools in law enforcement are supported with federal dollars. The New York Police Department, aided by federal financing, has a big data system that links 3,000 surveillance cameras with license plate readers, radiation sensors, criminal databases and terror suspect lists. Police in Massachusetts have used federal money to buy automated license plate scanners. And police in Texas have bought a drone with homeland security money. [Critics] of the Oakland initiative, formally known as the Domain Awareness Center, [say] the program, which will create a central repository of surveillance information, will also gather data about the everyday movements and habits of law-abiding residents. Oakland has a contract with the Science Applications International Corporation, or SAIC, to build its system. That company has earned the bulk of its $12 billion in annual revenue from military contracts.
Note: For more on government privacy invasions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The international band of Internet activists known as Anonymous has chosen the rural Missouri town of Maryville as the target of its latest campaign, after the Kansas City Star published a powerful examination of a possible rape case that went unprosecuted by local authorities. Known for successful hacks of organizations ranging from the Church of Scientology to PayPal to the government of Brazil, Anonymous released a statement: If Maryville wont defend these young girls, if the police are too cowardly or corrupt to do their jobs, if justice system has abandoned them, then we will have to stand for them." [Matthew] Barnett was a 17-year-old senior on the Maryville High School football team. Daisy, a freshman cheerleader, was delighted by the senior boys attentions, and ignored her older brothers advice to steer clear of him, [the Star] reported. Barnett, the grandson of former state representative Rex Barnett, later admitted to police that he knew the girl was drinking at his house and that he had sex with her while she was drunk. He loaded the girl, in tears, into his car and left her unconscious on her front porch in subfreezing cold. Much of the town turned on the Coleman family, Daisys mother Melinda was fired from her job, and after the Colemans left town their house burned down under suspicious circumstances. Melinda Coleman is not the only one wondering whether the prominence of Barnetts family had something to do with the decision not to prosecute.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Its well known by now that income and wealth inequality in most rich countries, especially the United States, have soared in recent decades and, tragically, worsened even more since the Great Recession. But what about the rest of the world? New research by a World Bank economist named Branko Milanovic, along with other scholars, points the way to some answers. Overall equality across humanity, considered as individuals, has improved very little. So while nations in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, as a whole, might be catching up with the West, the poor everywhere are left behind, even in places like China where theyve benefited somewhat from rising living standards. From 1988 to 2008, Mr. Milanovic found, people in the worlds top 1 percent saw their incomes increase by 60 percent, while those in the bottom 5 percent had no change in their income. And while median incomes have greatly improved in recent decades, there are still enormous imbalances: 8 percent of humanity takes home 50 percent of global income; the top 1 percent alone takes home 15 percent. The United States provides a particularly grim example for the world. And because, in so many ways, America often leads the world, if others follow Americas example, it does not portend well for the future. Last year, the top 1 percent of Americans took home 22 percent of the nations income; the top 0.1 percent, 11 percent. Ninety-five percent of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent.
Note: For more on income inequality, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Dr. Laura Stachel watched as physicians performed an emergency cesarean section. What happened next stunned her. "The lights went out," Stachel recalled, "and I said, 'How are they going to finish?' " Fortunately, Stachel had a flashlight with her, and the doctors were able to use it to complete the surgery. But during that two-week trip in 2008, she witnessed countless other times when the lives of mothers and babies were at risk simply because of a lack of reliable electricity. With the help of Hal Aronson, her husband and a solar energy educator, Stachel worked to find a solution. He drew up designs for a solar electric system to provide a free source of power to the state hospital in northern Nigeria where Stachel had conducted her research. Each time Stachel would return to Africa, she came with one or two new "solar suitcases" assembled by her husband. Today, the solar suitcase includes two solar panels that are mounted on a clinic's roof and connected to high-quality LED lights. Once fully charged, it can provide light for up to 20 hours. The kit also contains headlamps, a fetal Doppler to monitor a baby's heart rate and a cell phone charging unit. "We got to something that was really rugged, simple to use, portable and that we knew would really work in harsh environments," Stachel said. It also spread to other countries after Stachel and Aronson started a nonprofit, We Care Solar. Since 2009, the kits have been helping health-care workers save lives not only in Nigeria but in facilities throughout Africa, Asia and Central America.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
[Banks] have rigged LIBOR, an interest rate used to peg contracts worth trillions. Its equivalent in the world of derivatives, ISDAfix, has also come under question. Commodities prices from crude oil to platinum have been the subject of allegations and inquiries. Now prices in global currency markets, where turnover is $5 trillion a day, are being scrutinised by authorities, who suspect bankers have tampered with those too. Switzerlands financial watchdog announced on October 4th that it was investigating a slew of banks it thinks have manipulated currencies. Britain and the European Union also have probes under way. Concerns reportedly centre around abnormal movements ahead of a widely-used daily snapshot of exchange rates, known as the 4pm London fix. It represents the average of prices agreed during 60 seconds trading, and is used as a reference rate to execute a much larger set of currency deals. Bankers, who are big participants in the market, have huge incentives to nudge the price of a given currency pairing ahead of the fix. With billions of dollars changing hands, a difference of a fraction of a cent can add a tidy sum to the bonus pool. If proven, the charge would amount to banks fleecing their clients. Banks know the big trades they are about to execute on others behalf, and are often themselves the counterparty. By moving the markets ahead of the fix, they could alter the rate to their profit and their clients loss. One suspected method is banging the close: submitting a quick succession of orders just as the benchmark is set, to distort its value.
Note: For more on financial corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Tax the rich and better target the multinationals: The IMF has set off shockwaves this week in Washington by suggesting countries fight budget deficits by raising taxes. Guardian of financial orthodoxy, the International Monetary Fund, which is holding its annual meetings with the World Bank this week in the US capital, typically calls for nations in difficulty to slash public spending to reduce their deficits. But in its Fiscal Monitor report, subtitled "Taxing Times", the Fund advanced the idea of taxing the highest-income people and their assets to reinforce the legitimacy of spending cuts and fight against growing income inequalities. "Scope seems to exist in many advanced economies to raise more revenue from the top of the income distribution," the IMF wrote, noting "steep cuts" in top rates since the early 1980s. According to IMF estimates, taxing the rich even at the same rates during the 1980s would reap fiscal revenues equal to 0.25 percent of economic output in the developed countries. "The gain could in some cases, such as that of the United States, be more significant," around 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, said the IMF report, which also singled out deficient taxation of multinational companies. In the US alone, legal loopholes deprive the Treasury of roughly $60 billion in receipts, the global lender said. The IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, kept up the sales pitch for a more just fiscal policy. "It's clearly something finance ministers are interested in, it's something that is necessary for the right balance of public finances," said Lagarde, a former French finance minister.
Note: Yahoo! was the only major media in the US to pick up this eye-opening news, with the possible exception of a Forbes article which shows how afraid they are of this development. For more on financial corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
After a flash of inspiration Glenn Paige wrote a book on 'nonkilling,' and now his concept is gaining momentum worldwide. Paige, a former political science professor, established the Center for Global Nonkilling and inspired a worldwide movement. "The impact of the teachings of Prof. Glenn Paige is enormous," [says] Bishop Mabwe Lucien of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God churches in Congo. "They have transformed the region." Paige, a cherub-faced retired political science professor [lives] half a world away in Honolulu. His influential work began far from African villagers in 2002, when he published his book. In it he describes a "nonkilling world" as one without killing, threats to kill, or conditions conducive to killing and one in which there is no dependence on killing or the threat of killing to produce change. Paige posted his book on the Internet, giving it away free of charge in a version that anyone can download from the website of the Center for Global Nonkilling. The big reason for its rapid spread is the nonkilling concept itself, Paige says. In his view, "The logic of killing is running out of steam." Within five years the book was translated into 15 languages, including Arabic, Russian, Hindi, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Today it is available in 30 languages. The book has begun to influence academic thinking across numerous disciplines. Paige has encouraged scholars to question the "assumption that killing is an inescapable part of the human condition and must be accepted in theory and practice." That paradigm shift has already resulted in books on nonkilling in such fields as anthropology, economics, engineering, geography, history, linguistics, and psychology.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Malala Yousafzai may not have won the Nobel Peace Prize ... but she enjoyed a private Oval Office audience with President Obama and the first family. Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani student who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for speaking out in support of the right of girls to go to school, met Friday with Obama and his wife, Michelle. [and] the Obamas' 15-year-old daughter, Malia. Yousafzai said she was honored to meet Obama and that she raised concerns with him about the administration's use of drones, saying they are "fueling terrorism." "I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," Yousafzai said in a statement published by the Associated Press. "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact." The Pakistani teen was in Washington on Friday for an address at the World Bank, part of her U.S. visit to promote her new memoir, I Am Malala.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
An essential part of the scientific process is the critical analysis of research results by scientists with expertise in the discipline. Because of this peer-review process, mistakes are supposed to be caught before they propagate in the literature. Yet despite careful pre-publication scrutiny, some reports are later retracted or, worse, widely suspected to be erroneous but never corrected. One recent examination of 53 landmark medical studies found that further research was unable to replicate all but six of them. How can the scientific community do better at avoiding published errors and correcting them more quickly when they are discovered? A growing group of scientists are addressing this question. They suggest incentives that will reward scientists to a greater degree for producing solid, trustworthy research that others are able to replicate successfully and then extend. Paradoxically, the same qualities trust and teamwork that are key to a productive and harmonious laboratory environment are the same ones that can lead to an informality that allows errors to be propagated. Despite the importance of retractions in correcting the scientific record, there are few guidelines as to how they should be handled or how fast self-correction should occur. To this end medical journalists Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus created the web log Retraction Watch, which catalogs retractions as a window into the scientific process and explores the causes of each one; it has been called one of most important recent developments in science journalism by former Scientific American editor in chief John Rennie.
Note: For a powerful article showing how the author of the above article, Pamela Ronald, has not been truthful in her own studies, click here. For more on corruption in science, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A unit of the U.S. Department of Defense has been holding so-called "arrival ceremonies" for seven years, with an honor guard carrying flag-draped coffins off of a cargo plane as though they held the remains of missing American service men and women returning that day from old battlefields. After NBC News raised questions about the arrival ceremonies, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday that no honored dead were in fact arriving, and that the planes used in the ceremonies often couldn't even fly but were towed into position. The ceremonies have been attended by veterans and families of MIAs, led to believe that they were witnessing the return of Americans killed in World War II, Vietnam and Korea. The ceremonies also have been known, at least among some of the military and civilian staff here, as The Big Lie. Photos behind the scenes show that the flag-draped boxes had not just arrived on military planes. The Pentagon insisted that the flag-draped cases do contain human remains recently recovered, just not ones that arrived that day. The Pentagon statement did not explain why the rituals were called "arrival ceremonies" if no one was arriving, or why the public had been told that remains removed that morning from the lab were about to go to the lab to "begin the identification process."
Note: For a revealing book by Robert Kirkconnell, a 27-year USAF veteran who personally witnessed heroin being smuggled in the bodies of dead GIs, click here. For more on military corruption, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released [on] U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration. The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad. Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press." The report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open, transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration's secrecy, "but he has fallen short of his promise." "In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press," wrote Downie, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. Downie interviewed numerous reporters and editors, including a top editor at The Associated Press, following revelations this year that the government secretly seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP journalists. Downie also interviewed journalists whose sources have been prosecuted on felony charges. Those suspected of discussing classified information are increasingly subject to investigation, lie-detector tests, scrutiny of telephone and email records and now surveillance by co-workers under a new "Insider Threat Program" that has been implemented in every agency.
Note: For more on government secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Sixteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai ... is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize for her courage in the face of death threats in her home country of Pakistan over her advocacy of education for girls. On Thursday, she won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Malala was shot in the head and neck one year ago on her school bus by a gunman who was sent by the Taliban, the Muslim clerical group that believes in adherence to a strict version of Islamic law. Where it can, the Taliban has imposed rules forbidding girls from going to school, listening to music or taking most jobs. Malala, who lives in England now, told Stewart that she was stunned when she was told as a 14-year-old girl that the Taliban had issued a death threat against her for her activism and for her blog on the BBC, in which she wrote about how hard it was to live under strict Muslim rule as a girl. "I just could not believe it, I said no, it's not true," she said, saying she thought the Taliban would instead come after her father, who operates a school and opened up his classes to girls. "We thought the Taliban were not that much cruel that they would kill a child." After she was shot, she was allowed to go to Britain for brain surgery. She now lives outside London with her family. Though the Taliban has threatened her life again, she says striking back at them would not help. "If you hit a Talib, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib," she said. "You must not treat others with cruelty. You must fight others through peace and through dialogue and through education."
Note: You can watch portions of this inspiring show at the link above and at this link. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
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