Malala Yousafzai's book banned in Pakistani private schools

Pakistani education officials said Sunday that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai’s book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn’t show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.

                    Malala accused of becoming poster girl of western governments against Islamic world

ISLAMABAD—Pakistani education officials said Sunday that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai’s book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn’t show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.

Malala attracted global attention last year when the Taliban shot her in the head, conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan that her shooting was staged to create a hero for the West to embrace, for criticizing the group’s interpretation of Islam, which limits girls’ access to education. Her profile has risen steadily since then, and she released a memoir in October, “I Am Malala,” that was co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb.

Adeeb Javedani, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, said his group banned Malala’s book from the libraries of its 40,000 affiliated schools and called on the government to bar it from school curriculums.

“Everything about Malala is now becoming clear,” Javedani said. “To me, she is representing the West, not us.”

Kashif Mirza, the chairman of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, said his group also has banned Malala’s book in its affiliated schools.

He said the book did not show enough respect for Islam because it mentioned Prophet Muhammad’s name without using the abbreviation PUH — “peace be upon him” — as is customary in many parts of the Muslim world. He also said it spoke favourably of author Salman Rushdie, who angered many Muslims with his book “The Satanic Verses,” and Ahmadis, members of a minority sect that have been declared non-Muslims under Pakistani law.

Philippines Typhoon Haiyan kills more than 10,000...

The NRI Post - Largest NRI News Portal: Philippines Typhoon Haiyan kills more than 10,000...: TACLOBAN— One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police o...

Philippines Typhoon Haiyan kills more than 10,000 people

TACLOBAN— One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away coastal villages and devastating one of the main cities in the region.

Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria, before weakening and heading west for Vietnam.

As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food or searched for lost loved ones.

"People are walking like zombies looking for food," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. "It's like a movie."

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.

The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,200 killed by a storm whose sustained winds reached 313 km per hour with gusts of up to 235 mph.

"We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Soria told Reuters. "The devastation is so big."

About 300 people died in neighboring Samar province, where Haiyan first hit land on Friday as a category 5 typhoon, with 2,000 missing, said a provincial disaster agency official.

Nearly 480,000 people were displaced and 4.5 million "affected" by the typhoon in 36 provinces, the national disaster agency said, as relief agencies called for food, water, medicines and tarpaulins for the homeless.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte's capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 360 miles southeast of Manila which bore the brunt, with hundreds of bodies piled along roads and pinned under wrecked houses.

The city lies in a cove where the seawater narrows, making it susceptible to storm surges.

The city and nearby villages as far as one kilometer (just over half a mile) from shore were flooded, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes.

Many Internet users urged prayers and called for aid for survivors in the largely Roman Catholic nation on social media sites such as Twitter.

Looters rampaged through several stores in Tacloban, witnesses said, taking whatever they could find as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water were hampered by severed roads and communications. A TV station said ATM machines were broken open.

Mobs attacked trucks loaded with food, tents and water on Tanauan bridge in Leyte, said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon. "These are mobsters operating out of there."

President Benigno Aquino said the government had deployed 300 soldiers and police to restore order and that he was considering introducing martial law or a state of emergency in Tacloban to ensure security.