Taliban gunmen shoot 14-year-old girl activist

A wounded Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai, is moved to a helicopter to be taken to Peshawar for treatment in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan?s volatile Swat Valley Tuesday and shot and wounded a 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada)

A wounded Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai, is moved to a helicopter to be taken to Peshawar for treatment in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan?s volatile Swat Valley Tuesday and shot and wounded a 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada)

In this photo released by Inter Services Public Relations department, Pakistani soldiers carry wounded Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai, from a military helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan?s volatile Swat Valley Tuesday and shot and wounded the 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said. (AP Photo/Inter Services Public Relations Department)

A wounded Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai, is moved to a helicopter to be taken to Peshawar for treatment in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan?s volatile Swat Valley Tuesday and shot and wounded a 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said.(AP Photo/Sherin Zada)

MINGORA, Pakistan (AP) ? Fourteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai was admired across a battle-scarred region of Pakistan for exposing the Taliban's atrocities and advocating for girls' education in the face of religious extremists. On Tuesday, the Taliban nearly killed her to quiet her message.

A gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in the volatile northern Swat Valley and shot Malala in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.

The young activist was airlifted by helicopter to a military hospital in the frontier city of Peshawar. A doctor in the city of Mingora, Tariq Mohammad, said her wounds weren't life-threatening, but a provincial information minister said after a medical board examined the girl that the next few days would be crucial.

Malala began writing a blog when she was just 11 under the pseudonym Gul Makai for the BBC about life under the Taliban, and began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls' education ? which the Taliban strongly opposes. The extremist movement was quick to claim responsibility for shooting her.

"This was a new chapter of obscenity, and we have to finish this chapter," Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan by telephone.

The shooting provoked outrage across the country, angering Pakistanis who have seen a succession of stories about violence against women by the Taliban.

"This attack cannot scare us nor the courageous Malala. This cowardly act cannot deter Malala to give up her efforts," said Azizul Hasan, one of the girl's cousins.

Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf condemned the attack and called her a daughter of Pakistan. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the shooting "barbaric" and "cowardly."

The attack displayed the viciousness of Islamic militants in the Swat Valley, where the military conducted a major operation in 2009 to clear out insurgents, and a reminder of the challenges the government faces in keeping the area free of militant influence.

In her BBC blog, Malala wrote about not wearing her uniform to school after officials warned it might attract the Taliban's attention, and how many other students moved out of the valley after the Taliban issued an edict banning girls from school. She wrote about the Taliban movement had kept her family from going out after sunset.

While chairing a children's assembly supported by UNICEF in the valley last year, the then-13-year-old championed a greater role for young people.

"Girl members play an active role," she said, according to an article on the U.N. organization's website. "We have highlighted important issues concerning children, especially promoting girls' education in Swat."

She was nominated last year for the International Children's Peace Prize, which is organized by the Dutch organization KidsRights to highlight the work of children around the world.

Malala was shot on her way home from a school run by her father, Ziauddin, who is also known in the valley for promoting education of girls.

The bus was about to leave the school grounds in Mingora, the largest city in Swat Valley, when a bearded man approached it and asked which one of the girls was Malala, said Rasool Shah, Mingora's police chief. Another girl pointed to Malala, but the activist denied it was her and the gunmen then shot both of the girls, the police chief said.

The Swat Valley ? nicknamed the Switzerland of Pakistan ? was once a popular tourist destination for Pakistanis. Honeymooners used to vacation in the numerous hotels dotted along the river of the same name running through it. But the Taliban's near-total takeover of the valley just 175 miles (280 kilometers) from the capital in 2008 shocked many Pakistanis, who considered militancy to be a far-away problem in Afghanistan or Pakistan's rugged tribal regions.

Militants began asserting their influence in the valley in 2007 ? part of a wave of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters expanding their reach from safe havens near the Afghan border.

By 2008 they controlled much of it and began meting out rules and their own brand of justice. During about two years of its rule, the Taliban forced men to grow beards, restricted women from going to the bazaar, whipped women they considered immoral and beheaded opponents.

Taliban militants in the region also destroyed around 200 schools. Most were girls' institutions, though some prominent boys' schools were struck as well. The private school owned and operated by Malala's father was temporarily closed under the Taliban.

At one point, the Taliban said they were halting female education, a move that echoed their militant brethren in neighboring Afghanistan who during their rule barred girls from attending school.

While the Pakistani military managed to flush out the insurgents during the military operation, the Taliban's top leadership escaped, leaving many of the valley's residents on edge.

Kamila Hayat, a senior official of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said Malala's activism sent a global message that Pakistani girls could fight for their rights. But she also worried that Tuesday's shooting would prevent other parents from letting their children speak out against the Taliban.

"This is an attack to silence courage through a bullet," Hayat said. "These are the forces who want to take us to the dark ages."

The problems of young women in Pakistan were the focus of a separate case before the high court, which ordered a probe Tuesday into an alleged barter of seven girls to settle a blood feud in a remote southwestern district. The tradition of families exchanging unmarried girls to settle feuds is banned under Pakistani law but still practiced in the country's more conservative, tribal areas.

A tribal council ordered the barter in early September in the Dera Bugti district of Baluchistan province, the district deputy commissioner, Saeed Faisal, told the court. He did not know the girls' ages but local media reported they were between 4 and 13 years old.

The Advocate General for the province could not confirm the incident.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered Faisal to ensure that all members of the tribal council ? and a local lawmaker ? who belongs to one of the groups believed involved ? appear in court on Wednesday.

___

Santana reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Abdul Sattar in Quetta and Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-09-Pakistan/id-0e0558230a2349469fdd79f90768a37f

Olympics Schedule 2012

Rooney could be getting hot again

Man of the match:?Wayne Rooney?may have started one of his good spells. We see it once or twice a year ? a span where the Manchester United attacker looks like one of the best players in the world. He wasn?t quite up to that standard on Sunday, but at this rate, Rooney might be at that level for next week?s match against Stoke City. Still, in recording two assists while serving as the link between United?s midfield and attack, Rooney was the best of a strong Red Devil squad.

The two assists are a bit of misleading, though. One came on a corner kick. The other was a simple ball ahead of a remarkable goal. But even without the assists, Rooney was United?s most impressive player. His play behind the forwards in United?s 4-3-1-2 formation hinted Alex Ferguson may figuring out the right deployment for his wealth of attacking talent.

Packaged for takeaway:

• Manchester United is so inconsistent, you never want to make judgments based on the lineups. Newcastle?s XI, though ? particularly their back five ? looked like they were going to be in trouble:
  • The Magpies had second choice `keeper Steven Harper in goal. He?s not bad, but he?s a clear step back from the Tim Krul, out injured.
  • Under normal circumstances, the difference between Krul and Harper wouldn?t be noticed, particularly over a mere 90 minutes, but with a 21-year-old Shane Ferguson starting to the left of a James Perch-Mike Williamson?pair, Harper looked likely to be tested often. Either that or defensive midfielder Chiek Tiote was going to have to have a huge day.
  • United started a very attack-oriented team (no surprise): Danny Welbeck and Robin van Persie up top, Rooney behind them, with Shinji Kagawa and Tom Cleverley playing the wide midfielders in a 4-3-1-2.
• Eight minutes in, Manchester United had 89 percent of the Opta possession. That?s also when they opened the scoring, a near post corner from van Persie finding Jonny Evans, who out-jumped Williamson to make it 1-0.
• Eight minutes later (in the 16th minute), United were up two, Patrice Evra beating Demba Ba to head home a corner from Rooney.
• Whether it was Newcastle?s awakening or Manchester United letting up, the game evened out after the second goal. United wouldn?t register a shot for the rest of the half, their possession going from 80 percent (at the time of Evra?s goal) to 60 percent (at halftime). Each of Newcastle?s eight first half shots came after the second goal, though none of them tested David de Gea.
• The match also saw five yellow cards handed out in the 24-minute period after the Evra goal. Howard Webb would go on to book eight players overall.
• The second half avoided the first?s bipolarity, leveling off into a match United was destined to win. After Cleverley made it 3-0 with a great, curling goal inside the right post from 25 yards out, the Red Devils started taking off their stars.
• And most of the time, that?s a good shorthand for how a match has gone. If all you were told about this match were United?s subs ? Kagawa, Rooney, then van Persie ? you?d know United won big.
• For Newcastle, it was a match they were destined to lose. They weren?t set up to beat United in midfield, which would have left a second choice defense sitting ducks even without the early corner kick conversions.
• For United, the performance showed continued improvement, which is all Ferguson wants at this time of year. It?s half fable, half fact: Ferguson tries to get his team clicking by the new year. With that in mind, he?ll spend the next three months tweaking, hoping United will be at their best when the stakes escalate. Today was a good tweak.

Source: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/07/manchester-united-newcastle-english-premier-league-results/related/

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September Jobs Report, Consumer Confidence And Auto Sales ...

The big story in today's jobs report is the unemployment rate falling to 7.8%, which happened because there was a +873K reading on the household survey.

Remember, there are two jobs surveys. There's the Establishment Non-Farm Payrolls report, which surveys businesses, and the household survey, which surveys households, the latter of which is always more volatile.

So by the latter survey, we got 873K new jobs, and the unemployment rate fell by three tenths of a percent from 8.1% to 7.8%.

And this makes sense in light of other data we've seen this month.

For example, car sales are historically closely associated with job creation, since people don't buy new cars unless they have jobs.

And car sales came in at their best level since the crisis.

Here's a chart showing the tight relationship between car sales and the unemployment rate.

Meanwhile, there have been huge upturns in economic confidence as tracked by Gallup, the University of Michigan, and political polls

Combine it all, and it's clear: In September, if you asked households, more of them were employed, more had cars, and more felt much better about the economy.

Click here for today's jobs report >

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/september-jobs-report-consumer-confidence-and-auto-sales-2012-10

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Tim Goodman on Oscars Host Seth MacFarlane: 'Family Guy ...

Courtesy of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Seth MacFarlane

There?s no doubt that having Seth MacFarlane host the 2013 Academy Awards is a big bowl of interesting. That decision will have people talking. Whether it will have them watching is another story.

The knee-jerk reaction seems to be that it won?t work with viewers and will be a disaster if MacFarlane gets free rein to bring his Family Guy or Ted humor to the illustrious confines of the Oscars. That?s probably selling both the audience and MacFarlane short -- and it?s missing the much bigger picture about awards hosts.

PHOTOS: The Academy Class of 2012 Breakdown: From the Expected (Recent Oscar Winners) to the Surprising (TV Stars? Stephen King?)

It?s true that most Americans ? that would be everybody outside of this town ? don?t really know who MacFarlane is. Telling them he?s the guy who created Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show and the movie Ted is unlikely to help much. Adding that he?s the one who took a huge risk and actually recorded an album that opened a lot of eyes is also a nonstarter. The people want immediately recognizable stars, be they comedians, talk show hosts or actors.

Even if MacFarlane does well -- and the bet here is he?ll do much better than current expectations ? doesn?t change the fact that viewers are more comfortable with a known quantity. They see the host as a familiar face who guides them through the show. Even if MacFarlane is funny, creative and well-behaved, to viewers it might be a little like going to a New Year?s Eve party at a good friend?s house only to find their distant cousin is hosting instead.

Will that evening ever be what it was meant to be? Probably not.

The decision to tap MacFarlane as host is also the latest gambit by the Academy folks to spice things up. We?ll never know if the Brett Ratner and Eddie Murphy tandem that never happened last year would have worked or not. (Odds: Probably, with a few speed bumps.) What we do know is that Billy Crystal did not work. That?s because Crystal?s time as host had passed and his presence felt like a stale reminder of the past.

But the answer to what happened with Crystal is absolutely not to reinvent the wheel just because clinging to the past alienates the younger demo and reminds everyone of eras gone by. The lesson to take from Crystal hosting is that tastes and times change; maybe seeing him in action last year quieted down all the people who?d been screaming for his return to ?fix? the show. Because he didn?t fix it. He reminded us that vaudeville passed for a reason.

Having MacFarlane host the show seems to play into the misguided notion that the Oscars need to be torn down and rebuilt, rather than merely updated and renovated.

VIDEO: Seth MacFarlane to Host the 2013 Oscars

The 2013 Oscars will be produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who said: ?We are thrilled to have Seth MacFarlane host the Oscars. His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh. He will be the consummate host, and we are so happy to be working with him.?

That might be true, except viewers are likely to see him as that distant cousin who opens the door at the party they were looking forward to. How about a close-up on the smiles falling off their faces? So, yes, taking nothing away from MacFarlane (because there seems to be some sport in, mocking the guy which seems way out of line with his proven talents), he?s the wrong choice, coupled with the wrong reason.

The big picture here, for the Oscars, Emmys and even the Golden Globes, is there?s too much emphasis on the host. The host is not the star of the show. The host is ? wait for it ? the host.

All of the major awards shows have turned into comedy routines. There?s nothing wrong with being funny, of course ? most of my favorite hosts for any of these awards shows have been hilarious comedians. But the tipping point might have come with Ricky Gervais (another favorite) and the Golden Globes. Whether you put any merit in the Globes or not will influence your opinion on whether they need a host with the right balance. Clearly, Gervais was there to be the show. He lit the room on fire to the delight of viewers who A) don?t take the Globes seriously and B) don?t like celebrities taking themselves seriously. His return engagement after allegedly being banned was the beginning and end of the Globes story. The focus was all Gervais. Even though I might fall into the camp that believes having the Globes be a rip-roaring free-for-all makes for the best possible television, it was clear that the role of the host had shifted disproportionately and needed to be addressed.

The Oscars trying James Franco and Anne Hathaway was a disaster not only because it was so patently obvious producers were looking for the younger demo, but because Franco was a terrible choice who quickly checked out. Hathaway?s spirit was certainly right for the event, but she wasn?t a big enough name to host alone (and suffered unduly because of Franco tanking).

STORY: Seth MacFarlane to Host Oscars: Hollywood Reacts

What awards shows need to come to grips with is that they are now being judged (by critics, some viewers) on how funny the host is. But there's no way to win that game. There?s a way to get back to the middle ground ? funny, efficient, present but not desperate to own the spotlight.

The recent Emmys showed the best steps toward the right balance. Host Jimmy Kimmel tried to be funny and respectful (in a Carsonesque kind of way) and be the host without being the star. That?s the model going forward. I liked ABC?s choice of Kimmel. It was the right one. But it could be that Kimmel, despite all of his recent successes and commanding what is clearly the best late-night talk show on television, was just slightly ahead of the curve (as Crystal was more than slightly behind it).

His approach to hosting the Emmys was the right one. But if Americans thought he was too much of an unknown quantity (or were judging him for not being a David Letterman, much less a Johnny Carson), then what the hell are they going to think of MacFarlane? The recipe for choosing a host is not that complicated: You need to factor in the people in the room, the people for whom the awards are being held, and the viewers at home ? a broad-based demographic of varied tastes. Too old (Crystal) ? not good. Too new (Kimmel?) ? a slight miss. Stars without enough broad-based interest (Franco, Hathaway) ? definitely not. And hosts who want to be the center of attention (Gervais) ? only if you care about the snark-seeking viewers at home.

That?s not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Pick someone people know and like. Make sure they?re relevant to the era. Make sure they?re funny but not scathing. Keep them moving things along (not disappearing in the back). Keep it upbeat and dignified.

STORY: Seth MacFarlane on Why He Got Oscars Gig: 'I Was Sitting Outside Their Office'

OK, you say, if it?s so easy to fit that criteria, then pick someone. For the Oscars, I wouldn?t pick MacFarlane because there?s no name recognition to the outside world. It wouldn?t pick, say, Jay Leno because then you have a TV host talking to the movie world (though he wouldn?t be the worst pick ever). And I wouldn't chase the young demo with a pair of young stars to get the right demo.

Easy. I?d go with Tom Hanks.

Email: Tim.Goodman@THR.com

Twitter: @BastardMachine

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscars-host-seth-macfarlane-375391

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