Malala: Schoolgirl Shot By Taliban Speaks Out

The Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban has spoken out about her recovery for the first time since she was nearly killed.

Malala Yousufzai, 15, underwent successful surgery to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham at the weekend.

She escaped death by a matter of inches when she was shot on a school bus in northwestern Pakistan on October 9 last year - as the bullet entered just above her left eye and ran along her jaw, "grazing" her brain.

The Islamist gunmen said they targeted her because she promoted girls' education and "Western thinking".

In a message recorded by the hospital on Sunday, Malala said she was "feeling alright" and "happy that both the operations were successful".

She said: "I can also walk a little bit, I can talk and I'm feeling better."

Despite having five hours of surgery, Malala added: "It does not feel like I had a very big operation."

Malala on her path to recovery

Her doctors have expressed their delight at her recovery. They hope that the latest procedures - to put a titanium plate on her damaged skull and to fit a cochlear implant - will be the last surgery she needs.

Neurosurgeon Anwen White said that her "brain is healing very well" and she did not expect any long lasting cognitive problems.

She said the teenager would continue with rehabilitation and then "hopefully be discharged home fairly soon".

University Hospitals Birmingham medical director Dave Rosser said Malala was "doing very well".

He added that just a day after the operations Malala was "already talking about resuming her work and furthering her cause for women's education".

"Most of us would be feeling sorry for ourselves 24 hours after an operation like that, not talking about helping other people."

In another video interview, filmed before her surgery on January 22 but only just published, Malala is heard saying that she was "getting better, day by day".

Surgeons operating on Malala

Speaking clearly but with a slight stiffness in her upper lip, she said: "Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone.

"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."

Malala was airlifted to Britain from Pakistan in October to receive specialist medical care and protection against further Taliban threats.

She is expected to remain in the UK for some time as her father, Ziauddin, has received a diplomatic post based in Birmingham.

The Malala Fund is a girls' education charity set up in late 2012. It launched with a $10m (£6.4m) donation from Pakistan.

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Alabama Hostage Siege Ends As Boy Saved

A boy who was held hostage for a week is safe and his captor is dead after FBI agents stormed an underground bunker in Alabama.

Officials said the raid went ahead after negotiations with 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes deteriorated and he was seen with a gun.

Fearing the child was in imminent danger, agents entered the bunker to rescue the five-year-old. It was not immediately clear how Dykes died.

Officials break the news to gathered media

The boy was taken to hospital nearby. Officials have said the child has Asperger's syndrome.

Dykes had been accused of snatching the boy from a school bus last week after killing the driver, Charles Poland.

Before the news conference, an ambulance that had been parked near the scene could be seen driving away. However, it was not clear if anyone was inside, and the vehicle did not have its sirens or emergency lights on.

Daryle Hendry, who lives about a quarter-mile from where Dykes was holed up, said he heard a boom followed by a gunshot.

Officials had been sending food and medicine to Dykes and the boy in the bunker.

The scene of the hostage drama

Neighbours described Dykes as a man who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property, and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

Government records and interviews with neighbours indicate that Dykes joined the Navy, serving on active duty from 1964 to 1969. His record shows several awards, including the Vietnam Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal.

He had some scrapes with the law in Florida, including a 1995 arrest for improper exhibition of a weapon. The misdemeanour was dismissed. He also was arrested for marijuana possession in 2000.

He returned to Alabama about two years ago, moving onto the rural tract about 100 yards from his nearest neighbours.

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Syria: 'Children Are Biggest Casualty'

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Aleppo

The anguished cries of a little boy receiving treatment without anaesthetic for a shrapnel wound to the face fills the putrid air of a converted shop that is an Aleppo field hospital.

The walls are splattered with blood. All around are shop fronts with medics working on the latest injured.

A car pulls out and a young man shot in a drive-by attack staggers inside followed by his screaming mother.

In rebel-held Aleppo, this is just another day. It isn't particularly busy. It is just constant.

Medics, who have gone underground after their hospital was reduced to rubble by a targeted Syrian government bombing campaign, say that children are being injured and killed in greater numbers now than the rebel fighters.

Stuck inside this city the children are on the streets more than anyone else. Playing or scavenging amongst piles of rubbish for anything of value to take home, they are now the most vulnerable.

Hamid Sakia was shot by a sniper while playing football

A short distance away in another makeshift hospital room nine-year-old Hamid Sakia whimpers in pain; a sack of draining blood lies on the floor. He was shot by a sniper while playing football. He will lose his kidney. The medics are waiting for a surgeon to get enough anaesthetic to operate.

He whispers a "Yes" as I ask him if it hurts. His mother looks on holding back tears. She buried her daughter this week. Her family is being torn apart.

It is not about the lack of food or heating or supplies, she says.

"What will happen in the future?" She asks: "What will happen? Everyone is scared."

In a room next door, surrounded by seat cushions to try to keep the breeze from her skin, Aya Hussein stares motionlessly ahead. She is dreadfully burnt. Her tiny body a web of fierce welts caused by a fire when her apartment was hit by an artillery round.

Aya Hussein was burned when she was hit by an artillery round

The cushions are her treatment. This is life in Aleppo.

This city is slowly being destroyed. There is barely a building unscarred by the bombing from fighter jets and artillery. A million plus people still live here amongst the ruins where shells and snipers are a constant.

Cars cross the most dangerous parts of town protected by mud walls. You can hear the sniper rounds thudding into the barricade or whining over head as you pass.

The dreadful sound of artillery rounds smashing into buildings never stops wherever you go.

Once tree-filled parks are now open spaces. There is no heat or electricity in Aleppo so wood has become a precious commodity.

In the markets there are plenty of local vegetables. But meat, gas, fuel and pretty much everything else comes from Turkey at a huge cost. Gas bottles are 15 times their proper cost.

The city's scarred buildings

People are living in battered apartment blocks. Theirs is a virtual twilight of dark stair wells and shuttered rooms.

The artillery comes from the south so they huddle in north facing homes. But the shrapnel and the explosive power of the bombs means nowhere is truly safe.

"I am hopeless. I can only trust in my God," 78-year-old Mahmoud tells me. He and his wife Emira are alone. Their family has fled, they depend on the handouts of neighbours. Their flat is freezing and bare.

On the next storey Rada cuddles two of her six children. It is freezing inside and they have just a few scraps of food to eat.

"My husband won't leave Aleppo. We want to stay here whatever happens. Our children are ill, they are frightened, but we have nowhere else to go," she says.

The rebels and the government forces appear to have fought themselves to a standstill. In the middle a population is stuck, surviving but dying as well, every day. This is Aleppo.

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Assad: Syria Can Confront Israeli Aggression

President Bashar al Assad has accused Israel of trying to destabilise Syria after an air strike on a military research base near Damascus last week.

The comments by Mr Assad are the first since the attack on Wednesday that US officials say was targeting a convoy of anti-aircraft weapons inside Syria bound for Hizbollah.

State TV said Mr Assad spoke during a meeting with visiting top Iranian official Saeed Jalili.

Saeed Jalili and Bashar al Assad

The president said Syria is capable of facing current challenges and can "confront any aggression" that would target the Syrian people.

Purported images of the targeted site show destroyed cars, trucks and military vehicles. A building has broken windows and damaged interiors, but no major structural damage.

State news agency SANA quoted Mr Jalili as reaffirming Tehran's "full support for the Syrian people ... facing the Zionist aggression, and its continued coordination to confront the conspiracies and foreign projects".

Following the attack, Syria's ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul-Karim Ali, said Damascus "has the option and the capacity to surprise in retaliation," but that it was up to the relevant authorities to choose the time and place.

Israel's defence minister has indicated that his country was behind the air strike, in the first public comments from his government on the attack.

Ehud Barak brought the issue up at a gathering of the world's top diplomats and defence officials in Germany, initially saying: "I cannot add anything to what you have read in the newspapers about what happened in Syria several days ago."

But he added: "I keep telling frankly that we said - and that's proof when we said something we mean it - we say that we don't think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon."

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Egypt: Police Beat Protester Outside Palace

Bloody Scenes Expected In Port Said

Updated: 11:11pm UK, Thursday 31 January 2013

By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent, in Port Said

This city has always prided itself on resistance to invaders.

The people of Port Said believe they saw off the British in the 1950s and the Israelis in the 1960s.

Now they're rolling up their sleeves to take on Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, promising a second round of bloodletting in as many weeks.

A beach resort city that guards the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal, Port Said, was torn by violence last weekend.

Thirty people and two policemen were killed in running street battles.

Locals deny that any of them shot at the police. But there are bullet holes in the walls of the partly burned officers club on the sea front that say otherwise.

Still, there is no hiding the violence that the city met when protestors attacked the prison.

Dozens of market stalls and tiny homes were razed during the fighting – local businesses were riddled with bullets.

The prison was attacked because it housed 21 men condemned to death for their parts in the killing of 74 football fans during a riot on February 1 last year.

Some 59 others, among them nine police, are still waiting for their verdicts in the jail.

The killings last week have fuelled what was already going to be an incendiary brew on the day marking the first anniversary of the riot in which supporters of the Cairo team Al Ahly were beaten and crushed to death.

Ansaf Mousa's son Osama el Sherbiri, 23, an IT graduate was killed last week during the demonstrations.

"Morsi has blood on his hands. Osama el Sherbini exploded the whole world. His death will fuel an explosion.

"There will be a protest against Morsi like none before. This will be the nuclear explosion that blows up the whole place."

Her anger is shared by families across the city.

The bullet that killed Osama wounded his friend Mohammed.

"The youth will be on the streets (on February 1), they have to be to take revenge for Osama and all the others. This isn't going to end here."

A state of emergency was declared in Port Suez, Ismailia and Port Said last week. Curfews imposed for most of the night hours have since been cut back to a token regulation of the small hours of the morning as they were entirely ignored anyway.

General Abdel Fatteh al Sisi, the commander of the Egyptian armed forces, has warned that he fears the nation may fall apart .

He singled out the Suez City as especially troubling – promising to ensure the security of the canal as his top priority.

The region, though prosperous and benefiting from tax free zones and $5.2bn (£3.3bn) in revenues to Egypt for transit fees for shipping, is not associated with the secular middle class that had driven so much of the revolution in Cairo.

Osama's family are deeply religious. Many of the men have callused foreheads from years of prayer.

Yet they object to the Muslim Brotherhood's domination of Egypt's constitutional process and presidency.

"The Muslim Brotherhood are not Muslims – they are just after power," said Osama's mother.

That, in Port Said, seems to be the dominant view.

In a downtown coffee house clattering with domino players El Badry Farghali, a veteran MP who has opposed the military governments which were swept away two years ago and the new Muslim Brotherhood regime ever since, held court to a new generation of young protestors.

"The Muslim Brotherhood will not give up power. They will only manoeuvre. They are backward. They do not have the capacity to run the country on their own. And they will not make concessions. But the Egyptian people will force them to back down," he said.

Port Said has chosen the anniversary of the football chaos to drive home a political message. The odds are that it will be written in blood.

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Far-Right Marchers Decend On Athens

By Anthee Carassava in Athens

It was supposed to be a remembrance rally, but as thousands packed Athens to honour three fallen heroes, the black-clad crowd of men in military fatigues and baseball caps crested with mangled swastikas, offered the grimmest reminder yet of Greece's tireless march to the far right.

Organised by Golden Dawn, which emerged from political obscurity here to win 7% of the national vote last June, last night's event showcased the group's biggest public gathering to date.

Toting blue-and-white Greek flags, orange-red flares and wooden torches, some 30,000 supporters, according to organisers, gathered in central Athens, shouting slogans indicative of the party's virulent and truculent beliefs.

"We are winning the hearts and minds of the people, because we say it as it is," roared Ilias Kassidiaris, the party's spokesman.

"These politicians who have ruled us for decades are crooks. They have betrayed our national interests. They have led us to humiliating defeats," he said, referring to a near-war showdown with Nato ally Turkey in 1996.

Three Greek Airforce pilots were killed in that crisis and the dispute over contesting claims to a barren outcrop in Aegean Sea forced then US trouble-shooter Richard Holbrooke to intervene, ordering both Nato allies not only to climb down from their conflicting claims but to refrain from further ownership disputes of islands in the oil-rich Aegean.

For hard-core nationalists like Golden Dawn sympathisers, the retreat marked an embarrassing sell-out of national sovereignty - a theme gaining fresh appeal among the country's young and unemployed youth as foreign creditors demand greater control over the Greece's failing finances.

"They calls us fascists, thugs and criminals," says Vassilis, a 23-year-old recruit, who joined the party because of his disenchantment with the country's feckless political elite.

"We're nationalists. We're patriots. And if these guys who ruled the country for decades had a fibre the nationalism we're running on, they would have never brought the country to its current predicament."

Golden Dawn party leader Nikos Michalioliakos addresses the rally

With extremism - left and right - polarising Greek society, hundreds of riot police and undercover officers were on alert on Saturday in a bid to thwart potential attacks, springing from the gathering, held within yards of the prime minister's office and the Turkish embassy in Athens. Surrounding roads, also, were cordoned off by police, bringing traffic to a halt and angering locals.

"For a nation that suffered dearly under the Nazis, neo-Nazi gatherings, like these, should be banned," said Sofia Laniti, a 47-year-old saleswoman.

Leftist radicals argue the so-called Imia day protest is a veiled tribute to the party's true ideological mentor: Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi leader was appointed to the head of the German Chancellery on January 30, 1933, marking the start of a 12-year reign of terror across Europe.

Eighty years later, far-right parties feeding on popular resentment to growing fiscal austerity policies, are attracting growing applause in many corners of Europe. Sliding economies and rising unemployment, have voters largely giving the boot to mainstream parties they hold most responsible.

In Greece, attempts by the government to exclude Golden Dawn and its vehement nationalism that singles out immigrants as a threat, have backfired.

If anything, polls show, the far-right group has gained even greater political ground, since its startling entry to Parliament, becoming Greece's third largest party with over 10% national support.

Mr Kassidiaris said: "This is a day of remembrance. It's a day to remember that Golden Dawn is here to stay. And so long as it does, there will be hope for the country."

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Turkey: US Embassy Attack 'Act Of Terror'

A suicide bomber has carried out an attack at an entrance to the US embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara, killing himself and a guard.

The bomber's device went off as he was going through an X-ray machine at a security gatehouse, Sky sources said.

The White House condemned the suicide bombing as a "terrorist attack," but said it did not yet know who was behind it.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said "we strongly condemn" the attack, adding: "A suicide bombing on the perimeter of an embassy is by definition an act of terror. It is a terrorist attack.

"However, we do not know at this point who is responsible or the motivations behind the attack. The attack itself is clearly an act of terror."

Damage can be seen at a side entrance of the embassy

Turkey's Prime Minister said an outlawed Turkish Marxist group was responsible for the attack.

Tayyip Erdogan said on Turkey's HaberTurk television that it was the work of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. The group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

Mr Erdogan said: "It is my principle to speak only after receiving the final result, but I can say clearly that it is DHKP-C."

The perpetrator had reportedly spent time in prison on terrorism-related charges. He was believed to be aged about 30 and used plastic explosives in the embassy atrocity.

The DHKP-C is a Marxist-Leninist group that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings against police stations in recent years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's attack.

A Turkish guard was killed in the blast and another Turkish citizen, believed to be a journalist, was wounded.

Medics treat a woman who was injured in the blast

TV footage showed a door blown out at a side entrance and there was scattered masonry from a wall, although there did not appear to be any more significant structural damage.

Police cordoned off the area following the explosion, which sent smoke and debris flying into the street.

Americans were warned to avoid visiting the embassy or US consulates in Istanbul and Adana until further notice, and were told to register on the State Department's website.

"The Department of State advises US citizens travelling or residing in Turkey to be alert to the potential for violence, to avoid those areas where disturbances have occurred, and to avoid demonstrations and large gatherings," said a statement by the US Consulate in Istanbul.

The State Department said the explosion occurred on the perimeter of the embassy.

"We can confirm a terrorist blast at a checkpoint on the perimeter of our embassy compound in Ankara, Turkey, at 1.13pm local time, or 6:13 am ET," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"We are working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation," she added.

Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the bombing, and UK businesses in Turkey have been urged to be vigilant.

The British consulate in Istanbul said in a statement: "There has been a suspected terrorist attack on the US embassy in Ankara.

"Due to the nature of this incident we advise you to be extra vigilant and to take appropriate security measures to safeguard your staff and assets."

Ilnur Cevik, a journalist who was near the scene, told Sky News: "There was a huge bang which really shook everywhere."

Far-left groups in Turkey oppose what they see as US influence over Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey is a key US ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism.

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Egypt: Protester Killed Amid Fresh Clashes

One person has been killed and dozens injured during clashes between police and protesters in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.

Egypt's health ministry said a 23-year-old man died after being shot in the chest and forehead on Friday. Some 53 people were wounded in protests that took place across the country, mainly in Cairo.

Demonstrators are demanding the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Protesters throw fireworks at police in front of the presidential palace

Youths threw petrol bombs and shot fireworks at the outer wall of President Morsi's Cairo presidential compound as night fell.

Police responded by firing water cannon and tear gas leading to skirmishes in the surrounding streets.

The president has warned his security forces will act with "utmost decisiveness" to protect state buildings following the clashes outside the presidential palace.

Police fire tear gas at demonstrators

The trouble there follows anger on the streets of Port Said where thousands protested to mark the first anniversary of a football stadium riot that left 74 people dead.

The renewed violence brought an end to a few days of calm after the deadliest week of Mr Morsi's seven months in power.

Protests marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak have killed nearly 60 people since January 25, prompting the head of the army to warn this week that the state was on the verge of collapse.

Protesters chant anti-Morsi slogans

There were also scuffles earlier near Cairo's central Tahrir Square, where police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths. In Alexandria, protesters blocked roads, staged a sit-in on the railway and tried to break into the TV and radio building.

The protesters accuse President Morsi of betraying the spirit of the revolution by concentrating too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood accuses the opposition of trying to overthrow the first democratically elected leader in Egypt's 5,000-year history.

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Fireworks Truck Explodes Killing 26 In China

A truck carrying fireworks has exploded on a bridge in China, killing at least 26 people as it sent vehicles plummeting hundreds of feet to the ground.

The blast destroyed a section of the bridge outside the city of Sanmenxia.

Emergency crews closed the highway at the accident site, said China National Radio, which reported the death toll of 26.

At least 15 people were injured and sent to nearby hospitals, the Henan Commercial Newspaper reported.

Photos posted on the popular news site Sina.com showed a stretch of elevated highway gone, with a truck perched precariously at the broken edge.

Other photos showed wrecked trucks below and blackened chunks of scattered debris.

More follows...

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Mexico: Pemex Oil Company HQ Blast Kills 14

Fourteen people are dead and 80 injured after an explosion at the headquarters of Mexican oil company Pemex.

Injured workers were seen being evacuated after the blast at the state-owned firm blew out windows and damaged three floors of the tower in Mexico City's commercial centre.

There are reports that as many as 30 people could be trapped in the debris from the explosion, which occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the iconic, 52-storey skyscraper.

Ana Vargas Palacio was distraught as she searched for her missing husband, Daniel Garcia Garcia, 36, who works in the building. She last heard from him at 1pm.

"I called his phone many times, but a young man answered and told me he found the phone in the debris," she said.

The two have an 11-year-old daughter. His mother, Gloria Garcia Castaneda, collapsed on a friend's arm, crying "My son. My son."

Television images showed people being carried out of the building on office chairs and gurneys. Most of them showed injuries likely to have been caused by falling debris.

"We have 13 dead at the scene and one more at the hospital. there are more than 80 wounded and we continue to look for survivors in the debris," Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters.

The blast happened in a busy central district of Mexico City

Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a Tweet that several workers were injured in the blast but no one answered at its offices.

There was no immediate cause given for the blast, but in an earlier Tweet, the company said it had evacuated the building because of problems with the electricity.

"It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris," employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had been injured in the leg. "Co-workers helped us get out of the building."

The tower, where several thousand people work, was evacuated. The main floor and the mezzanine of the auxiliary building, where the explosion occurred, were heavily damaged, along with windows as far as three floors up.

"Right now they're conducting a tour of the building and the area adjacent to the blast site to verify if there are any still trapped so they can be rescued immediately," Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told Milenio.

"We were talking and all of sudden we heard an explosion with white smoke and glass falling from the windows," said Maria Concepcion Andrade, 42, who lives on the block of Pemex building.

"People started running from the building covered in dust. A lot of pieces were flying."

Police landed four rescue helicopters to remove the dead or injured. About a dozen tow trucks were furiously moving cars to make more landing room for the helicopters.

Streets surrounding the building were closed as evacuees wandered around, and rescue crews loaded the injured into ambulances.

"I profoundly lament the death of our fellow workers at Pemex. My condolences to their families," President Enrique Pena Nieto said via his Twitter account.

Shortly before the explosion, Operations Director Carlos Murrieta reported via Twitter that the company had reduced its accident rate in recent years. Most Pemex accidents have occurred at pipeline and refinery installations.

A fire at a pipeline metering center in northeast Mexico near the Texas border killed 30 workers in September, the largest-single toll in at least a decade for the company.

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