Runner-Up: Malala Yousafzai, the Fighter Ayesha Mir didn’t go to school on Tuesday, Nov. 27, the day after a security guard found a shrapnel-packed bomb under her family’s car. The 17-year-old Pakistani girl assumed, as did most people who learned about the bomb, that it was intended for her father, the television news presenter Hamid Mir, who often takes on the Taliban in his nightly news broadcasts. Traumatized by the near miss, Ayesha spent most of the day curled up in a corner of her couch, unsure whom to be angrier with: the would-be assassins or her father for putting himself in danger. She desperately wanted someone to help her make sense of things. At around 10:30 p.m., she got her wish. Malala Yousafzai: Taliban shooting victim flown to UK 15 October 2012Last updated at 10:43 ET The BBC's Richard Galpin reports from Birmingham where Malala Yousafzai is being treated The 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by Taliban gunmen is being flown to the UK for medical treatment. Malala Yousafzai has until now been at a military hospital in Rawalpindi, with doctors saying her progress over the next few days would be "critical".
Malala Yousafzai: Portrait of the girl blogger Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai first came to public attention in 2009 when she wrote a BBC diary about life under the Taliban. Now recovering from surgery after being shot by the militants, the campaigner for girls' rights is in the spotlight again. Malala was 11 when she began writing a diary for BBC Urdu. Her blogs described life under Taliban rule from her home town of Mingora, in the northwest region of Pakistan she affectionately calls "My Swat". I am afraid - 3 January 2009
Malala's journey from near death to recovery Malala Yousafzai returns to school for the first time at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, England, on March 19. The 15-year-old said she had "achieved her dream." Malala was one of seven people featured on the cover of Time's 100 most influential people edition of the magazine in April. Pakistan's Malala: Global symbol, but still just a kid Malala Yousufzai's father, an educator, taught her to stand up for her rightsIn 2009, the Taliban issued an edict that all girls in her region be banned from schoolsMalala spoke out, blogged and appeared in a documentary, refusing to follow their ordersAfter a 2010 meeting with a top diplomat, she wanted ice cream, revealing she was still just a kid (CNN) -- Eleven-year-olds sometimes have trouble sleeping through the night, kept awake by monsters they can't see. But Malala Yousufzai knew exactly what her monsters looked like. They had long beards and dull-colored robes and had taken over her city in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan. It was such a beautiful place once, so lush and untouched that tourists flocked there to ski. But that was before 2003, when the Taliban began using it as a base for operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Moving moments from Malala's BBC diary Image copyright Reuters Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai has jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming its youngest ever recipient. In 2009 she wrote a diary chronicling life under Taliban rule in Pakistan's north-western Swat valley. Yousafzai: 16th birthday speech at the United Nations Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim.In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent. Honourable UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, Respected President General Assembly Vuk Jeremic Honourable UN envoy for Global education Mr Gordon Brown, Respected elders and my dear brothers and sisters; Today, it is an honour for me to be speaking again after a long time. Being here with such honourable people is a great moment in my life. I don't know where to begin my speech. I don't know what people would be expecting me to say.
The Making of Malala