Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai  born 12 July 1997 is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.
The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. Deutsche Welle wrote in January 2013 that Yousafzai may have become "the most famous teenager in the world. United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015 – a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill. In the 29 April 2013 issue of Time magazine, Yousafzai was featured on the magazine's front cover and as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". She was the winner of Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Although Yousafzai was widely tipped to win the prize, it was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; however, she was the youngest person (at age 16) and the first girl nominated for it. On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education, and in September 2013 she officially opened the Library of Birmingham. Yousafzai is the recipient of the Sakharov Prize for 2013. On 16 October 2013 the Government of Canada announced its intention that the Parliament of Canada confer Honorary Canadian citizenship upon Yousafzai.

BBC blogger

In late 2008, when Aamer Ahmed Khan of the BBC Urdu website and his colleagues had discussed a novel way of covering the Taliban’s growing influence in Swat: Why not find a schoolgirl to blog anonymously about her life there? Their correspondent in Peshawar, Abdul Hai Kakar, had been in touch with a local school teacher, Ziauddin Yousafzai, but couldn’t find any students willing to do it. It was too dangerous, their families said. Finally, Yousafzai suggested his own daughter, 11-year-old Malala. At the time, Taliban militants led by Maulana Fazlullah were taking over the Swat Valley, banning television, music, girls’ education, and women from going shopping. Bodies of beheaded policemen were being hung in town squares. At first, a girl named Aisha from her father's school agreed to write a diary, but then the girl's parents stopped her from doing it because they feared Taliban reprisals. The only alternative was Yousafzai, four years younger than the original volunteer, and in seventh grade at the time. Editors at the BBC unanimously agreed.

"We had been covering the violence and politics in Swat in detail but we didn’t know much about how ordinary people lived under the Taliban," Mirza Waheed, the former editor of BBC Urdu, said. Because they were concerned about Yousafzai's safety, BBC editors insisted that she use a pseudonym. Her blog was published under the byline "Gul Makai" ("cornflower" in Urdu), a name taken from a character in a Pashtun folktale.

On 3 January 2009, Yousafzai's first entry was posted to the BBC Urdu blog. She would hand-write notes and then pass them on to a reporter who would scan and e-mail them. The blog records Yousafzai's thoughts during the First Battle of Swat, as military operations take place, fewer girls show up to school, and finally, her school shuts down.

In Mingora, the Taliban had set an edict that no girls could attend school after 15 January 2009. The group had already blown up more than a hundred girls’ schools. The night before the ban took effect was filled with the noise of artillery fire, waking Yousafzai several times. The following day, Yousafzai also read for the first time excerpts from her blog that had been published in a local newspaper.

Refugee

After the BBC diary ended, Yousafzai and her father were approached by New York Times reporter Adam B. Ellick about filming a documentary. In May, the Pakistani Army moved into the region to regain control during the Second Battle of Swat. Mingora was evacuated and Yousafzai's family was displaced and separated. Her father went to Peshawar to protest and lobby for support, while she was sent into the countryside to live with relatives. "I'm really bored because I have no books to read," Yousafzai is filmed saying in the documentary.
That month, after criticizing militants at a press conference, Yousafzai's father received a death threat over the radio by a Taliban commander. Yousafzai was deeply inspired in her activism by her father. That summer, for the first time, she committed to becoming a politician and not a doctor, as she had once aspired to be.
By early July, refugee camps were filled to capacity. The prime minister made a long-awaited announcement saying that it was safe to return to the Swat Valley. The Pakistani military had pushed the Taliban out of the cities and into the countryside. Yousafzai's family reunited, and on 24 July 2009 they headed home. They made one stop first – to meet with a group of other grassroots activists that had been invited to see United States President Barack Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. Yousafzai pleaded with Holbrooke to intervene in the situation, saying, "Respected ambassador, if you can help us in our education, so please help us." When her family finally did return home, they found it had not been damaged, and her school had sustained only light damage.

Early political career and activism

Following the documentary, Yousafzai was interviewed on the national Pashto-language station AVT Khyber, the Urdu-language Daily Aaj, and Canada's Toronto Star. She made a second appearance on Capital Talk on 19 August 2009. Her BBC blogging identity was being revealed in articles by December 2009. She also began appearing on television to publicly advocate for female education.

In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African activist, nominated Yousafzai for the International Children's Peace Prize of the Dutch international children's advocacy group KidsRights Foundation. She was the first Pakistani girl to be nominated for the award. The announcement said, "Malala dared to stand up for herself and other girls and used national and international media to let the world know girls should also have the right to go to school". The award was won by Michaela Mycroft of South Africa.

Her public profile rose even further when she was awarded Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize two months later in December. On 19 December 2011, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani awarded her the National Peace Award for Youth. At the proceedings in her honor, Yousafzai stated that she was not a member of any political party, but hoped to found a national party of her own to promote education. The prime minister directed the authorities to set up an IT campus in the Swat Degree College for Women at Yousafzai's request, and a secondary school was renamed in her honor. By 2012, Yousafzai was planning to organize the Malala Education Foundation, which would help poor girls go to school.

Assassination attempt

As Yousafzai became more recognized, the dangers facing her became more acute. Death threats against her were published in newspapers and slipped under her door. On Facebook, where she was an active user, she began to receive threats and fake profiles were created under her name. When none of this worked, a Taliban spokesman says they were "forced" to act. In a meeting held in the summer of 2012, Taliban leaders unanimously agreed to kill her.

On 9 October 2012, a Taliban gunman shot Yousafzai as she rode home on a bus after taking an exam in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The masked gunman shouted "Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all", and, on her being identified, shot at her. She was hit with one bullet, which went through her head, neck, and ended in her shoulder. Two other girls were also wounded in the shooting: Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, both of whom were stable enough to speak to reporters and provide details of the attack.

Medical treatment

After the shooting, Yousafzai was airlifted to a military hospital in Peshawar, where doctors were forced to begin operating after swelling developed in the left portion of her brain, which had been damaged by the bullet when it passed through her head. After a three-hour operation, doctors successfully removed the bullet, which had lodged in her shoulder near her spinal cord. The day following the attack, doctors performed a decompressive craniectomy, in which part of the skull is removed to allow room for the brain to swell.

On 11 October 2012, a panel of Pakistani and British doctors decided to move Yousafzai to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi. Mumtaz Khan, a doctor, said that she had a 70% chance of survival. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that Yousafzai would be shifted to Germany, where she could receive the best medical treatment, as soon as she was stable enough to travel. A team of doctors would travel with her, and the government would bear the expenditures of her treatment. Doctors reduced Yousafzai's sedation on 13 October, and she moved all four limbs.

Offers to treat Yousafzai came from around the world.On 15 October, Yousafzai traveled to the United Kingdom for further treatment, approved by both her doctors and family. Her plane landed in Dubai to refuel and then continued to Birmingham, where she was treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, one of the specialties of this hospital being the treatment of military personnel injured in conflict.

Yousafzai had come out of her coma by 17 October 2012, was responding well to treatment, and was said to have a good chance of fully recovering without any brain damage. Later updates on 20 and 21 October stated that she was stable, but was still battling an infection. By 8 November, she was photographed sitting up in bed.

On 3 January 2013, Yousafzai was discharged from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands. She had a five-hour operation on 2 February to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing, and was reported in stable condition.

Reaction

The assassination attempt received worldwide media coverage and produced an outpouring of sympathy and anger. Protests against the shooting were held in several Pakistani cities the day after the attack, and over 2 million people signed the Right to Education campaign's petition, which led to ratification of the first Right to Education Bill in Pakistan. Pakistani officials offered a 10 million rupee (US$105,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of the attackers. Responding to concerns about his safety, Yousafzai's father said, "We wouldn't leave our country if my daughter survives or not. We have an ideology that advocates peace. The Taliban cannot stop all independent voices through the force of bullets.

Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari described the shooting as an attack on "civilized people". UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it a "heinous and cowardly act". U.S. President Barack Obama found the attack "reprehensible, disgusting and tragic", while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Yousafzai had been "very brave in standing up for the rights of girls" and that the attackers had been "threatened by that kind of empowerment". British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the shooting "barbaric" and that it had "shocked Pakistan and the world".

The American singer Madonna dedicated her song "Human Nature" to Yousafzai at a concert in Los Angeles the day of the attack. American actress Angelina Jolie wrote an article about explaining the event to her children and answering questions like "Why did those men think they needed to kill Malala?" Jolie later donated $200,000 to The Malala Fund for girls education. Former First Lady of the United States Laura Bush wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in which she compared Yousafzai to Holocaust diarist Anne Frank. Indian director Amjad Khan announced that he would be making a biographical film based on Malala Yousafzai.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that Yousafzai "is the symbol of the infidels and obscenity," adding that if she survived, the group would target her again. In the days following the attack, the Taliban reiterated its justification, saying Yousafzai had been brainwashed by her father: "We warned him several times to stop his daughter from using dirty language against us, but he didn't listen and forced us to take this extreme step". The Taliban also justified its attack as part of religious scripture, stating that the Quran "says that people propagating against Islam and Islamic forces would be killed", going on to say that "Sharia says that even a child can be killed if he is propagating against Islam".

On 12 October 2012, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā – a ruling of Islamic law – against the Taliban gunmen who tried to kill Yousafzai. Islamic scholars from the Sunni Ittehad Council publicly denounced attempts by the Pakistani Taliban to mount religious justifications for the shooting of Yousafzai and two of her classmates.

Although the attack was roundly condemned in Pakistan, "some fringe Pakistani political parties and extremist outfits" have aired conspiracy theories, such as the shooting being staged by the American Central Intelligence Agency in order to provide an excuse for continuing drone attacks. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and some other pro-Taliban elements branded Yousafzai as an "American spy".

United Nations petition

On 15 October 2012, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, a former British Prime Minister, visited Yousafzai while she was in the hospital, and launched a petition in her name and "in support of what Malala fought for". Using the slogan "I am Malala", the petition's main demand was that there be no child left out of school by 2015, with the hope that "girls like Malala everywhere will soon be going to school". Brown said he would hand the petition to President Zardari in Islamabad in November.

The petition contains three demands:

We call on Pakistan to agree to a plan to deliver education for every child.

We call on all countries to outlaw discrimination against girls.

We call on international organizations to ensure the world's 61 million out-of-school children are in education by the end of 2015.

Criminal investigation

The day after the shooting, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik stated that the Taliban gunman who shot Yousafzai had been identified. Police named 23-year-old Atta Ullah Khan, a graduate student in chemistry, as the gunman in the attack. As of July 2013 he remains at large.

The police also arrested six men for involvement in the attack, but they were later released for lack of evidence. As of 7 November 2012, Mullah Fazlullah, the cleric who ordered the attack on Yousafzai, was confirmed to be hiding in Eastern Afghanistan by US sources there.

Continuing activism

Yousafzai spoke before the United Nations in July 2013, and met with Queen Elizabeth II in Buckingham Palace. In September she spoke at Harvard University, and in October met with U.S. President Barack Obama and his family; during that meeting, she confronted him on his use of drone strikes in Pakistan.

Representation

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the first to sign a petition requesting that Yousafzai receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arranged for Yousafzai's appearance before the United Nations in July 2013. Brown also requested that McKinsey consultant Shiza Shahid, a friend of the Yousafzai family, chair Malala's charity fund, which had gained the support of Angelina Jolie. Google's vice president Megan Smith also sits on the fund's board.

In November 2012 the consulting firm Edelman began work for Yousafzai on a pro bono basis, which according to the firm "involves providing a press office function for Malala." The office employs five people, and is headed by speechwriter Jamie Lundie. McKinsey also continues to provide assistance to Yousafzai.

Malala Day

On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai's 16th birthday, she spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. The UN dubbed the event "Malala Day". It was her first public speech since the attack, leading the first ever Youth Takeover of the UN, with an audience of over 500 young education advocates from around the world.

"The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists."

Yousafzai received several standing ovations. Ban Ki-moon, who also spoke at the session, described her as "our hero". Yousafzai also presented the chamber with "The Education We Want", a Youth Resolution of education demands written by Youth for Youth, in a process co-ordinated by the UN Global Education First Youth Advocacy Group, telling her audience:

"Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights."

The Pakistani government did not comment on Yousafzai's UN appearance, amid a backlash against her in Pakistan's press and social media.

I Am Malala

In October 2013, Little, Brown and Company released Yousafzai's memoir I Am Malala, cowritten with British journalist Christina Lamb. A reviewer for The Guardian called the book "fearless" and stated that "the haters and conspiracy theorists would do well to read this book", though she criticized "the stiff, know-it-all voice of a foreign correspondent" that interwove with Yousafzai's. A reviewer in The Washington Post called the book "riveting" and wrote that "It is difficult to imagine a chronicle of a war more moving, apart from perhaps the diary of Anne Frank." Entertainment Weekly gave the book a "B+", writing, "Malala's bravely eager voice can seem a little thin here, in I Am Malala, likely thanks to her co-writer, but her powerful message remains undiluted".

The All Pakistan Private Schools Federation announced that the book would be banned in its 152,000 member institutions, stating that the book disrespected Islam and could have a "negative" influence.

Reception in Pakistan

Reception at home has been somewhat more mixed. Dawn columnist Huma Yusuf summarized three main complaints of Yousafzai's critics: "Her fame highlights Pakistan’s most negative aspect (rampant militancy); her education campaign echoes Western agendas; and the West's admiration of her is hypocritical because it overlooks the plight of other innocent victims, like the casualties of U.S. drone strikes." Journalist Assed Baig described her as being used to justify Western imperialism as "the perfect candidate for the white man to relieve his burden and save the native". Yousafzai was also accused on social media of being a CIA spy.

Edward Snowden

Edward Joseph Snowden born June 21, 1983 is a former technical contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who leaked details of top-secret American and British government mass surveillance programs to the press.

Working primarily with Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian (London), which published a series of exposés based on Snowden's disclosures in June 2013, Snowden revealed information about a variety of classified intelligence programs, including the interception of US and European telephone metadata and the PRISM and Tempora Internet surveillance programs. Snowden said the leaks were an effort "to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."

On June 14, 2013, US federal prosecutors filed a sealed complaint, made public on June 21, charging Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified intelligence to an unauthorized person; the latter two allegations are under the Espionage Act.

Snowden's leaks are said to rank among the most significant breaches in the history of the NSA. Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence historian in Washington, said disclosures linked to Snowden have "confirmed longstanding suspicions that NSA's surveillance in this country is far more intrusive than we knew."

Childhood, Family and Education

Snowden grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father, Lonnie Snowden, a resident of Pennsylvania, was an officer in the United States Coast Guard, and his mother, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, is a clerk at a federal court in Maryland.

By 1999, Snowden had moved with his family to Ellicott City, Maryland, where he studied computing at Anne Arundel Community College to gain the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, but he did not complete the coursework. Snowden's father explained that his son missed several months of school owing to illness and, rather than return, took and passed the tests for his GED at a local community college. Snowden worked online toward a Master's Degree at the University of Liverpool in 2011. Having worked at a US military base in Japan, Snowden reportedly had a deep interest in Japanese popular culture and studied the Japanese language. He also said he had a basic understanding of Mandarin, was deeply interested in martial arts, and listed Buddhism as his religion.

On June 17, 2013, Snowden's father spoke in an interview on Fox TV, expressing concern about misinformation regarding his son being disseminated in the media. He described his son as "a sensitive, caring young man... He just is a deep thinker." While he is in agreement with his son in his opposition to the surveillance programs that he revealed, he asked his son to stop leaking and return home.

Before leaving for Hong Kong Snowden lived with his girlfriend in Waipahu, Oahu, Hawaii.

Career

On May 7, 2004, Snowden enlisted in the United States Army as a Special Forces recruit but did not complete the training. He said he wanted to fight in the Iraq war because he "felt like [he] had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression." However, he said he was discharged four months later on September 28 after having broken both of his legs in a training accident.

His next employment was as a National Security Agency (NSA) security guard for the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, before, he said, joining the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to work on IT security. In May 2006 Snowden wrote in Ars Technica, an online forum for gamers, hackers and hardware tinkerers, that he had no trouble getting work because he was a "computer wizard." In August he wrote about a possible path in government service, perhaps involving China, but said it "just doesn't seem like as much 'fun' as some of the other places."

Snowden said that in 2007 the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was responsible for maintaining computer network security. Snowden told The Guardian he left the agency in 2009 for a private contractor inside an NSA facility on a United States military base in Japan. NSA Director Keith Alexander has said that Snowden held a position at the NSA for the twelve months prior to his next job as a consultant. Individuals occupying these positions may have been required to obtain a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances, which requires a special background investigation. Snowden would have been subjected to drug testing and required to take and pass a polygraph test.

Snowden described his life as "very comfortable," earning a salary of "roughly US $200,000." At the time of his departure from the US in May 2013, he had been working for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton for less than three months as a system administrator inside the NSA at the Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center in Hawaii. Snowden was employed on a salary of $122,000. Snowden said he had taken a pay cut to work at Booz Allen, and that he sought employment in order to gather data on NSA surveillance around the world so he could leak it. The firm said Snowden's employment was terminated on June 10 "for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy."

According to Reuters, a source "with detailed knowledge on the matter" stated that Booz Allen's hiring screeners detected possible discrepancies in Snowden's résumé regarding his education since some details "did not check out precisely", but decided to hire him anyway; Reuters stated that the element which triggered these concerns, or the manner in which Snowden satisfied the concerns, were not known. The résumé stated that Snowden attended computer-related classes at Johns Hopkins University. A spokesperson for Johns Hopkins said that the university did not find records to show that Snowden attended the university, and suggested that he may instead have attended Advanced Career Technologies, a private for-profit organization which operated as "Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins." A spokesperson for University College of the University of Maryland said that Snowden had attended a summer session at a University of Maryland campus in Asia.

NSA surveillance disclosures

Media disclosures

Snowden first made contact with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in January 2013. According to Poitras, Snowden chose to contact her after seeing her report on William Binney, an NSA whistleblower, in The New York Times. She is a board member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation along with journalist Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald, reporting for The Guardian, said he had been working with Snowden since February, and Barton Gellman, writing for The Washington Post, says his first "direct contact" was on May 16. However, Gellman alleges Greenwald was only involved after the Post declined to guarantee publication of the full documents within 72 hours. Gellman says he told Snowden "we would not make any guarantee about what we published or when... Snowden replied succinctly, 'I regret that we weren't able to keep this project unilateral.' Shortly afterward he made contact with Glenn Greenwald of the British newspaper The Guardian."

Snowden communicated using encrypted email, using the codename "Verax," meaning truth-teller in Latin. He asked not to be quoted at length for fear of identification by semantic analysis.

According to Gellman, prior to their first meeting in person, Snowden wrote, "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end." Snowden also told Gellman that until the articles were published, the journalists working with him would also be at risk from the United States Intelligence Community, whom Snowden said "will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information."

Snowden described his CIA experience in Geneva as "formative," stating that the CIA deliberately got a Swiss banker drunk and encouraged him to drive home. When the latter was arrested, a CIA operative offered to intervene and later recruited the banker. Swiss President Ueli Maurer commented, "It does not seem to me that it is likely that this incident played out as it has been described by Snowden and by the media." The revelations come at a sensitive time for US-Swiss relations as the Swiss government attempts to pass legislation allowing for more banking transparency.

Snowden explained his actions saying: "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things [surveillance on its citizens]... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded."

Snowden's identity was made public by The Guardian at his request on June 9. He explained his reasoning for forgoing anonymity: "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong." He added that by revealing his identity he hoped to protect his colleagues from being subjected to a hunt to determine who had been responsible for the leaks.

Timeline

In May 2013, Snowden was permitted temporary leave from his position at the NSA in Hawaii, on the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy. According to local real estate agents, Snowden and his girlfriend moved out of their home on May 1, leaving nothing behind. On May 20, Snowden flew to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. He was staying in a Hong Kong hotel when the initial articles revealing information about the NSA that he had leaked were published.

News stories based on documents disclosed by Snowden were as follows:

On June 5, The Guardian released a top secret order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that ordered a business division of Verizon Communications to provide "on an ongoing daily basis" metadata for all telephone calls "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls" and all calls made "between the United States and abroad."

On June 6, The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of PRISM, a clandestine electronic surveillance program that allegedly allows the NSA to access e-mail, web searches, and other Internet traffic in realtime.

On June 9, The Guardian revealed Boundless Informant, a system that "details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information [the NSA] collects from computer and telephone networks."

On June 12, the South China Morning Post disclosed that the NSA has been hacking into computers in China and Hong Kong since 2009.

On June 17, The Guardian reported that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency, had intercepted foreign politicians' communications at the 2009 G-20 London Summit.

On June 20, The Guardian revealed two secret documents, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, describing the rules by which the NSA determines whether targets of investigations are foreign or domestic.

On June 21, The Guardian made further disclosures about 'Tempora,' an 18-month-old British operation by GCHQ to intercept and store mass quantities of fiber-optic traffic.

On June 23, the South China Morning Post reported that Snowden had said the NSA had hacked Chinese mobile-phone companies to collect millions of text messages and had also hacked Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Asian fiber-optic network operator Pacnet. The newspaper said Snowden provided documents that listed details of specific episodes during a four-year period. According to Glenn Greenwald, "What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China."

On June 25, Greenwald reported Snowden claims that he had sent files with NSA secrets to associates for his personal insurance, and that their contents would be revealed should something untoward happen to him.

United States domestic response

Federal government

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, said that Snowden's "reckless disclosures" had resulted in "significant misimpressions" in the media. The NSA formally requested that the Department of Justice launch a criminal investigation into Snowden's actions. On June 14, 2013, prosecutors charged Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.

Reactions to Snowden's disclosures among members of Congress were varied.

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) said: "Whether or not this program was authorized by Congress, it seems to me that this is an unconstitutional activity ... Which would make it illegal, and he should have some kind of immunity." Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said: "If it is the case that the federal government is seizing millions of personal records about law-abiding citizens, and if it is the case that there are minimal restrictions on accessing or reviewing those records, then I think Mr. Snowden has done a considerable public service by bringing it to light."

Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner called Snowden "a 'traitor' who has put Americans at risk." Many in Congress joined Boehner in calling for Snowden's arrest, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator; Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA); Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI), chair of the House Intelligence Committee; and Representative Peter King, former chair of the House Homeland Security Committee; among others.

On June 18, General Keith Alexander, the Director of the National Security Agency, testified before the US Select Committee on Intelligence that the agency would work with the director of national intelligence to take steps to prevent future removals of classified information by implementing a "two-person rule and oversight" and put in place measures to block people from taking information out of their system. Andy Greenberg, Forbes staff, described this as "...something similar to the one implemented in some cases by the military after Army private Bradley Manning was able to write hundreds of thousands of secret files to CDs and leak them to WikiLeaks. The rule required that anyone copying data from a secure network onto portable storage media does so with a second person who ensures he or she isn't also collecting unauthorized data."

US army

The US army has admitted to blocking access to parts of the Guardian website for thousands of defence personnel across the country.

Human rights organizations

Human Rights Watch said that if Snowden were able to raise the issue of NSA mass surveillance without facing espionage charges, then he would not have left the United States in the first place.

Widney Brown, Senior Director of Amnesty International, feared that if Snowden was forcibly transferred to the United States, it would put him at "great risk" of human rights violations.

China and Hong Kong

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) a poll of Hong Kong residents conducted while Snowden was still in Hong Kong showed that half of the 509 respondents believed the Chinese government should not surrender Snowden to the United States if Washington raises such a request. According to the poll, 33 percent of Hong Kong residents think of Snowden as a hero, 12.8 percent described him as a traitor, 23 percent described him as "something in between," and the remainder said they could not comment.

On June 15, while Snowden was still in Hong Kong, Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung said: "When the relevant mechanism is activated, the Hong Kong SAR government will handle the case of Mr Snowden in accordance with the laws and established procedures of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the government will follow up on any incidents related to the privacy or other rights of the institutions or people in Hong Kong being violated." Hong Kong politician Albert Ho denounced the "unlawful, unjustified and unscrupulous" interference, and demanded the "the whole truth ... an unconditional apology ... and an assurance this interference will stop." Hong Kong pan-democrat legislators Gary Fan and Claudia Mo said that "a dangerous precedent and will likely be used to justify similar actions" if Snowden was prosecuted. During Snowden's stay, the two main political groups, the pan-democrats and pro-establishment camp, found rare agreement to support Snowden. The DAB even organised a separate march to Government headquarters for Snowden.

Xu Peixi, a columnist from China Internet Information Center, wrote in English that "we appreciate and salute the efforts of Snowden et al, who have gambled their career, family, personal freedom, and even their life to let the global public know what the most powerful force in the world is doing with perhaps the central infrastructure of our age; to make the public aware that this force is acting in an unconstitutional manner and entirely contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." On June 20, the SCMP reported People's Daily and the Global Times editorials from the previous day stating respectively that the central Chinese government was unwilling to be involved in a "mess" caused by others, and that the Hong Kong government should follow the public opinion and not concern itself with Sino-US relations. A Tsinghua University communications studies specialist, Liu Jianming, interpreted that the two articles as suggesting that the PRC government did not want further involvement in the case and that the HKSAR government should handle it independently.

Following the filing of charges, Legco member Leung Kwok-hung asked Hongkongers to protest in the streets "to protect Snowden" and stated that the PRC government should ask HK to protect Snowden from extradition before the case goes to court. Legco member Cyd Ho argued that before the Snowden case goes to court the PRC government "should now make its stance clear" to the HKSAR government. Xinhua, China's official news agency, accused the United States of being the "biggest villain" in information technology attacks and that Snowden's leaks "demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age."

After Snowden left Hong Kong, Chinese-language newspapers such as the Ming Pao and the Oriental Daily expressed relief that Hong Kong no longer had the burden of the Snowden situation upon itself. Mainland experts said that although the Central Government did not want to appear to be intervening in the matter, it was inconceivable that the Hong Kong government acted independently in a matter that could have far-reaching consequences for Sino-US relations. One expert suggested that by doing so, China had "returned the favor" for them not having accepted the asylum plea from Wang Lijun in February 2012. After the US government criticized the PRC central government, accusing it of allowing Snowden to escape, the official People's Daily said that the central government did not assist Snowden's escape and that Snowden helped in "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask".

on June 25, Chinese officials were confronted with what appears to be the first public legal challenge arising from the Snowden affair. Xie Yanyi, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, announced that the Snowden had inspired him to ask the Ministry of Public Security, China's main security agency, to disclose "information on methods used by Chinese authorities to conduct surveillance on Chinese citizens," according to the NGO Human Rights in China. "From a civil rights angle, China's monitoring of the Internet and cell phones is a very big problem," Xie said by telephone in an interview with Foreign Policy.

Russia

Journalists wait for any sign of Snowden or those who are trying to help him in front of the airport on on June 23, 2013. He has not been spotted yet.

Since the news about Snowden's arrival to Moscow broke, the airport has become a hub for major international news organizations.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Snowden's arrival in Moscow "really came as a surprise for us".Putin called Snowden a "free" person who has not committed any crime on Russian soil and therefore will not be extradited by the Russian government. In Helsinki on June 25, Putin said Snowden remained in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport and thus had not formally entered the country. Snowden was free to leave and should do so, Putin said. Putin's claims were received skeptically by some observers, however, with one Moscow political analyst saying that "Snowden will fly out of Russia when the Kremlin decides he can go. He might not even be in the airport. The safest place would be a GRU apartment."

Ecuador

US Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the foreign relations panel, warned Ecuador that accepting Snowden “would severely jeopardize” preferential trade access the United States provides to Ecuador. “Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior.”

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador responded by offering a multimillion dollar donation for human rights training in the United States.

“Ecuador offers the United States economic aid of US$23 million annually, similar to what we received with the trade benefits, with the intention of providing education about human rights,” said a government spokesman. “Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, nor does it trade with principles or submit them to mercantile interests, however important those may be.”

Correa criticized US media for focusing on Snowden, saying it is taking away attention from NSA spying.

Monsoon In Kerala-2013

Ushering in brighter prospects for the power sector, Kerala has received over 72 per cent surplus rainfall since the onset of Southwest Monsoon on June 1, after passing through a rain-deficient year that witnessed severe energy crisis and grim drought conditions.

According to India Meteorological Department, till June 19, the state as a whole received 665 mm rainfall against the normal 386 mm for the period.

While all parts of the state received good rains without long pauses, it is all the more significant that Idukki district, where reservoirs of major hydro electric projects are located, got 93 per cent excess rainfall, state power board sources said.

Among the 14 districts, Kannur in north Kerala received the highest amount of rainfall with a surplus of 114 per cent. 

Last year, the rainfall received by the state was deficient by 24 per cent during the Southwest Monsoon and 35 per cent during the Northeast Monsoon periods.

The shortfall pushed the state into one of its worst power crisis, forcing the Government to clamp 90 minutes load-shedding, half of which was during peak hours in the evening.

Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange (Born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist. He is best known as the editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, which publishes submissions of secret information, news leaks and classified media from anonymous news sources and whistleblowers.

Assange was a hacker as a teenager, then a computer programmer before becoming internationally known for his work with WikiLeaks and making public appearances around the world speaking about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.

WikiLeaks became internationally well known in 2010 when it began to publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents with assistance from its partners in the news media. Bradley Manning has since been arrested on suspicion of supplying the cables to WikiLeaks. U.S. Air Force documents reportedly state that military personnel who make contact with WikiLeaks or "WikiLeaks supporters" are at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", and the United States Department of Justice reportedly has considered prosecuting Assange for several offenses. During the trial of Manning prosecutors presented evidence that they claim reveals that Manning and Assange collaborated to steal and publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents. Since November 2010, Assange has been subject to a European Arrest Warrant in response to a Swedish police request for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation. In June 2012, following final dismissal by the Supreme Court of the UK of his appeal against enforcement of the European Arrest Warrant, Assange has failed to surrender to his bail, and has been treated by the UK authorities as having absconded. Since 19 June 2012, he has been inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has since been granted diplomatic asylum. The British government intends to extradite Assange to Sweden under that arrest warrant once he leaves the embassy, which Assange says he fears may result in his subsequent extradition to the United States to face charges over the diplomatic cables case.

While on bail in England during 2012, Assange hosted a political talk show The World Tomorrow which was broadcast on the RT TV channel.

Assange has announced his intention to launch a political party and run a campaign for a Senate seat representing either New South Wales or Victoria in the Australian federal election, 2013. Australian commentators have questioned his eligibility.

WikiLeaks

Logo

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006. That year, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behaviour we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie.... Since unjust systems, by their nature, induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

Assange is the most prominent media spokesman on WikiLeaks' behalf. In June 2010, he was listed alongside several others as a member of the WikiLeaks advisory board.[95][96] While newspapers have described him as a "director" or "founder" of WikiLeaks, Assange has said, "I don't call myself a founder"; he does describe himself as the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and he has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site.[100] Assange says that WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined: "That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are – rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful."

WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay detention camp procedures, the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents.

Release of US diplomatic cables

 United States diplomatic cables leak

On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing some of the 251,000 American diplomatic cables in their possession, of which over 53 percent are listed as unclassified, 40 percent are "Confidential" and just over six percent are classified "Secret". The following day, the Attorney-General of Australia, Robert McClelland, told the press that Australia would inquire into Assange's activities and WikiLeaks. He said that "from Australia's point of view, we think there are potentially a number of criminal laws that could have been breached by the release of this information. The Australian Federal Police are looking at that". McClelland would not rule out the possibility that Australian authorities will cancel Assange's passport, and warned him that he might face charges should he return to Australia. The Federal Police inquiry found that Assange had not committed any crime.

The United States Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation related to the leak. US prosecutors are reportedly considering charges against Assange under several laws, but any prosecution would be difficult. In relation to its ongoing investigations of WikiLeaks, on 14 December 2010, the US Department of Justice issued a subpoena ordering Twitter to release information relating to Assange's account, amongst others.

The WikiLeaks diplomatic cable revelations have been credited by some commentators with being a factor in sparking the Tunisian Revolution, as such leaked cables revealed the degree of corruption in the then ruling government. Writing for Foreign Policy magazine, journalist Elizabeth Dickinson suggested that "Tunisians didn't need any more reasons to protest when they took to the streets these past weeks – food prices were rising, corruption was rampant, and unemployment was staggering. But we might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink..."

                                   Afghan War documents leak

First Saudi woman summits Mount Everest

A 27-year-old graphic designer has made history by becoming the first Saudi woman to conquer Mount Everest.

Raha Moharrak reached the top of the mountain on Saturday as part of the "Arabs with Altitude" expedition, which also includes a Palestinian, an Iranian and a Qatari aiming to be the first from his nation to summit the mountain.

The mountaineers' Twitter account, @EverestArabs, marked the occasion by tweeting: "The first ever Saudi woman to attempt Everest has reached the top!! Bravo Raha Moharrak. We salute you."

"I really don't care about being the first, so long as it inspires someone else to be the second," Moharrak, who lives in Dubai and in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, is quoted as saying on the expedition's website, Arabs on Top of the World.

Coming from a traditional and conservative family meant that "convincing them to let her climb was as great a challenge as the mountain itself," according to her biography on the site, though they now fully support her efforts.

"We are all very proud of Raha's achievement but are awaiting for her safe return," Moharrak's brother Mohammed told CNN.

The team -- made up of Moharrak, Qatari Sheikh Mohammed Al Thani, Palestinian Raed Zidan and Iranian Masoud Mohammad -- is aiming to raise $1 million to fundReach Out to Asia's educational projects in Nepal.

Moharrak spent many months training for the expedition; she scaled Argentina's highest peak, Aconcagua, in February and has been in Nepal acclimatizing to the altitude since early April.

Moharrak's ascent is the latest step in changing attitudes towards women and sports in Saudi Arabia. The ultra-conservative kingdom fielded its first female Olympians at the 2012 Games and officially permitted sports in private girls schools for the first time earlier this month.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first expedition to reach the summit of Everest: Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay made it to the top of the mountain on May 29, 1953.

                                                                   Source-CNN