Pakistan enraged over attack on teen blogger

The Taliban shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai for blogging against them was so brazen it commanded the attention of many in a country weary of extremist attacks.

An angry chorus of voices in social media, the street, in newspapers and over the airwaves has decried the attack as cowardly and an example of a government unable to cope with militants.

"I blame the Taliban, first and foremost," columnist Sami Shah wrote in The Express Tribune, a local English daily. "I blame the government. All of it."

Malala was slowly recuperating Wednesday after surgeons worked for three hours to removed a bullet lodged in her neck.

On Tuesday, Taliban militants stopped a van carrying three girls, including Malala, on their way home from school in northwestern Pakistan's conservative Swat Valley.

One of the gunmen asked which one was Malala Yousufzai. When the girls pointed her out, the men opened fire. The bullets struck all three girls.

For two of them, the injuries were not life-threatening. For Malala, it was touch-and-go for a while.

"We are happy that she survived, but are worried too about her health condition," said her uncle, Faiz Muhammad, who is with her at a military hospital in Peshawar.

On Wednesday, police took the van driver and the school guard into custody for questioning. They also said they'd identified the culprits.

Meanwhile, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and issued an ominous threat.

"If she survives this time, she won't next time," said a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban. "We will certainly kill her."

Mian Iftikhar Hussein, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa information minister, said he was declaring a bounty of $100,000 for the capture of the culprits in the attempt on Malala Yousufzai's life.

Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Malala in the hospital and delivered a simple message: "We refuse to bow before terror." He also noted that the Taliban lack respect for the "golden words" of the Prophet Mohammed -- "that the one who is not kind to children is not amongst us."

"In attacking Malala, the terrorists have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope," the general said.

The chief minister of Punjab said he would bear the cost of Malala's treatment, calling her "the daughter of Pakistan."

The head of PIA, the national airline, said he was putting a plane on standby to take the teenager "anywhere in the world if needed" for treatment. Two neurosurgeons, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, have also offered to fly to Pakistan if needed, the interior minister said.

Throughout the country and around the world, Pakistanis, hurt and angry, prayed.

"Malala is what Taliban will never be," said Murtaza Haider, the associate dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto's Ryerson University, in an opinion piece in the Dawn newspaper.

"She is fearless, enlightened, articulate, and a young Muslim woman who is the face of Pakistan and the hope for a faltering nation that can no longer protect its daughters."

"If the Taliban wants to fight then they should pick on someone there own size," a girl said on a local news channel.

Shamila Chaudhary, a former U.S. National Security Council director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told CNN the incident reverberates among women and girls and even conservative Muslims.

"The Pakistani Taliban don't have a lot of support in the Pakistani society," she said. "They don't offer social services and justice, they don't offer any alternative to weak government."

This latest incident "makes them more unpopular" among masses of people who view the aspirations of Malala and the Taliban's resistance to them as a "fight between good and evil," said Chaudhary, a senior South Asia fellow at the New America Foundation.

Twitter, the closest thing to a barometer of public opinion, likewise lit up.

"Wasn't the brute who put a gun to Malala's little head born to a woman?" wrote Kamran Shafi. "Did he have sisters, aunts, a wife or four? Bloody filthy terrorist!"

Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations.

The valley, near the Afghanistan border and about 186 miles (300 km) from the capital city of Islamabad, boasted the country's only ski resort. It was a draw for trout-fishing enthusiasts and visitors to the ancient Buddhist ruins in the area. But that was before, militants -- their faces covered with dark turbans -- unleashed a wave of violence.

They demanded veils for women, beards for men and a ban on music and television. They allowed boys' schools to operate, but closed those for girls.

It was in this climate that Malala reached out to the outside world through her online blog posts.

She took a stand by writing about her daily battle with extremist militants who used fear and intimidation to force girls to stay at home.

Malala's online writing led to her being awarded Pakistan's first National Peace Prize in November.

"I was scared of being beheaded by the Taliban because of my passion for education," Yousufzai told CNN at the time. "During their rule, the Taliban used to march into our houses to check whether we were studying or watching television."

She said that she wanted to be a political leader, that her country "needs honest and true leaders."

The Taliban controlled Malala's valley for years until 2009, when the military cleared it in an operation that also evacuated thousands of families.

But pockets remain, and violence is never far behind.

For Pakistani public officials, Chaudhary said, the incident serves as a reminder of the Taliban's ends -- keeping girls from going to school and imposing hardline religious and cultural values.

Many are in denial and haven't accepted "the extent the Taliban will go to impose their cultural values."

There have been other examples of violence against women, Chaudhary recalls, including the Taliban flogging of a woman caught on video a few years ago.

That was "a trigger event -- it pulled a lot of the political elite out of their denial," she said. "I see this instance as something similar."

Chaudhary said there's a misconception across the world that the political elite sympathize with the Taliban.

That's untrue, she said. They are scared of them and the possibility of violent retribution against officials and government installations. If the government doesn't talk about this latest issue and have justice served, it will be a "step back," she said.

Sami Shah, the columnist, said the ruling Pakistan People's Party shares blame.

"There can be a million excuses why the Taliban can still operate with impunity in Pakistan, a lot of them legitimate. But if you are the ruling party, then you must accept responsibility for your failures. And the PPP has resoundingly failed."

By Saeed Ahmed, Nasir Habib and Joe Sterling, CNN, October 10, 2012

Rand Paul: Romney's wrong on Middle East, defense spending

This week, I will campaign for Gov. Mitt Romney. I believe this election will and should be about moving America back from the edge of the abyss on which we stand, where our debt and spending threaten to overwhelm and drown us. Romney's belief in free markets, limited government and trade make him the clear choice to lead our country come January.

I do not, however, support a call for intervention in Syria. And, if such intervention were being contemplated, it is absolutely necessary that Congress give any such authority to the president. No president, Republican or Democrat, has the unilateral power to take our nation to war without the authority of the legislature.

At times, I have been encouraged by Romney's foreign policy. I agree with his call to end the war in Afghanistan sooner rather than later and with his skepticism of, and call for reform in, foreign aid, but I am a bit dismayed by his foreign policy speech Monday, titled "Mantle of Leadership."

Romney chose to criticize President Obama for seeking to cut a bloated Defense Department and for not being bellicose enough in the Middle East, two assertions with which I cannot agree.

Defense and war spending has grown 137% since 2001. That kind of growth is not sustainable.

Adm. Michael Mullen stated earlier this year that the biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

If debt is our gravest threat, adding to the debt by expanding military spending further threatens our national security.

While I would always stand up for America and preserve our ability to defend ourselves, a less aggressive foreign policy along with an audit of the Pentagon could save tens of billions of dollars each year without sacrificing our defense. To dismiss either idea is to miss the very compromise that will enable us to balance our budget. That compromise would be for conservatives to admit that not every dollar spent on the military is sacred or well-spent and for liberals to admit that not every dollar spent on domestic entitlements and welfare is necessary.

In North Africa and the Middle East, our problem has not been a lack of intervention. In the past 10 years we have fought two full wars there, and bombed or sent troops into several others.

This past year, President Obama illegally began a war with Libya, taking sides with the rebels to unseat an admittedly bad man in Moammar Gadhafi. There were several problems with this policy: First, the president did not seek or get the necessary constitutional authority from Congress for this military action. If our Constitution is to mean anything it must be applied even in times of war, when those seeking to exercise power do not find it expedient.

Just as importantly, the Libyan rebels were assisted with virtually no one in the administration or in Congress demanding to know who these people were that we were arming and propping up. No one seemed to understand that in toppling Libya's dictatorship, we were leaving in its wake an unformed, unorganized government without a centralized structure, one that would have a difficult time keeping order among the more than 100 tribes that make up Libya.

This "act first, think later" foreign policy has real consequences. We've seen our embassies and consulates stormed in more than one country. Our diplomats and security team were killed. Our flag is being burned, our country mocked.

The proper response to this would be to step back and think of whether we really need to be involved in these countries in the way we have been. Instead, both parties rush headlong into more places they don't understand, exemplified Monday by Romney urging action to arm Syrian rebels and topple President Bashar al-Assad.

But just who are these rebels? What will they do when in power? Is this really in our vital national interest?

We've been 10 years in Afghanistan and we can't identify friend from foe. Do you think we can, with certainty, identify friend and foe in Syria?

Before taking our country closer to war, shouldn't we at least ask the viewpoint of the significant Christian population in Syria? News reports indicate they are wary of the rebels and are either sitting the fight out or siding with al-Assad. Al-Assad is by no means a saint but Christians flocked to Syria from a war-torn Iraq because they feared al-Assad less than the Islamic government we brought into being.

Before getting deeply involved, should someone ask: Are these rebels going to be implementing the death penalty for criticism of Islam?

There is ample evidence the rebels are being funded and armed by the most extreme Islamist elements and governments in the region. Is that where we want our funds and weapons to end up? We need to stop and think before we act.

I am not an isolationist or a pacifist. I heartily reject both labels. I believe in engagement in the world, with trade, commerce, diplomacy and a foreign policy that projects the greatness of America and her people. I would not hesitate to vote to send American troops to war to protect our country and our vital national security interests.

But we are in too many places, too often, and we don't seem to even know the reason -- or where we will end up when we're done. This foreign policy has created more enemies than it has vanquished. It has siphoned trillions of America's dollars. It has cost tens of thousands of casualties in the loss of the lives and limbs of our soldiers.

We owe it to ourselves, our soldiers and our children to take a more careful look at our foreign policy, to not rush into war, and to not attempt to score political points with wrongheaded policy ideas.

By Rand Paul, Special to CNN, October 10, 2012

Americans win Nobel Prize in chemistry for revealing gateway to cells

Two American scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their work revealing protein receptors that tell cells what is going on in and around the human body. Their achievements have allowed drug makers to develop medication with fewer side effects.

Research spanning four decades by Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka on "G-protein-coupled receptors" has increased understanding of how cells sense chemicals in the bloodstream and external stimuli like light, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the prize.

Lefkowitz began the research by tracking adrenalin receptors. The Nobel Prize announcement apparently set off some of the excitement hormone in his own body.

"I'm feeling very, very excited," he said in a predawn phone call from the United States to the committee in Stockholm, Sweden, which announced the winners at 5:45 a.m. ET.

"Did I even have any inkling that it was coming?" Lefkowitz said. "I'd have to say no."

He contacted Kobilka via a Skype video call to celebrate the news after receiving the call from the Nobel committee.

Lefkowitz, with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, began tracking cell receptors with radioactive substances in 1968.

In the 1980s, Kobilka, from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, joined the research to isolate the human gene that produces the adrenalin receptor, the academy said.

"Kobilka achieved another break-through" in 2011, the academy said in a news release: a photographic image of a hormone triggering a receptor to send an impulse into its cell.

"This image is a molecular masterpiece -- the result of decades of research," the academy said.

Humans experience G-protein-coupled receptors most consciously when they smell, see and taste, the academy explained in a background document. But within the body, they sense "signaling substances, such as adrenalin, serotonin, histamine and dopamine."

"They serve as the gateway to the cells," Lefkowitz said.

"Around half of all medications act through these receptors, among them beta blockers, antihistamines and various kinds of psychiatric medications," the academy explained.

In the case of adrenalin -- known in science as epinephrine -- receptors in cells of the heart make it beat faster and receptors in muscle cells signal them to activate to mobilize a person's strength.

Newly anointed Nobel Laureate Lefkowitz can use the energy boost.

"I'm thinking that this is going to be a very hectic day," he said. "I was going to get a haircut," he revealed, triggering laughter at the academy, as he explained that he really felt he needed one. "But I'm afraid it will probably have to be postponed."

Nobel Prizes in chemistry have gone to predominantly to organic (or carbon-based) chemistry, particularly to discoveries in the area of life sciences, such as genetics.

This year's monetary award will be 8 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million). This represents a drop of 20%, compared with last year, from 10 million Swedish kronor, and is due to the turbulence that has hit financial markets.

Last year, Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology won the award for the discovery of quasicrystals, which was made in 1982 and "fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter," according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

On Tuesday, the academy bestowed Nobel honors in physics on Serge Haroche of France and David Wineland of the United States for their work in quantum optics that allowed scientists to observe the workings of atoms without disturbing their properties. As a side effect, their work lays down principles that could lead to quantum computers, which are astronomically fast computers that would radically change human life, if ever invented.

On Monday, the Nobel Assembly awarded the prize for physiology or medicine to Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka jointly for their discovery that stem cells can be made of mature cells and need not necessarily be taken from fetuses or embryos.

The committee also will announce prizes in literature, peace and economics.

Since 1901, the committee has handed out the Nobel Prize in chemistry 103 times. In certain years, mainly during World Wars I and II, no prize in chemistry was awarded.

The youngest recipient was Frederic Joliot, who won in 1935 at the age of 35. The oldest chemistry laureate was John B. Fenn, who was 85 when he received the prize in 2002.

Frederic Sanger was the only scientist to win the chemistry prize twice for his work related to the structure of proteins and DNA.

There is a fine line between the science of chemistry and the fields of physics and biology. Famed female scientist Marie Curie of France, for example, won Nobel honors for her work in radiophysics in 1903 and then again in 1911 for discoveries in radiochemistry.

By Ben Brumfield, CNN, October 10, 2012