Pakistan

That Malala Yousafzai, the girl the Taleban tried to murder, is a brave and resolute young woman is not in doubt. The youngest person ever nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she has won many awards, including the Sakharov Prize and an honorary degree from Edinburgh University, in her campaign for ‘the right to -education’. But something curious is going on. Something crucial to her experience is always omitted when her life and mission are described by international agencies and the media. Education International, the global teachers’ union umbrella group, is typical. Malala is campaigning, they say, so that all can benefit from ‘equitable public education’; that is, government education.

To the Lahore Literary Festival. As I cross the border from India, Pakistan is experiencing an unprecedented wave of sectarian violence: 400 Shias have been killed in bomb attacks this year, while more than 150 houses and two churches belonging to the Christians have been burned in mob attacks. Yet Pakistan always manages to stumble on. Sixty-five years after partition, Lahore still feels like Delhi’s sister city, and is much more like my adopted home than either Madras or Calcutta is. Moreover, there are some hopeful signs. Zardari’s government is about to complete its term in office — the first time in the country’s history that an elected government will manage to do so — and the literary festival itself is a huge success.

The dilemma over drones continues today with the announcement that a leading Taliban figure, Mullah Nazir, was killed earlier this morning. Public opinion in Pakistan is deeply hostile to such attacks even when militants are killed because of the perceived cost to civilians. Scores have been incorrectly identified as hostile jihadists and targeted as a result. Pakistan’s government has long adopted a dual-hatted approach. Officially it protests all drone strikes while privately sanctioning them. That now appears to be changing and the Foreign Ministry is now more committed than ever to stopping drones in Pakistan. Part of the pressure is explained by upcoming elections, with drones becoming a key electoral issue.

Britain’s best known Islamist, Anjem Choudary, is planning to hold a conference in Pakistan on Friday where, among other things, he will issue a fatwa on Malala Yousafzai. She is the schoolgirl from Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal areas who was shot in the head for defying the terrorist group by demanding an education. Yousafzai survived the attempted assassination and was later flow to Birmingham for specialist medical treatment (the bill is being picked up by the Pakistani government). Choudary plans to hold his conference – 'Shariah for Pakistan' – at the Red Mosque in Islamabad which was the scene of a notorious standoff in 2007.

Have Pakistani children been the unintended victims of last year’s mission by the United States to kill Osama bin Laden? It might seem a ridiculous question to pose, but it’s clear they are being made to bear the brunt of that decision by an increasingly paranoid official and clerical establishment. The latest manifestation of this was the decision by Pakistan’s intelligence services to order all foreign staff working for Save the Children out of country. They claim to have found evidence of the charity indirectly assisting the United States in its operation to kill Osama bin Laden last year – a claim the group vehemently denies.

It’s been an eventful , if worrying afternoon in the Middle East. First, the initial Egyptian election results confirm the expectation that Islamist parties would dominate the first round of elections: they've taken more than 50 per cent of the vote. Douglas Murray wrote a Spectator cover story two weeks ago on how the Arab Spring is turning to winter; it is required reading. Events in Iran are much more disturbing, though. Iran claims to have shot down an US drone in the east of the country and added further threats about further retaliation for the incursion.