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Malala Yousafzai Vows Support for Gaza after Backlash

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023. PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023. PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File
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Malala Yousafzai Vows Support for Gaza after Backlash

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023. PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023. PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on Thursday condemned Israel and reaffirmed her support for Palestinians in Gaza, after a backlash in her native Pakistan over a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has been condemned by some for partnering with Clinton, an outspoken supporter of Israel's war against Hamas.
The musical, titled "Suffs," depicts the American women's suffrage campaign for the right to vote in the 20th century and has been playing in New York since last week, said AFP.
"I want there to be no confusion about my support for the people of Gaza," Yousafzai wrote on X, the former Twitter. "We do not need to see more dead bodies, bombed schools and starving children to understand that a ceasefire is urgent and necessary."
She added: "I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes."
Pakistan has seen many fiercely emotional pro-Palestinian protests since the war in Gaza began last October.
Yusafzai's "theatre collaboration with Hillary Clinton -- who stands for America's unequivocal support for genocide of Palestinians -- is a huge blow to her credibility as a human rights activist," popular Pakistani columnist Mehr Tarar wrote on social media platform X on Wednesday.
"I consider it utterly tragic."
Whilst Clinton has backed a military campaign to remove Hamas and rejected demands for a ceasefire, she has also explicitly called for protections for Palestinian civilians.
Yousafzai has publicly condemned the civilian casualties and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The New York Times reported the 26-year-old wore a red-and-black pin to the "Suffs" premier last Thursday, signifying her support for a ceasefire.
But author and academic Nida Kirmani said on X that Yousafzai's decision to partner with Clinton was "maddening and heartbreaking at the same time. What an utter disappointment."
The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Hamas also abducted 250 people and Israel estimates 129 of them remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.
Clinton served as America's top diplomat during former president Barack Obama's administration, which oversaw a campaign of drone strikes targeting Taliban militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan's borderlands.
Yousafzai earned her Nobel Peace Prize after being shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban as she pushed for girls' education as a teenager in 2012.
However, the drone war killed and maimed scores of civilians in Yousafzai's home region, spurring more online criticism of the youngest Nobel Laureate, who earned the prize at 17.
Yousafzai is often viewed with suspicion in Pakistan, where critics accuse her of pushing a Western feminist and liberal political agenda on the conservative country.

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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Tropical storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. Eight people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn't strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country's northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured and one person was missing, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city's efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain's body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. A handful of other ships were beached by the storm.

Philippines At least 34 people died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.