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Saturday's news in less than two minutes.

Malala Yousafzai

 

 

 

 

 

1. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize.

Pakastani teenager Malala Yousafzai and Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their advocacy of children’s education rights. Ms Yousafzai, who at 17 years of age is the youngest ever recipient of the award, was shot in the head by the Taliban two years ago for advocating girl’s education rights. She is also the first teenager ever to be awarded the prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that the pair were awarded the prize for their efforts in bringing awareness to the suppression of children and young people.

“In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation,” the Committee said when awarding the prize.

“This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard,” Ms Yousafzai told reporters in Birmingham, Britain, where she now lives and goes to school.

2.Vigil for murdered Brisbane woman, Mayang Prosetyo

A vigil has been held overnight for Mayang Prosetyo who was brutally killed by her partner last week. 150 friends, family and strangers – many from Brisbane’s gay, lesbian and transgender community – have joined together in a candle lit vigil to remember Ms Prosetyo, who friends described as “a kind and other worldly soul” and a “natural entrepreneur”.

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Mourners also vented their anger and anguish at the media coverage of Ms Prasetyo’s murder. The Brisbane Times reports that that a young man fought back tears as he spoke of his realisation that, should anything tragic happen to him, the first line of his media epitaph would be the fact he was a transgender man and not the fact he was a loved son and a student nurse. Another vigil will be held by Brisbane’s Indonesian community on Sunday.

3.UN warns that 12,000 could be massacred if IS take over a town on the border of Syria and Turkey

Syria.

ABC News are reporting that a UN envoy has predicted that thousands of people “will most likely be massacred” if the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane falls to Islamic State fighters. The envoy says that IS militants are fighting deeper into the town in full view of Turkish tanks, which have done nothing to intervene. While thousands of people have been able to flee, hundreds of elderly people remain trapped in the town.

The UN Special Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said Kobane could suffer the same fate as the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslims were killed by Serbs in 1995, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

4.Stolen nude Snapchats could be released on Sunday

Tens of thousands of intercepted Snapchat images, many nude or explicit, are reportedly set to be released online on Sunday, courtesy of notorious hacker forum 4chan (which was responsible for the recent release of stolen celebrity images).

According to Business Insider, 4chan users have downloaded the pictures in order to create a database that will allow people to search the images by Snapchat username. Snapchat, an app that allows users to send photos which are immediately deleted, claims they are not to blame for the hack. Snapchat is blaming the lack of security in third party apps which allow users to save and store pictures.

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5. New Commonwealth agency will make overseas adoption easier.

After the Council of Australian Governments meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that, by next March, people wanting to adopt children from overseas will have a new government agency to support them through the process. The PM said that the help should mean that people can get adoption approvals quicker, less expensively and with much less heartbreak.

Sky News reports that this agency could also eventually take responsibility for surrogacy arrangements. The states will still decide who can adopt and under what circumstances.

6. Austrian teens who joined Islamic State are regretting their decision.

Photos of the two teens have emerged on social media over the past weeks.

It is being reported that the young Austrian girls who left home to become jihadis for Islamic State are now regretting their decision. According to news.com.au Samra Kesinovic and Sabina Selimovic, both of whom are now believed to be married and pregnant, are missing their former life and families back home in Vienna.

Kesinovic, 17, and Selimovic, 15, have been in the IS-controlled city of Rakka in Northern Syria four weeks now. The girls left behind a note that said “Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah — and we will die for him,” although it appears that they may now have had a change of heart. You can read more about this story here.

 

 

7. Angelina Jolie made an honorary dame by the Queen.

Angelina Jolie has been made an honorary dame by the Queen in recognition of her campaign to end sexual violence and services to UK foreign policy. At 39 years of age, the Oscar-winning actress is the first American woman to ever receive the title.

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Aside from her career in acting, Jolie is a special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2001.

The Queen and Angelina Jolie on Friday.

Due to her American citizenship Jolie cannot be addressed as Dame, but can now carry the initials of the award – DCMG – after her name. Past honorary recipients have included Bob Geldof, for his Live Aid Initiatives in the 1980s, and philanthropist Bill Gates in 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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