THESE ARE INCREDIBLY GOOD NEWS OUT OF OSLO. The feisty teenage girl who got shot in the head for speaking out against religious shenanigans by the notorious Taliban, and advocating for girls right to education in her country of Pakistan, is targeted once more. And the world is intensely rooting for her coming up tops. 

This week the name of Malala Yousufzai is on the list of nominees for the prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace for 2013. The prize comes with a certificate, a medal, and a stupendous sum of $1,3 million.

On hearing the news of her nomination, Malala said she had done nothing for her name to be pronounced in the same sentence as the Nobel Organization. In an interview with City 89 FM, a radio station in her home country, she expressed her disbelief in a modest way, adding that she had a long way still to go.

There are many people who deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and I think that I still need to work a lot. In my opinion I have not done that much to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

While girls her age the world over dream of being a Justin Bieber girlfriend, Malala is evidently not an average teenager. At age 16, hers is a humanitarian dream that involves equality, peace for her people, a dialogue to find political solutions around thorny issues, religious truth, and an education for every child in Pakistan. 

I hope that a day will come [when] the people of Pakistan will be free, they will have their rights, there will be peace and every girl and every boy will be going to school. The best way to solve problems and to fight against war is through dialogue. [The Taliban] must do what they want through dialogue. Killing people, torturing people and flogging people … it’s totally against Islam. They are misusing the name of Islam.