Malala now able to stand, UK doctors say

A Pakistani girl shot in the head by Pakistani Taliban assailants is "not out of the woods" but is doing well and has been able to stand for the first time, doctors at the British hospital treating her say.
Friday's medical briefing offered the first real indication of Malala Yousafzai's progress. Earlier briefings were quite limited out of respect for the girl's privacy.
Dave Rosser, medical director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said she was now able to write and appeared to have memory recall despite her brain injuries.
Yousafzai, who was shot for vocally opposing the Pakistani Taliban, was flown to Birmingham on Monday to receive treatment after the attack earlier this month, which drew widespread international condemnation.
She has become a symbol of resistance to the group's effort to deny women education and other rights.
"It's clear that she's not out of the woods yet," Rosser said, adding that she had sustained a "very, very grave injury".
But he said she was "doing very well".
"In fact she was standing with some help for the first time this morning. She's communicating very freely, writing," he said.

Yousafzai was flown to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Monday to receive specialist treatment [EPA]

Rosser said that Yousafzai was not able to speak because she had undergone a tracheotomy so she could breathe through a tube in her neck, an operation that was performed because her airways had been swollen by the bullet.
Yousafzai was shot as she left school in Swat, northwest of Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban said they targeted Yousafzai, a fierce advocate for girls' education, because she promoted "Western thinking" and was critical of the group.
The alleged organiser of the shooting was captured during a 2009 military offensive against the Taliban, but released after three months, two senior officials told Reuters news agency.
In a detailed statement about her injuries, Rosser said she had suffered fractures to the base of her skull and to the bone behind her left ear. Her left jawbone is also injured at its joint.
"Malala was shot at point-blank range," with the bullet hitting her left brow, Rosser said.
But instead of penetrating skull it travelled underneath the skin, the whole length of the side of her head and into her neck.

source: Aljazeera