Teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai stable: doctors

Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, spent a "stable" night at a specialised hospital in Birmingham and has a chance of making "a good recovery", doctors said on Tuesday.

Malala was transferred from Pakistan in an air ambulance to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham yesterday.

Her condition was described as stable in the morning and the medical director of University Hospitals, Birmingham Dr Dave Rosser is due to give another update later.

Dr Rosser said she had "a chance of making a good recovery".

Yesterday, Dr Anders Cohen, Chief of Neurosurgery at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, explained that Malala had passed "two major hurdles".

"The removal of the bullet and the very critical 48-hour window after surgery. She has also showed some response, which is cause for cautious optimism, but she has a long way to go," he said.

"Her age is also in her favour. A young person's brain has more recovery ability than an older person," he added.

The teenager's life was saved by neurosurgeons in a Pakistani military hospital and she has since been in intensive care.

She was attacked by the Taliban for promoting girls' education and criticising the militant group.

The teenager was shot on a bus in front of her friends in what Foreign Secretary William Hague described as a "barbaric attack".

Malala was only 11 when she started documenting how difficult it was to get an education: "I dreamt of a country where education would prevail," she wrote.

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