President Asif Ali Ten PercentZardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
Monday announced a 10-million-dollar donation for a global war chest to educate all girls by 2015 set up in the name of Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education.
The "Malala Fund for Girls' Right to Education" aims at raising billions of dollars to ensure that all girls go to school by 2015 in line with United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
Millennium goals.
Pakistain Education Minister Waqas Akram signed the agreement with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization head Irina Bokova.
"A young determined daughter of my country was attacked by the forces of darkness," Zardari said at the high-profile "Stand Up For Malala" event at the Unesco headquarters in Gay Paree.
"We are facing two forces in the country; Malala represents the forces of peace and we are fighting with the forces of darkness, hatred and violence," he said.
The ceremony drew French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, former British premier Gordon Brown
... the hapless former British PM ...
, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, and the former presidents of Finland and Chile.
UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as
The Heroine of Tuzlaand at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Al Haig...
and the EU's top diplomat Catherine Ashton send special videotaped messages of support.
The 15-year-old schoolgirl, who is recovering in a British hospital after being brutally attacked on her school bus on October 9, will herself join the campaign when she is better.
Ziauddin Yousufzai, Malala's father, a former teacher and headmaster has been appointed to help in what Brown has dubbed a new 'Malala Plan' to get all girls into school around the world by the end of 2015.
Zardari slammed Islamic fundamentalists for giving the religion a bad name.
"The first word of the holy Koran is 'iqra' which is read," he said, attacking the "fringe minority of darkness, of hatred, of conflict.
"What gun-hung tough guys fear is a girl with a book in her hand," he said.
The UN estimates that 61 million children do not go to school and girls account for two-thirds of this number.
In an attack that shocked the world, Malala was shot in the head as punishment for the "crime" of campaigning for girls' rights to go to school.
She survived the murder attempt but requires reconstructive surgery after the bullet grazed her brain, coming within centimetres of killing her.