Category: People

{{Gay soccer players at the World Cup in Brazil should declare their sexuality to help make gays and lesbians accepted around the world, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said on Monday.}}

“I encourage players, sports people to declare their sexual orientation without fear,” she told reporters in Geneva.

“That’s the only way they will find the right to sexual orientation accepted. They are role models, it’s important to send this message to their fans as well,” Pillay said, adding that it was “a shame, in this day and age”, that people “had to hide who they really are”.

She was speaking after addressing a meeting on equality in sports on the sidelines of the U.N. Human Rights Council, where she also spoke out against discrimination on the grounds of race or disability.

“There’s an increasing realisation that combatting discrimination requires more than superficial measures that do not change attitudes or address the root causes of inequality,” she told the meeting.

Pillay also warned governments that bid for major sporting competitions that they needed to give far more thought to how their bid would affect human rights.

This year’s World Cup hosts Brazil and the 2022 hosts Qatar have both drawn criticism – Brazil for the $11 billion cost in a country where schools and hospitals are poor, and Qatar for suspicions of corruption and the welfare of migrant labourers.

“They risk becoming hubs of human rights violations, including misuse of public funds, child labour, forced evictions, and demolition and the sexual exploitation of human beings including children in the surge of tourism,” Pillay said, without naming any particular city.

“Sporting events should celebrate the joy of human potential, not generate pain and abuse,” she said.

{{An indigenous man in Bolivia whose reported age would have made him the oldest person ever known, died on Monday night in his village near Lake Titicaca, his only living son said.}}

Carmelo Flores, an Aymara Indian, claimed to be 123 years old. Flores carried national identity documents based on a baptism certificate showing his birthday as July 16, 1890.

But Bolivia only began issuing official birth certificates in 1940 and authorities were never able to confirm or disprove Flores’ age.

“He died yesterday at nine at night,” his son Cecilio Flores, who is nearly 70, said on Tuesday. “He wasn’t able to stand up, his foot was swollen. Doctors told me that’s how it is with diabetes.”

Flores attributed his longevity to eating quinoa seeds and riverside mushrooms, and to constantly chewing coca leaves.

He lived in a straw-roofed hut in Frasquia, a 4,000-meter (13,123-feet) high Andean hamlet east of La Paz.

Flores said he fought in the 1932-35 Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, hunting skunks to nourish himself.

He also briefly lived in La Paz, but never took to the bustling capital.

He spent his last years taking walks in shoes made of recycled tires and laying on a blanket watching village life go by.

agencies

{{American Movie star Will Smith and his celebrity wife Jada Pinkett have been seen enjoying on Hawaii Beach crashing rumours that they couple was about to split.}}

The couple is regularly battling breakup rumours in the tabloids, but the married couple of nearly 17 years appeared to be more in love than ever over the weekend.

Jada, 42, was photographed kissing and holding hands with her 45-year-old husband on the beach in Hawaii. The couple was snapped as they giggled and twirled around on the beach (doesn’t everybody?), appearing relaxed during their getaway.

Though Will also spent some of his vacation working out with a trainer on the sand, it’s Jada’s super fit bikini body that caught our attention. Can you say ripped?

Daughter Willow eventually joined her parents down by the ocean as well.

Last month, the 13-year-old made headlines after a photo of her lying on a bed with her friend, Moises Arias, emerged on social media. Arias was shirtless, which led many to call into question the appropriateness of their relationship as he is 20.

“Here’s the deal,” Jada told a sea of paparazzi shortly after the incident blew up. “There was nothing sexual about that picture or that situation. You guys are projecting your trash onto it. You’re acting like covert pedophiles and that’s not cool.”

We’re guessing the Smith clan was definitely ready for a drama-free vacation.

{{ A Pakistani woman who survived an attack by relatives who tried to kill her for marrying for love told media on Friday that she feared for her life and appealed for protection.}}

Saba Maqsood, 18, survived being shot and thrown in a canal by her family on Thursday, weeks after the “honor killing” of another woman in Pakistan drew worldwide condemnation.

Maqsood angered her family by marrying the man of her choice a few days ago in the Punjabi city of Gujranwala – an act of defiance in a conservative part of Pakistan where women are expected to agree to arranged marriages.

“Even though police provided me with security, I fear that my family will try to kill me and my husband,” Maqsood, still weak after being shot twice in the cheek and right hand, told media by telephone from her hospital bed.

“I appeal to the chief minister and authorities to take serious notice of this attack on me and take necessary action for our security.”

Police said Maqsood was attacked and shot by her father, uncle, brother and aunt, and thrown into the waterway in the city of Hafizabad in Punjab province on Thursday.

Her relatives quickly fled the scene, but after minutes in the water Maqsood regained consciousness and managed to struggle to the bank, where two passers-by helped her.

Police have pledged to protect Maqsood.

“We have moved Saba to a private room in the hospital and deployed female and male police officers for her security,” said regional police officer Ali Akbar.

“I have contacted her husband Qaiser but he is reluctant to come to the hospital because he is afraid of being attacked.”

Police have raided Maqsood’s home but all the suspects appear to have vanished, police said.

reuters

{{A US citizen carried out a suicide bombing against Syrian troops on Sunday, the US state department says.

The rebel al-Nusra Front said the man conducted the bombing on their behalf. It was one of four attacks carried out in the northern city of Idlib that day.

It is thought to be the first suicide attack by a US citizen in the conflict.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in the battle between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule.

“I can confirm that this individual was a US citizen involved in a suicide bombing in Syria,” state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The man was believed to be Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, she said.

The department was “concerned about the flow of foreign fighters in and out of Syria”, Ms Psaki added.}}