With the conflict at an impasse and the specter of renewed Russian attacks looming over Ukraine, here's how newspapers across the world are covering the six-month milestone:
"6 months of war: Kyiv afraid on its national holiday” — Tages-Anzeiger
"“The war that was supposed to be quick has now been going on for six months” — Público
But some women are taking a different path to assert equality, challenging the very idea of gender division in sports. The past two decades have seen a rise in female athletes joining male teams, both at the scholastic and professional levels. This month, for example, a Spaniard made handball history when she was the first woman to play in a senior men's match.
Here's a look at six determined women who've shaken up how we see sports by joining their male counterparts on the team:
Mireia Rodríguez and her teammates of the Club Balonmano Albacete
Club Balonmano Albacete via Facebook
Mireia Rodríguez recently became the first woman in the history of handball to play in a senior men's match in Spain's central region of Castilla La Mancha, La Vanguardia reports. The 31-year-old professional athlete took part in her first game with the Club Balonmano Albacete on November 7, scoring a goal when she entered the court at the 21st minute. Her team eventually won 31 to 26.
Last month, the club announced it had been granted permission from the Castilla La Mancha Handball Federation to register Rodríguez as a new member of the team, which currently plays in the country's second division. The athlete moved to Albacete last summer to follow her husband Ruben Martinez, a professional soccer player but discovered there was no professional female handball club in Albacete. She then contacted the club's coach José Maria Valerio, asking to train with the team just to stay in shape. He accepted.
At her first training, Rodríguez impressed the other players with her "speed, technique and agility." It didn't take long for the club's president to suggest she join the team. It still took two months of intense lobbying from the club to the regional and national federations, and of rereading all the rules to check there was no restriction before she became part of the team. Rodríguez said she hoped her experience would "open doors" for other female athletes to take part in male competitions and that anyone should be able "to practice the sport they love, whether being a boy or a girl."
Ellen Fokkema is playing in the VV Foarut's fourth-division senior men's soccer team
Anne Waterlander/X-lent/VV Foarut
In August 2021, Ellen Fokkema became the first woman in the Netherlands who was granted the right to play in a fourth-division senior men's soccer team in the changing the rules of Dutch football in the process, Trouw reports.
Fokkema had played for the VV Foarut club from the ages of 5 to 19. In the Netherlands, teenage boys and girls have been allowed to play together in the same youth football team but after the age of 19, female players have to make a choice: join a team exclusively for women or a category B men's team (the reserve team of a club in the fourth division or lower).
Fokkema, however, wanted to play in VV Foarut's A team. The club asked the Dutch federation for a dispensation, which was turned down at first. After some persistence, the young woman eventually got the green light and actually prompted the federation to launch a one-season pilot to assess whether women could compete in top-flight amateur men's football.
Women soccer players in other countries are also making their way into men's teams: professional Japanese striker Yuki Nagasato, who's currently part of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) club Racing Louisville FC, joined an amateur male team in 2020 when the pandemic interrupted the NWSL season. It made her the first female footballer to play for the A team of a Japanese men's club.
Eri Toshida in 2009
Bruce Stotesbury/PostMedia News/ZUMApress.com
She was nicknamed the "Knuckle Princess." In 2008, at just 16 years old, Eri Yoshida was drafted by a professional men's baseball team, the Kobe Cruise 9 in the Kansai Independent League — a first for a woman in Japan.
But the pitcher would go even further two years later, when she signed a contract with an American team, the Chico outlaws, becoming the first athlete to play professionally in two countries and only the third woman to play in the U.S. male professional baseball leagues.
She succeeded Julie Croteau, who was the first woman to play men's NCAA baseball in 1988, and Ila Borders, a professional pitcher who played in men's leagues from 1997 to 2000.
Charlotte Cagigos, backup goalkeeper of the French Drakkars de Caen
Only one woman in France skates a professional hockey team. Charlotte Cagigos, 20, became the backup goalkeeper of the Drakkars, a team from northern France playing in Division 1, the second highest level of the ice hockey league, in August 2020.
"When I was little, I would have loved to see a girl playing on a top team and have her as a role model. I don't necessarily want to become a symbol but I'd just like to show that it's possible for little girls to play hockey," she told France 24 television network.
Cagigos started skating at 3 (following in her big brother's footsteps) and enrolled in a sports study program at 14 before joining the Drakkars Under-17 elite squad in 2017 and then climbing the team's ranks step-by-step. Cagigos is now working to become the number one goalkeeper but says she still "has a lot to learn and experience."
Ice hockey has the particularity, in contrast with other collective sports, that a female player can work her way into a male team as a goalkeeper — a position that requires more technical than physical skills. Canadian player Manon Rhéaume was the first woman ever to play in the National Hockey League in 1992, paving the way for others such as Shannon Szabados, also in Canada, or Florence Schelling in Switzerland.
Jen Welter, first female coach in the NFL
Jen Welter is not only the first woman to hold a contact position in a professional men's American football game, she was also the first female coach in the NFL.
After playing rugby in Boston College, she played for the Dallas Diamonds Women's Football Alliance and at the International Federation of American Football's Women's World Championships in 2010 and 2013. In 2014, at 36 years old, she was the first woman to play a non-kicking position in a men's pro game. One year later, the Arizona Cardinals hired her as an assistant coaching intern.
The passionate athlete is also a sports psychologist, personal trainer, endorsement model, and motivational speaker. She follows in the footsteps of Patricia Palinkas, the first woman to play in a men's semi-professional game in 1970.
"I'm an athlete, I'm competitive," Walter told USA Today daily. "But the bigger thing for me is obviously for little girls to see they can do everything just like little boys can."
Fabiola da Silva, World Champion and 8x X-Games Medalist
Brazilian Fabiola da Silva, also known as "Fabby", was crowned world champion in inline skate at just 18, and is today the most decorated female athlete in X-Games history. She won the competition seven times, received a silver medal in 2004 and became the first woman ever to land the double backflip on a vert ramp in 2005. Yet, only a few people outside of the extreme sports world would even know her name.
She also happens to be the only woman to compete against men in any X-Games sports, aggressive in-line vert, according to Brazilian Globo.
Da Silva was known to skate faster, harder and more fearlessly than any of her fellow female skaters. So much so that in 2000 the Aggressive Skaters Association introduced the "Fabiola Rule", allowing women to compete in the formerly all-male vert competition.
Since then, she has placed in the top ten several times as she competed against men. "A lot of girls think girls aren't good enough to be skating against the guys," she reported to Los Angeles Times. "I just think different. If I see a guy doing it, I think it's possible for a woman to do it also. Why not?"
Gathering both police and court data for the first eight months of 2021, the Bogota-based organization found that certain crimes are more likely to happen at night, and others during daylight hours. The aim was to "determine the pattern of criminal conduct" as intelligence for the police, says CEJ's director Hernando Herrera.
The statistics showed just over 16,850 personal thefts in the eight-month period, 30% of which happened between 6 a.m. and noon — though cell phones were stolen more often between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. However one-fourth of all burglaries (85 a day in Colombia) happened between midnight and 4 a.m.
Just over 32% of all motorbike thefts happened between six and 11 p.m., while bicycles have tended to be stolen in the morning (20% between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m.).
Out of 9,185 homicides reported for the eight-month period (38 a day, up from 31 for those months in 2020), 40% happened between 6 p.m. and midnight, and more often on Sunday (55%).
CEJ also counted just over 78,400 cases of "domestic violence." Of these, 27% happened between midnight and one a.m. (after dinner), and 15% around breakfast time (8 -11 a.m.). The figures showed a slight increase in these of just over 1% from 2020, though no figures were given for 2019, the year before the pandemic that entailed weeks of confinement in many big cities.
Colombia's figures show similarities and differences compared to patterns elsewhere. Reports from 2019 indicated that crime in big cities in the United States was more likely to take place during the day, though more serious violent acts like murder, assault and rape were concentrated in the evening.
Police reports from Chile have shown a similar pattern to killings in Colombia's: more often on Sunday, and in the hours after midnight.
In Mexico City, a report from 2018 found the 11 p.m.-midnight slots to be the choice hour for killings, though most firearm injuries had reportedly happened between seven and eight in the morning. Another report from 2020, put the murder hours in that megalopolis at between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Globally, data on the "when" of crime is rather limited. National statistics tend to focus more on location, demographics and other factors driving lawlessness. Still, some localities have made a point of tracking the crime clock. In Cape Town, South Africa, stats gathered in 2018 show that more deaths occur on weekends than during the working week.
Provincial police commissioner, Khombinkosi Jula said that 53% of deaths happen on Saturday or Sunday, with 47% on the other five days of the week. This percentage was culled from statistics on the primary motives for murder in the Cape province: gang-related crimes account for 22% of deaths, robberies account for 8.1%, domestic violence for 5.1%, taxi violence for 2.1%, and arguments (that turn violent) for 13.2%.
The limited data notwithstanding, one can surmise that the when of a crime is also linked to the why.
The coronavirus outbreak has changed our relationship with work, health and… cash. The fear of contamination while handling coins and banknotes has accelerated a trend that had already been growing for years: contactless payments. Both consumers and businesses that may have been previously reluctant to go digital are changing their preferred payment methods. Does this mean the end of cash?
Digital payments on the rise: The adoption of digital and contactless payments has seen significant growth all around the world, be it through websites, mobile phones or credit cards.
In India, a poll conducted by Mastercard on digital payments revealed a 19% increase in the actual contactless cards issued in the first quarter of 2020, theFinancial Expressreports. The corporation also found that contactless transactions were particularly high for purchases below $10 and in four types of establishments (supermarkets, restaurants, bars and gas stations), which registered more than 1 million contactless transactions each month at the beginning of 2020.
Malaysia is also one of the fastest-growing countries in Asia Pacific to adopt contactless payments, according to The Malaysian Reserve. A study conducted by Visa revealed three out of five Malaysians prefer using digital payments compared to cash before the pandemic while another report by Mastercard found that 40% of Malaysian consumers have reported increasing the use of their mobile and digital wallets.
With businesses closed during the lockdown and many consumers feeling uncomfortable returning to stores post-confinement, online shopping has been soaring in many countries. According to Adobe's Digital Economy Index, which analyzes global digital commerce trends, online shopping reached $66.3 billion in July 2020 — a 55% increase compared to last year. Several e-commerce companies reported very high figures: Amazon's net income increased to $5.2 billion in the second quarter of 2020, compared with $2.6 billion last year, while Argentina's MercadoLibre registered revenues that increased 123% compared with 2019. In China, the online sale of physical goods grew by 25% in June 2020 while e-commerce accounted for a quarter of the country's total retail for the same period, with categories such as cosmetics and beverages on the rise.
Multiplying cashless options: Governments and private companies alike are encouraging contactless transactions by offering new payment options for consumers in various sectors.
The French government, in collaboration with Visa and MasterCard, raised the contactless transaction limit of credit cards from €30 to €50 on May 11th as the country started to ease lockdown measures. French citizens immediately took advantage of the new measure: Les Echos reports that a mere three days later, three million transactions between €30 to €50 were made — raising contactless transactions by an additional 15%.
Someone using a credit card on a white POS machine. — Photo: Clay Banks/Unsplash
Shops and businesses are also adapting to the new trend. In the United States, a National Retail Federation survey found that 58% of retailer respondents were now accepting contactless cards, an increase from 40% compared with 2019. Big retail companies such as Walmart have expanded contactless options for both payment and delivery, such as using QR codes for purchases via smartphone apps.
Some companies are also trying to offer completely new contactless solutions. KEB Hana Bank, one of the biggest commercial banks in South Korea, has partnered with the Korea Expressway Corporation to create a blockchain-based toll payment system across the country's highways. D Dailyreports that the project, expected to be launched before the end of 2020, will help remove cash and credit card payments as motorists use their smartphone banking apps to pay for tolls. Both parties stated that the pandemic is helped spur them to create this new system.
In the Philippines, GCash, the country's largest mobile wallet app with 20 million registered users, is working with the government to equip taxis with scan-to-pay systems where users pay via QR codes from their smartphones, Nikkei Asia Review reports. In parallel, the government has been promoting digital currency through an online payment platform for administrative services called EGov Pay. By the end of March, the country had increased the number of government institutions that accept digital payment via the platform by 56%.
No more cash? As more and more payments are made digitally, cash seems to be in short supply in some countries — but maybe not for reasons you would think.
It is now common in the United States to see signs in restaurants and stores that ask customers to pay with credit cards or exact change. Why? Because the country is facing a national coin shortage this summer. This is an unusual result of the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic. The Federal Reserve explained in a statement that the shortage was caused by a "slower pace of circulation" of coins during the lockdown. As businesses reopen across the U.S., demand for coins exceeds the available supply — to the point where banks are asking customers to bring spare change, USA Today reports. To address these disruptions, the Federal Reserve has established a "Coin Task Force," which recently released a first set of recommendations.
Further north, a similar deficit has arisen from a resistance to the cashless trend. The Bank of Canada is currently facing a shortage of $50 bills due to citizens hoarding cash during the pandemic. A report indicates that the increase in consumer demand for banknotes was "significant," with withdrawals concentrated in major cities such as Toronto and Montreal. The bank registered a spike in demand for all bank notes in April and May compared with the past five years. However, the hoarders may not be able to spend their banknotes at all as many businesses ask customers to avoid cash payments while others even refuse them.
Welcome to Monday, where two Latin American countries await the results of key elections, a deadly train collision rocks Pakistan, and Turkey faces a worrying — not to say pretty yucky — sea of snot. We also look at some of the most creative vaccine incentives around the world. (Spoiler alert: They involve free food. And a cow.)
• Pakistan train collision kills 33: Two trains collided early this morning in southern Pakistan, killing at least 33 and injuring more than 120. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted he was "ordering comprehensive investigation into railway safety fault lines."
• Boko Haram leader dead: According to a rival militant group, the leader of Nigerian-based Islamist group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has killed himself by detonating an explosive. Although his death has not yet been confirmed by authorities, the Nigerian army has announced plans to investigate the allegations.
• Key elections in Latin America: Both Peru and Mexico went to the polls this weekend. In Mexico, after being largely overshadowed by spates of violence, President López Obrador and his coalition are set to maintain a simple majority in the lower house of Congress, despite losing several seats. In Peru, the presidential election between Leftist Pedro Castillo and right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori is still too close to call.
• G7 vs. tech giants: G7 countries reached a historic deal on the taxation of multinational corporations, such as Amazon and Microsoft, over the weekend. Large corporations may now be subject to a global minimum corporation tax rate of 15%, in an effort to dissuade the use of offshore tax havens.
• Hungarians protest new Chinese University: Thousands of Hungarians gathered to protest the planned construction of a Budapest campus for the Chinese University, Fudan. Many left-leaning Hungarians are critical of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's close relationship with Beijing, and see the project as a misuse of funds that could go toward improving the state of the country's education.
• Last Auschwitz liberator dies: David Dushman, the last surviving soldier who took part in the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, has died at 98. The Red Army soldier had used his tank to mow down the electric fence of the camp.
• President Lili?: After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced the birth of Lilibet "Lili" Diana Mountbatten-Windsor (named in honor of both Queen Elizabeth and Lady Diana), born on Friday morning in Santa Barbara, California, some were quick to point out that being born on U.S. soil, Lilibet will also be able to run for U.S. president.
Peruvian daily La Republica reports on the country's general elections' "technical draw," as tight first results project that leftist candidate Pedro Castillo holds a razor-thin advantage over conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori.
Welcome to Thursday, where Joe Biden calls for a deeper investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, France recognizes its responsibility in the Rwandan genocide and six famous friends are reunited after 17 years. Persian-language magazine Kayhan-London also reports on how the pandemic, combined with dire economic conditions and government repression, has had a profound impact on Iranian's mental health.
• Biden orders investigation into coronavirus origin: U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered intelligence officials to "redouble" efforts to determine the origins of COVID-19, including the theory that it came from a Chinese laboratory. China has already rejected this theory, accusing the U.S. government of politicizing the pandemic.
• Macron recognizes French "responsibility" in Rwanda genocide: On a symbolic visit to Rwanda on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron recognized France's "political" responsibility in the 1994 genocide, though adding that France was not complicit in the genocide.
• Azerbaijan captures six Armenian troops: Azeri troops have captured six Armenian soldiers near the border, the latest incident in continuing tensions since war reignited last year in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.
• Eight killed in San Jose mass shooting: At least eight people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a California rail yard before taking his own life, the latest mass shooting as Congress debates legislation to curb gun violence.
• Dozens missing after Nigeria boat sinks: Dozens of people are missing in northwest Nigeria after an overloaded boat carrying around 160 passengers sank in the Niger River.
• Manhunt in Belgium for suspect who threatened to kill COVID expert: A manhunt for career soldier Jürgen Conings, 46, has entered its second week in Belgium, after the suspect allegedly stole an arsenal of deadly weapons from a military barracks and threatened to kill one of the country's most famous virologists.
• Hello, old Friends: The long-awaited Friends reunion special will be aired today, 17 years after the final episode and featuring such acquaintances as Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.
South African daily The Citizen features ex-leader Jacob Zuma who pleaded not guilty to all 18 counts of corruption, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering at the start of his trial.
The pandemic has made things feel even bleaker for a population already struggling with serious economic woes and government repression reports Persian-language magazine Kayhan-London.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed a staggering number of people worldwide. But it's also had a profound impact on people's mental health, including in Iran, where dire economic conditions and strict curbs in individual liberties caused significant psychological hardship even before the current health crisis. Now, with the COVID-19 outbreak continuing to spread, officials says that there's an even greater incidence of mental disorders, suicides and physical fighting, Kayhan London reports, citing sources within Iran.
The news outlet notes that even before the pandemic, roughly a quarter of the population suffered some type of mental disorder, and that in the year prior to March 2020, an estimated 5,000 Iranians took their own lives. But with the arrival of the virus, people are feeling more desperate still, as evidenced by a 4% rise in suicides in the period between March and November 2020, according to a source at the state coroner's office.
Kayhan London also cites an official from the State Welfare Organization, Behzad Vahidnia, to suggest that there's been a 16% increase in stress and depression since the pandemic began in early 2020. With regards to people getting into fights, there are no official figures available. But anecdotal evidence drawn from social platform postings suggests that physical violence has increased as well, especially in Iran's northern and north-western provinces.
.02%
That is the stake in Exxon Mobil owned by Engine No. 1, a tiny hedge fund, that unseated two Exxon board members in a bid to force the company's leadership to do more to combat climate change.
You've heard of NSFW (Not Safe for Work), but what about NSFH (Not Safe for Hospitals)?
When entering an emergency room waiting area, you might expect the smell of ammonia, old magazines and maybe even a television set to the local news station or weather channel. But in a hospital in France's Basque country, the staff wanted to offer patients and accompanying family members some surprise programming on the waiting room TV ...
The France Bleu broadcaster reported that staff had set the TV to a paid channel in order to broadcast a soccer match, but once it ended, the next paid feature was an X-rated film. No one changed the channel, and the pornographic film played for a full 20 minutes.
One patient posted a video of the scene to Twitter with the caption "This is how patients are treated in Basque Country. Welcome to Bayonne's emergency room at night."
The director of the hospital issued a statement apologizing to the patients and staff, blaming the incident on the private television company that manages the hospital's TV channels and recently changed its programming filters.
➡️ Keep up with all the planet's police reports and plot twists on Worldcrunch.com
I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me.
— Japanese tennis player and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka justified her decision to boycott news conferences at this year's French Open. The world No. 2 player added that expecting players to answer questions after a defeat amounted to "kicking a person while they're down." Osaka said she was ready to face the considerable fines, and hoped the money would "go towards a mental health charity."
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Flacard, Bertrand Hauger & Anne-Sophie Goninet
Welcome to Monday, where we have very good news on vaccine effectiveness, Myanmar protesters won't back down after police open fire and Edvard Munch turns out to be a different kind of scream. We also find out how AI is helping to preserve dying languages.
• COVID-19 latest: The U.S. death toll is approaching the 500,000 mark, the UK unveils plan to cautiously loosen its lockdown and Argentina authorizes emergency use of Chinese-made vaccine. A new study offers very good news about the effectiveness of vaccines to reduce serious illness from COVID.
• Myanmar coup protests: Massive protests continued Monday across Myanmar against the military coup despite increasingly deadly response from authorities.
• Beijing olive branch: A top Chinese official urged American counterparts to work together with Beijing to mend the damaged bilateral relationship between the world's two most powerful countries.
• Italian envoy killed: The Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo and a military policeman have been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy.
• Boeing 777 grounded: Dozens of Boeing 777 aircraft have been grounded in the U.S. and Japan after the dramatic engine failure of a United Airlines flight near Denver this past weekend.
• Bitcoin dips: Trading was down as much as 6% in opening hours on the cryptocurrency after a record-shattering week that saw Bitcoin rise above $58,000. Elon Musk, who has bet big on bitcoin, said on Saturday that prices "seem high."
• Madman Munch: The National Museum of Norway has confirmed that the mysterious graffiti on Edvard Munch's painting The Scream that read "Can only have been painted by a madman" was written by the artist himself.
USA Today devotes its front page to the grim milestone the United States is approaching with 500,000 lives lost to coronavirus.
The world's linguistic heritage is facing a crisis just as serious as that of biodiversity. A French project is trying to save what exists in the Pangloss collection, powered by new tools of Artificial Intelligence, reports Yann Verdo in daily Paris-based Les Echos.
Across the earth, there are 7 continents and 197 countries. How many languages are spoken? The answer is around 7,000, but if this number surprises you, it's because you suffer from the distorted perspective that half of the 7.8 billion inhabitants of the planet express themselves or communicate through only about 20 of them (Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Portuguese...), while the other 97% of these 7,000 languages have a total number of speakers that does not exceed 4% of the population.
Our world linguistic heritage, as rich it may be, is very fragile. The overwhelming majority of these 7,000 languages have no written tradition, and today are only spoken by a handful of old people. This heritage is both the fruit and the guarantor of humans' cultural diversity, and is no less significant than the biodiversity of plant and animal species. The crisis it faces can be considered the sixth major extinction that threatens the world.
This threat of massive linguistic extinction is what motivated researchers to create the Pangloss collection in 1995, named after a character in Voltaire's "Candide," whose name in Greek means, "all languages." This collection is to linguistic diversity what protected areas are to biodiversity. And soon the painstaking work of transcribing and translating a rare language before it disappears into oblivion could be greatly accelerated by the advancements made in Artificial Intelligence.
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