STATUS UPDATES
A week in which critics got bloody offended, a mystery man saved a mayor and Maradona became a grandma
INTRODUCED Diego Maradona, in statue form. But like other immortalized soccer stars this year, the sculpture — a 12-footer in Kolkata, India — has been mocked, CNN reported. The bronze of the Argentine has been likened to one of the Beatles, British singer Susan Boyle and someone’s grandmother. The man himself mustered all his humility at the unveiling to make clear: “I am not god of football but a simple footballer.”
BASHED An interfaith group from the Gulf state of Bahrain. The group is paying an unprecedented public visit to Israel this week and it has unleashed heavy criticism in the Arab world, The Associated Press reports. The 25 participants flew to Israel as guests of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group. They got a warm welcome in the Holy Land but have sought a low profile.
SAVED An Illinois mayor by a mysterious good Samaritan. Homewood Mayor Richard Hofeld, 80, who had been out walking his dogs in a Chicago suburb, fell through a partially frozen lake while trying to save one of his dogs who had fallen in, The Associated Press reported. He said a jogger used his shirt and jackets as a rope and started pulling him out before emergency responders arrived and took over. “He really saved my life.”
REVERSED Same-sex marriage in Bermuda. A Supreme Court ruling in the British territory only this past May made the marriages legal. But Progressive Labour won the July election and took up the matter, the Guardian reported. The Senate gave final approval to a measure that would give same-sex couples only the option of domestic partnerships.
BANISHED Cellphones in France’s primary and secondary schools, starting in September. The phones are already banned in classrooms, but students will now be forbidden from using them at lunch and breaks, the Daily Telegraph reports. Up to 40 per cent of punishments are mobile-related, according to a Paris headmaster with the SNPDEN-UNSA teaching union. But how to enforce the divisive ban is unclear.
BLOODIED The BBC by some critics. When Andrew Marr said the phrase “a bloody good guess” in an interview with a cabinet minister, he immediately apologized. What followed was a huge debate on whether “bloody” is, or should be, banned on BBC television. Did the BBC clarify matters when it refused to say if using the word “bloody” is acceptable in a Sunday morning political interview? Heck no.
CONDEMNED A singer known as Shyma, to two years in jail. An Egyptian court reportedly punished Shaimaa Ahmed, 25, over a music video in which she suggestively ate a banana while in her underwear. Or, in the court’s view, incited debauchery and published an indecent film. The move follows recent arrests of female dancers and a singer who suggested drinking from the Nile could cause sickness, the BBC said.
ENDORSED The right of Indonesians to have sex outside marriage. The Constitutional Court narrowly rejected a petition asking it to criminalize all such interactions in the secular, Muslim-majority country, the New York Times reported. An existing law that bars married people from having sex with anyone but their spouse (it’s not a total free-for-all) will not be expanded.