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For the 1st time, every player at the Women’s World Cup will be paid at least $30K

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

A group of players across the globe asked FIFA late last year to increase the prize money for this summer’s Women’s World Cup. There had been pleas from the women to boost those funds before, but this time it was different. The players not only wanted a prize pool equal with the men’s World Cup, they also sought a guarantee that a percentage of the prize money would go directly to the players themselves. While it wasn’t true equity with the men’s World Cup, FIFA indeed raised the prize pool for the women’s tournament by more than three times that of the 2019 event in France. But more than that, soccer’s governing body agreed in June that a chunk of those funds should be paid straight to the players — all 732 of them. Every player will earn at least $30,000, with the amount increasing the further along that teams progress in the tournament. The 23 players in the title-winning squad will each get $270,000.That’s significant for many of t...

World Cup showcases inequity within the women’s game

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

As the Women’s World Cup approached, Jamaican players started to panic. They were uncertain about training camps, accommodations and even pay heading into what for many would be the biggest tournament of their careers. So they took to social media. A number of the Reggae Girlz, as they are affectionately known, went public with their concerns, pleading with the Jamaican Football Federation to address “subpar” conditions. The mother of one player took it a step further: She started a GoFundMe page to raise money to make sure the team and the support staff is provided what they need to be successful — such as adequate hotels and compensation. “These girls deserve better. They have proven themselves on an international platform that they belong. And they need support, whether it’s from parents, friends, or fans, to let them know that we see what they’ve accomplished, and we’re proud of them,” said organizer Sandra Phillips-Brower, the mother of midfielder Havana...

EU climate chief doesn’t rule out return to Dutch politics

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

Frans Timmermans, the EU’s Green Deal chief, is leaving open the option of returning to national politics following the resignation of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Asked at a press conference on Tuesday whether he was interested in a return to Dutch politics, the commissioner — a member of the Netherlands’ center-left Labor Party — didn’t say no. “My party and the Green party are holding a referendum that will allow the [party] members to speak out on whether they want to have a joint list and a joint program. Anything I would say now would disturb that process,” he said. “It’s up to the members of both parties to express themselves and then everybody will have to make up their minds about what happens next,” he added.The Netherlands will hold a general election in November following the government’s collapse over migration policy. Rutte on Monday announced his departure from politics after serving 13 years as prime minister and 1...

German businessman’s dismembered body found in Thailand freezer with chainsaw and hedge clippers

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — The dismembered body of a missing German businessman was found in a freezer inside a house in southern Thailand, police said Tuesday.Tawee Kudthalaeng, the police chief in the town of Nong Prue, said the body of 62-year-old Hans-Peter Mack was discovered at about 11 p.m. Monday. Mack had been missing for a week.Investigators located his body by using security camera footage from the area, Tawee said. He did not elaborate, but photos and video published by Thai media showed the freezer in the bed of a black truck with a man squatting next to it. Mack was last seen driving his Mercedes sedan in Pattaya, a coastal city in southern Thailand, according to a missing person announcement distributed by his family that offered a reward of 3 million baht ($86,000) for information leading to his return. Crowds gathered outside the gates of the house where his body turned up and watched as forensic teams in white coveralls, hair nets and blue gloves pored over the scene. Video br...

Taiwan’s #MeToo movement is making a resurgence as accusations hit politics, TV and schools

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan is facing a long-delayed reckoning with sexual harassment and sexual violence. In the past month, people have stepped forward with accusations, one after the other, leading to criminal investigations, resignations at different levels of government, and a society-wide discussion of the unspoken rules that govern gender norms in society.Taiwan’s #MeToo movement, which had a brief wave of accusations in 2017 as the #MeToo movement swept the globe, reignited on May 31 when a woman named Chen Chien-jou who worked for the Democratic Progressive Party, the party in power, accused film director Hsueh Chao-hui of groping her and making unwanted sexual advances. When she went to tell Hsu Chia-tien, the party’s head of women’s affairs, Chen was met with dismissal and asked why she hadn’t screamed.With the 2024 presidential campaign kicking off, Hsu has since resigned from her post, and the party vowed to make changes internally with the backing of its n...

Olympic champion Caster Semenya wins appeal against testosterone rules at human rights court

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

Double Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won an appeal against track and field’s testosterone rules on Tuesday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled she had been discriminated against.The ruling could force sport’s highest court to re-examine the regulations that force Semenya and other female athletes to artificially reduce naturally high testosterone levels in order to compete at top meets such as the Olympics and world champinships.The Strasbourg-based rights court ruled in Semenya’s favor by a 4-3 majority of judges.The court also ruled the South African runner was denied an “effective remedy” against that discrimination when the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland’s supreme court denied her two previous appeals against the rules.It was not immediately clear if the ruling would force an immediate rollback of the rules and if the 32-year-old Semenya would be allowed to compete at next year’s Olympics in Paris.She was the 2012 ...

Australian war hero appeals court decision that blamed him for unlawful killings in Afghanistan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s most decorated living war veteran lodged an appeal on Tuesday against a civil court ruling that blamed him for the unlawful killings of four Afghans.Ben Roberts-Smith, who retired from Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment a decade ago, lost a landmark defamation suit on June 1 against newspapers that had accused him of an array of war crimes.The Federal Court confirmed that the 44-year-old recipient of the revered Victorian Cross for gallantry in Afghanistan filed an appeal with the court on Tuesday against that ruling.Roberts-Smith had taken leave from his job as a state manager of the Seven West Media national business since 2021 to focus on the court case and quit a day after the verdict. His case has been financed by the company’s billionaire executive chair, Kerry Stokes.Roberts-Smith has been fighting to salvage his reputation through a defamation suit since Australian newspaper articles in 2018 accused him of war crimes includi...

Israelis block highways in nationwide protests of government’s plan to overhaul judiciary

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli protesters blocked highways leading to Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv at the start of countrywide demonstrations Tuesday against the government’s planned judicial overhaul that has divided the nation.The demonstrations came the morning after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition gave initial approval to a bill to limit the Supreme Court’s oversight powers, pressing forward with contentious proposed changes to the judiciary despite widespread opposition.The legislation is one of several bills proposed by Netanyahu’s ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies. The plan has provoked months of sustained protests by opponents who say it is pushing the country toward authoritarian rule.Anti-overhaul activists called for nationwide mass demonstrations throughout the day, including protests at Israel’s main international airport that could disrupt travel. On Tuesday, 300 reservists from the military’s cyber unit signed a letter saying they...

Thousands gather in Bosnia and commemorate the 1995 Srebrenica massacre anniversary

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of people from around Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica on Tuesday for the annual ritual of commemorating the 1995 massacre in the eastern town and to give a dignified burial to the victims unearthed from mass graves and only recently identified through DNA analysis.Twenty-eight years after they were brutally murdered in Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust, 27 men and three teenage boys will be laid to rest Tuesday at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery just outside Srebrenica, joining more than 6,600 massacre victims already reburied there.Relatives of the victims can bury only partial remains of their loved ones as they are typically found scattered over several different mass graves, sometimes miles (kilometers) apart. Such was the case of Mirsda Merdzic, who will bury her father on Tuesday.“Only a very few bones of his were retrieved because he had been found (in a mass grave) near the Drina River...

Saudi Arabia deposits $2 billion in Pakistan’s central bank as a boost ahead of a key IMF meeting

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:10 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Saudi Arabia has deposited $2 billion into Pakistan’s central bank, the government said Tuesday, a much-needed financial boost ahead of a critical meeting of the International Monetary Fund on the new bailout package for the cash-strapped South Asian country. In a video statement, Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said the kingdom was making good on its promise to bolster Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves. The infusion is not a loan as such but will shore up the reserves and remain with Pakistan’s central bank for at least a year. The development comes on the eve of the meeting of he IMF’s executive board which is expected to approve a new and much-needed $3 billion loan to Pakistan to help the country overcome an economic crisis.Dar said that with the Saudi deposit, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves which dropped to $9.6 billion last week — barely enough to pay import bills for a month — have gone up to $11.6. “We thank the Sa...