Sports

From one haircut (that of Heta senior creditors) we go to another.

When it comes to its human rights record, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia manages to avoid the mainstream media even though, as we reported recently, just in January, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people - its largest mass execution since 1980. Some were convicted terrorists, but others were political activists. Footage smuggled out by activists has revealed that the executions sparked the largest public protests since the Arab Spring.

Here is another, just as striking, example of Saudi "tolerance."

Says the reader who forwarded this story to me, “Oh my, it’s over”:

When Abby Scott of Monaca was 2, she told her parents she was a boy. As she grew, she disdained playing with Barbie and learned to play football.

For the past two years, the 8-year-old has refused to wear dresses or to let her mother do her long, curly hair, which has now been cut short. When a family member mentioned getting married someday, she said she would be wearing a tuxedo.

“She doesn’t want to do anything girly,” said her mother, Sara Markustic.

Government officials in France have staged a fake terror drill using crisis actors in preparation for Euro 2016 this summer.  The mock terrorist attack prepares emergency crews for a potential chemical weapons attack at the European Championship games. Dailymail.co.uk reports: More than 2,000 people from the French emergency services took part in a fake chemical attack designed to give them the best possible training should the tournament by targeted.

One of football’s greatest legends, the Brazilian forward number 10, Pele, is suing the South Korean electronics giant Samsung for using a lookalike in an advertisement without his permission. The BBC reports: He is claiming at least $30m (£21m), according to legal papers lodged at the US District Court in Chicago. The advertisement for ultra high-definition televisions ran in the New York Times without Pele’s permission. Pele, 75, whose full name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, is considered by many to be the best player of all time.