Global Quickies: Coordinated Sexual Assaults, Distracting Bras, and Racists All Over

GERMANY
“The mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after about 80 women reported sexual assaults and muggings by men on New Year’s Eve. The scale of the attacks on women at the city’s central railway station has shocked Germany.

SPAIN
An American couple was arrested in Spain after police found his seven-year-old son’s decomposing body the family’s apartment. The boy apparently died after they tried and failed to cure the illness with alternative medicine.

PERU
“Hundreds of thousands of women and men – many poor and indigenous – were forcibly sterilised under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. Many continue to suffer emotional and physical pain from the operations, which were often botched.”

SOUTH AFRICA
“Anger following racist postings on social media sites has highlighted racial divisions in South Africa. Many see the comments as a confirmation that even twenty-one years after the official end of South Africa’s apartheid system, racism is still a reality.”

UK
“Students at a south Manchester school engulfed in a row over a crackdown on girls wearing make-up now say they’ve been told they can’t wear coloured bras because boys are being ‘distracted’.”

THAILAND
“A Thai beauty company has apologised after its advert tagline, “being white makes you a winner”, caused an uproar on social media.”

KENYA
“Kenya has published new broadcast regulations, which will place strict limits on sexual content and ban preachers from soliciting money on air.”

ITALY
“One of Italy’s best female football teams will make a defiant return to the pitch on Sunday, taking a stand against mafia-style threats that sought to shut down the club”

Featured image: Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters