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Pele lives on in 738 Peruvian children named for football star

Photo: CARL DE SOUZA / AFP

| By AFP |

The world lost Pele, the “king” of football in 2022, but his name will live on in more than 700 Peruvian children born last year, according to a list published by Peru’s National Registry of Identification and Civil Status.

As per the list, 738 babies were registered with the names Pele, King Pele, Edson Arantes or Edson Arantes do Nascimento, the full name of the three-time football world champion, by the close of 2022.

The Brazilian star died on December 29 at the age of 82 and was mourned on Monday at the stadium of his long-time club Santos, where thousands of people arrived to bid him farewell.

New President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will lead the tributes as Brazil says its final farewell to its most famous son at a 24-hour wake on Tuesday.

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Among Peruvian girls, 551 were baptized as either Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth the Second or Elizabeth II, after the British monarch who died in September after 70 years on the throne.

Despite Pele’s passing, the most popular famous name used by Peruvian parents was that of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, with Ronaldo or his full name chosen 31,583 times.

Football was an enduring theme, with 371 babies named either Leo Messi or Messi, for the Argentine World Cup champion, and 229 Mbappe or Kylian Mbappe for the French star.

There were also 733 Mavericks, after Tom Cruise’s character from the Top Gun movie sequel released last year. Among female names, Rubi was at the top of the list with 24,980, followed by 1,787 baby girls named for Colombian singer Shakira.

There were also 250 Merlinas, as the youngest daughter of the fictional Addams family, Wednesday, is known in some Latin American countries. The character got her own spinoff series on Netflix in 2022. 

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One child born last year was named for billionaire Elon Musk, while another was christened “Qatar” after the host country for the 2022 World Cup.

International

Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations

The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.

“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”

The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.

The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”

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Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.

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International

Seven inmates dead, 11 injured after violent riot in Veracruz prison

Seven inmates were killed and eleven others injured in a violent riot and clash inside a penitentiary in the Mexican state of Veracruz, local authorities reported on Sunday.

The disturbance began on Saturday afternoon at the Social Reintegration Center in the port city of Tuxpan, in northern Veracruz, when inmates staged a protest over extortion and assaults allegedly carried out by members of the criminal group known as Grupo Sombra.

The protesting prisoners clashed with another group of inmates and set fires inside and outside the facility, seizing control of the prison for more than 12 hours.

During the takeover, the rioters released several videos, including one showing four prisoners —believed to be members of Grupo Sombra— accusing them of being behind the violence and extortion inside the prison.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning that elements of the Mexican Army, the National Guard, and local police forces managed to enter the prison and regain control. The state’s Public Security Secretariat confirmed that around 9:00 a.m. local time a coordinated operation restored full order and reestablished control of the facility.

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Authorities also reported that the fires set by inmates were fully extinguished.

Official figures confirmed the “tragic” deaths of seven inmates and injuries to eleven people, who are now receiving medical treatment in various regional hospitals.

This is the second deadliest riot in Veracruz in the past eight years. In 2018, a violent uprising at the La Toma medium-security prison left seven people dead (six police officers and one unidentified man) and at least 22 injured (15 officers and seven inmates).

The riot follows the kidnapping and killing of retired teacher and taxi driver Irma Hernández, a case that shocked the entire country and was attributed to Grupo Sombra. Images of Hernández kneeling, surrounded by armed men in the municipality of Álamo, sparked nationwide outrage. She was murdered after refusing to pay extortion demands from the criminal organization.

Despite these incidents, Veracruz has not seen a spike in the daily homicide average. In fact, there has been a 1.6% decrease in homicides in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System.

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In 2023, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported 3,094 incidents in Mexican prisons —an 18.5% increase from the previous year— resulting in 100 deaths and 892 injuries.

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International

Study finds COVID-19 vaccines prevented 2.5 million deaths worldwide

Moderna reduces production of COVID-19 vaccine

COVID-19 vaccines prevented an estimated 2,533,000 deaths worldwide between 2020 and 2024, according to an international study led by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy and Stanford University in the United States, published in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers calculated that one death was prevented for every 5,400 doses administered.

The analysis also found that the vaccines saved 14.8 million years of life, equivalent to one year of life gained for every 900 doses given.

The study, coordinated by Professor Stefania Boccia, revealed that 82% of the lives saved were people vaccinated before becoming infected with the virus, and 57% of deaths avoided occurred during the Omicron wave. In addition, 90% of the beneficiaries were adults over 60 years old.

“This is the most comprehensive analysis to date, based on global data and fewer assumptions about the evolution of the pandemic,” explained Boccia and researcher Angelo Maria Pezzullo.

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