Protesters in Brazil tell FIFA that the beautiful game is not enough, a Cirque du Soleil performer is mortally wounded in mid-performance, and a senior Japanese official says his country didn’t crash in 2008 because “Wakarimasen”.

Brazil beat Spain 3-0 in the Confederations Cup final.  But FIFA might have noticed the message coming from outside the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.  Police clashed with thousands of protesters who marched on the stadium despite the heavy security, many holding signs reading, “FIFA – You pay the bill”.   Their main grievances are the cost of staging next year’s world cup, money the people believe ought to have been at least partly spent on schools, hospitals, and public transportation.

At least 45 people are dead in bomb attacks in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Peshawar.  A suicide bomber on a bicycle targeted a Shi’a area of Quetta, killing 28 people.  In Peshawar, militants left a car bomb parked along side a road, timed to explode as a military convoy went by.  But civilians also were killed, including four babies.  

The Pakistan attacks occurred as British Prime Minister David Cameron visited, promising PM Nawaz Sharif the two nations will “stand together” against terrorism.  Later, Cameron flew to Kazakhstan for the first ever visit to that country by a British prime minister.

Croatia joined the European Union, becoming the EU’s 48th member and the second republic of the former Yugoslavia to do so.  It’s a milestone in the Balkan region’s recovery from the wars of twenty years ago, which saw the deaths of 120,000 people.  In contract, thousand were on hand in Zagreb’s main square at the stroke of midnight when Croatia’s membership became official, complete with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a fireworks display.

A performer with the famed Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas fell to her death in front of horrified spectators at a performance of le Cirque’s “Ka” show at the MGM Grand.  31-year old Sarah Guyard-Guillot slipped free of her safety harness and fell more than 15 meters into a hidden pit in the stage.  The mother of two young children was pronounced dead at hospital.  It’s the first death of a performer in le Cirque’s 30 year history of acrobatic and aerial stunts.

Japan’s gaffe-prone Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso has a novel explanation for why his country’s banks escape the 2008 global financial crisis largely unscathed:  Poor English skills.  Aso says bank executives didn’t have the English skills to understand the derivatives that American banks were peddling, so the Japanese didn’t buy (I got some news for you, Taro-san:  No one understood derivatives.  That’s why the whole thing crashed).  Aso’s gaffes are legendary in world politics, having managed to offend everyone from Alzheimer’s patients to Japan’s Zainichi Korean community.