Benjamin Netanyahu will not attend Olympics

Israeli PM's office says attendance at Games was never considered

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not attend the Sochi Winter Olympics. A statement from his office says that a formal invitation was received but that there were no plans for him to attend, according to a Haaretz report.

The report says Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin met as recently as November and the two have a “close working relationship.”

Downing Street also announced recently that British Prime Minister David Cameron won’t be heading to Sochi, following news that an growing number of world leaders, including American President Barack Obama and France’s François Hollande, will not attend.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

Keep Reading

Trans issues didn’t doom the Democrats

OPINION: The Republicans won ending on a giant anti-trans note, but Democrats ultimately failed to communicate on class

Xtra Explains: Trans girls and sports

Debunking some of the biggest myths around trans girls and fairness in sports

How ‘mature minor’ laws let trans kids make their own decisions

Canadian law lets some youth make medical or legal decisions for themselves, but how does it work?

To combat transphobia, we need to engage with the people who spread it

OPINION: opening up a dialogue with those we disagree with is key if we want to achieve widespread social change