But the girls say what does not kill them only makes them stronger.

Singaporean finalist Tricia Koh, a 24-year-old financial adviser, told The Sunday Times: “They say we learn from the pain, I say we gain from it.”

Koh added that it is easy to make such comments under the cloak of anonymity that the Internet provides. “(But) it takes a lot of courage for a girl to go up on stage and let people judge her.”

She was among 16 of the 19 finalists who came under scrutiny by netizens last Tuesday, when an unofficial photo of them at a Miss Singapore Beauty Pageant event was posted. The girls, selected from a total of 60 applicants, were dubbed “ugly” and “repulsive”.

Koh said she expected people to criticise her physical aspects when she joined the pageant but, like the other finalists, did not expect such a backlash.

Another finalist, Lasalle College of the Arts student Christina Cai, 18, said: “You were not there and you did not see us in action and you want to say that we are not talented or smart? It’s immature.”

Cai joined the pageant, that has been running for 29 years, because she wanted a new experience and thought it would help her grow.

She credited her family and friends for being her pillars of support. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without them.”

ITE College East student and finalist Queenie Sia, 17, said beauty is skin deep. “It’s about having a good heart and a good personality.”

The unofficial photo was taken by a member of the public when the pageant was doing a talent and fashion showcase at One KM mall.

Miss Universe Singapore 2016 Cheryl Chou understands what the finalists are going through.

An athletic woman, she was called “big” by some netizens.

The 21-year-old student said “I am happy being myself and that is all that matters.”

Chou advised the girls to pay no heed to what others are saying.

“You are not in control of the way people feel or think, so always be positive, optimistic and never give up,” she said.

Meanwhile, former Miss Universe Singapore 2002 Nuraliza Osman, 40, said beauty is highly subjective and there will always be negative criticism when pageant contestants step into the limelight.

Said the national director of Miss Universe Singapore: “It takes so much for a girl to get on that stage and there is no need to be so mean. If this was your sister or your cousin, would you say these things?”

She noted that the judging panel for the Miss Universe Singapore pageant, in which the local winner goes on to represent Singapore in the Miss Universe pageant, includes former title holders, sponsors, fashion editors, physical trainers and make-up artists. In contrast, the Miss Singapore Beauty Pageant finalists were selected by a committee made up of former title holders only.

The pageant will yield four winners under different titles, who will then go on to represent Singapore internationally under each title. The titles are: Miss Singapore Tourism Queen, Miss Singapore Chinatown, Miss Singapore Global Beauty Queen and Miss Grand Singapore.

Some have questioned if organiser ERM Singapore Marketing should have prepared the girls better for a public appearance.

Management company founder Desmond Charles added that “I would think that it’s the duty (of the organisers) to make sure the girls are up to standard before they make a public appearance.”

However, Cai thinks beauty goes beyond what people see in a photo. “I think people are the most beautiful when they are doing what they love.”

Sports minister Matar Ba said a young girl was among the dead, while around 60 injured fans had been taken to health facilities in Dakar.

He vowed “strong measures so that such an event will never be repeated in Senegal,” speaking to AFP by phone.

A mass deployment of firefighters and ambulances remained at the scene late Saturday.

An AFP journalist who attended the match described a stadium full to bursting with people for the long-awaited clash between local teams US Ouakam and Stade de Mbour.

At 2-1 during extra time, US Ouakam supporters began throwing stones at Stade de Mbour fans, causing spectators to begin vacating their seats in a rush, the journalist said.

Part of a wall supporting bleachers seating fans from both sides then collapsed, while police had begun firing tear gas and panic spread in the stadium leading to a crush.

“All of a sudden when the wall fell… we knew exactly that some of our own had lost their lives because the wall fell directly onto people,” said Cheikh Maba Diop, a witness who helped evacuate victims from the stadium and lost a friend in the tragedy.

Also speaking at the scene, football fan Mara Die Diouf said policing at the stadium had been inadequate.

“What I find terrible is that we have this kind of final in this kind of stadium here where there isn’t enough security,” he said.

Diouf described police retreating from an area separating the two teams’ supporters once projectiles began being thrown, triggering dangerous movements by spectators unable to defend themselves.

AFP journalists at the scene saw belongings covered in blood at the site, with a pair of glasses and clothing strewn among broken pieces of concrete.

Campaigning for Senegal’s legislative elections due on July 30 would on Sunday be suspended in respect for the victims, said a spokesman for President Macky Sall.

Sall also wanted “punishments serving as a warning,” following the tragedy, spokesman El Hamidou Kasse said on TFM television.

Senegal’s safety record at large gatherings has been heavily criticised this year after the death of dozens of people at a religious retreat in April when a fire ripped through makeshift shelters.

The communications ministry said in a statement that “so many channels in the (Telegram) service contain radicalism and terrorism… encouragement and tips to assemble bombs or launch attacks” that it needed to block it.

The partial ban came as the country suffered from a string of attacks, including one carried out by a man police said was radicalised after reading radical material on Telegram.

The government has so far bocked only access to the app via computer, but is preparing to impose a full ban.

“We are now preparing a process to close down Telegram app in full throughout Indonesia if Telegram does not come up with a standard operating procedure to handle law-violating contents,” the communications ministry said in a statement issued late Friday.

In June, a lone wolf attacker stabbed two police officers in a mosque. Police said the man had no links to militant groups but had been radicalised through material he read on Telegram.

Telegram is a free Russian-designed messaging app that lets people exchange messages, photos and videos in groups of up to 5,000. It has attracted about 100 million users since its launch in 2013.

The app has come under fire in Russia after the state communications watchdog threatened to ban it in June, saying the company behind the service had failed to submit company details for registration.

Russia’s FSB security agency also said Telegram was used by those behind April’s Saint Petersburg metro bombing.

Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, said the firm will investigate the Indonesia charges.

“We have never received any requests/complaints from the Indonesian government,” Durov said on Twitter.

Mirzakhani’ friend Firouz Naderi announced her death on Saturday on Instagram, and her relatives confirmed the death to the Mehr agency in Iran.

“A light was turned off today. It breaks my heart ….. gone far too soon,” wrote Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA.

“A genius? Yes. But also a daughter, a mother and a wife,” he added in a subsequent post.

Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford University in California, died after the cancer she had been battling for four years spread to her bone marrow, Iranian media said.

In 2014 Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Mathematics, which is awarded by the International Congress of Mathematicians.

The award recognized her sophisticated and highly original contributions to the fields of geometry and dynamical systems, particularly in understanding the symmetry of curved surfaces such as spheres.

She had already won the 2009 Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics and the 2013 Satter Prize of the American Mathematical Society.

Born and raised in Tehran, Mirzakhani initially dreamed of becoming a writer, but by the time she started high school her affinity for solving mathematical problems and working on proofs had shifted her sights.

“It is fun — it’s like solving a puzzle or connecting the dots in a detective case,” she said when she won the Fields Medal.

“I felt that this was something I could do, and I wanted to pursue this path.”

Mirzakhani became known on the international mathematics scene as a teenager, winning gold medals at both the 1994 and 1995 International Math Olympiads — finishing with a perfect score in the latter competition.

In 2008 she became a professor of mathematics at Stanford. She is survived by her husband and young daughter.

The Briton thrilled home fans with a devastating quickest lap of 1min 26.600sec to finish 0.547sec clear of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, although Hamilton was under investigation for potential impeding.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was left frustrated in third in the second Ferrari ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes.

Bottas, however, faces a likely five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change, while stewards were looking into an incident in which Romain Grosjean claimed he was blocked by Hamilton.

Max Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull ahead of Nico Hulkenberg of Renault, Sergio Perez and his Force India team-mate Esteban Ocon.

Stoffel Vandoorne took an encouraging ninth for McLaren ahead of Grosjean of Haas.

“You always try to save the best till last,” said Hamilton, who closed to within one of Michael Schumacher’s record of 68 poles. “I felt very comfortable in these conditions – they are the conditions we grew up racing in here in England.”

“It felt ok, but the conditions were not easy, changing a lot,” said Raikkonen. “The car felt the best it had this weekend, but not quite fast enough for first place.”

Vettel said: “The car came alive this morning and that was really good. It’s a shame there that in the last run in Q3 there was not more time!”

Religious South Koreans have been a loud fixture at the annual parade for years, holding a rival anti-homosexuality rally while trying to physically block the march.

Some 2,000 police troops lined up around a square outside the City Hall, where revellers gyrated and waved flags as scantily-clothed performers sang and danced on the stage.

Across the street hundreds of Christians chanted slogans, calling homosexuality a “sin” and urging homosexuals to “return to Jesus Christ”.

Their presence is the most visible display of intolerance towards sexual minorities in the tradition-bound society, where religious belief is widespread and many homosexuals stay in the closet due to fear of discrimination and social isolation.

Homosexuality is not illegal in South Korea. But gay, lesbian or transgender rights remain politically unpopular

But festival-goers took the protest in their stride.

The crowd, estimated to be some 10,000, later paraded through the centre of Seoul, carrying banners and rainbow flags, with many swaying on open truck beds.

Meghan Lefevre from California, said: “I am happy that they (police) are here to make us feel protected. Not every country will do that. So I am very happy that it’s a safe environment.”

Gay rights activists say that some progress has been made in recent years, with surveys showing increasing tolerance, particularly among young people, and participation at Pride surging since the first parade in 2000, when only 50 attended.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea, a state rights watchdog, and the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism — the country’s biggest Buddhist sect — are taking part this year for the first time.

“Buddha has taught us everyone, regardless of his or her sexual orientation, can attain perfect enlightenment. Sexual minorities must not be indiscriminated against”, said Hyo Rok, a senior nun and professor at the Seoul University of Buddhism.

But the event’s growing profile has unnerved South Korea’s conservative Protestant church groups, which have millions of followers, enormous political lobbying power, and see homosexuality as a psychological illness to be “healed”.

Liu’s remains were incinerated “in accordance with the will of his family members and local customs” in the northeastern city of Shenyang, said Zhang Qingyang, an official from the municipal office.

Officials released photos showing his wife, the poet Liu Xia, with her brother, and two of Liu Xiaobo’s brothers in front of the body, which was covered with white petals and surrounded by flowers at a funeral home.

Zhang also said “friends” were at the ceremony, but Amnesty International’s China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP that he did not recognise any of the row of non-family members in the official photo and people close to the Liu couple identified at least one “state security police officer” among them.

Chinese dissident artist critic Ai Weiwei, who lives in Berlin tweeted a photo of the funeral and called the display “disgusting” and a “violation” of the deceased.

China’s government faced a global backlash for denying the democracy advocate’s wish to be treated abroad. After his death, the United States and European Union called on Beijing to free Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since 2010, and let her leave the country.

“As far as I know, Liu Xia is in a free condition,” Zhang said, though it was unclear whether she was released as he did not answer questions about her whereabouts.

Authorities have severely restricted Liu Xia’s contact with the outside world and Jared Genser, a US lawyer who represented the Nobel Peace Prize winner, said she has been held “incommunicado” since her husband’s death.

“The most preposterous thing is that even during his cremation and funeral he still was not free. And now it’s been passed on to his wife, who will continue to lead on that same freedom-less existence,” Hu Jia, a Beijing-based activist and family friend, told AFP.

Rescue her ‘fast’

Liu was jailed in 2008 after co-writing a petition calling for democratic reforms. The veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “subversion” a year later.

He died of multiple organ failure at a Shenyang hospital on Thursday at age 61, more than a month after he was transferred from prison due to late-stage liver cancer.

At his funeral, Mozart’s Requiem was played and Liu Xia “fixed her eyes on him a long time, mumbling to say farewell,” Zhang said, adding that she was “in very low spirits”.

“She has just lost her husband, so she is currently emotionally grieving,” Zhang said.

“It’s best for her not to receive too much outside interference during this period after Liu Xiaobo has died,” he said.

Zhang said authorities would release information about where Liu Xiaobo’s ashes will be taken “at an appropriate time”.

Genser said Liu Xia has been held for seven years even though she has never been charged with any crime.

“The world needs to mobilise to rescue her – and fast,” he said in a statement.

Another family friend and activist, Ye Du, also cast doubt that she was released: “Liu Xia has never been free. There’s no doubt about that.”

The foreign ministry lashed out at the international criticism on Friday, saying it lodged official protests with the United States, Germany, France and the United Nations human rights office.

The foreign ministry said giving Liu the Nobel Peace Prize was “blasphemy” while state-run media has called him a “convicted criminal”.

“His influence has breached the fundamental moral principle of Chinese patriotism and posed a challenge to China’s stability and national security,” the nationalist Global Times tabloid said in an editorial. “This is why the Chinese society opposes and despises him.”

The centres will aim to find the exact number of Lao workers in Thailand who need help from the government.

At a meeting in Luang Prabang province from July 10-12, Laos and Thailand also agreed to set up a centre next month in Thailand to upgrade the status of Lao workers currently holding pink cards.

Acting Director General of the Department of Labour Skill Development at Laos Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Anousone Khamsingsavath spoke to Vientiane Times yesterday via telephone after the meeting with Thai officials in charge of labour management to solve the undocumented workforce problem.

At present, there are around 71,000 Lao workers with pink cards, a temporary identity document, in Thailand. “Local workers cover about 10 percent of the 1.5 million from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar in Thailand,” Anousone said. She also confirmed that only 50 per cent of Lao workers have legally registered to work in Thailand.

According to the agreement which was signed during the three-day meeting in Luang Prabang, the Thai government confirmed the Thai side will open a centre to ensure the legal status of Lao workers who can prove their identity, while Lao authorities have promised to help illegal workers wanting to return home to acquire passports so they can be legally re-employed in Thailand.

Employment Department Director General under  the  Ministry of Labour of Thailand, Waranan Pitiwan said the Lao government will also issue temporary entry permits to allow workers to return home for five days to acquire a passport before heading back to be re-employed in Thailand. The joint effort is meant to fix the undocumented foreign worker problem in Thailand. He said the Thai government had introduced the pink card for foreign workers without proper documentation as an interim measure to give them time to apply for the required documents including a work permit and visa as well as a passport after confirming their nationality with their country of origin.

“The foreign workers may be able to do some occupations such as work in garment production, but not in making hand-crafted traditional Thai costumes which the law interprets as cultural conservation and only open to Thais,” he said.

Although people besides passengers use airport terminal buildings — a soft target where a large number of people gather — the management of the buildings has been handled by companies in the private sector. Advanced measures have yet to be taken to counter the threat of terrorism. The government intends to implement specific measures by 2020.

Explosives detectors developed overseas include an optical sensor-equipped scanner that detects firearms and explosives when people walk through it, and also handheld devices.

The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry plans to look into such devices and how they perform this fiscal year. If certain aspects can be verified, the ministry will begin discussions with companies that manage terminal buildings next fiscal year or later to determine specific matters, such as where the devices are to be installed.

The ministry plans to conduct a test at Haneda Airport as early as this autumn as it moves toward the introduction of surveillance cameras that can detect suspicious individuals in terminal buildings as quickly as possible.

Some cameras are capable of finding people who are acting suspiciously, such as pacing in the same place in a crowd, and identifying baggage left unattended in the same locations for a certain period of time. The planned experiment involves installing various cameras at the airport to examine how they perform.

The specific locations for the future installment of such devices have yet to be determined, but the ministry is expected to prioritize the terminal buildings at airports including Haneda, Naha, Shin-Chitose and Fukuoka, which handle international flights and many foreign tourists.

Airports such as Narita and Kansai, which are administered and operated by private-sector companies, carry out anti-terrorism measures on their own.

Abu Sayed was killed in a July 11 strike in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar on the headquarters of IS-Khorasan Province (IS-K), which also killed additional jihadists, the Pentagon said in a statement.

“You kill a leader of one of these groups and it sets them back,” Pentagon chief Jim Mattis told reporters.

“It’s obviously a victory on our side in terms of setting them back. It’s the right direction.”

First emerging in 2015, IS-K overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, but their part in the Afghan conflict had been largely overshadowed by the operations against the Taliban.

Afghan and US forces had killed Abu Sayed’s two predecessors atop the group’s Afghan branch — Hafiz Saeed in July 2016 and Abdul Hasib in late April of this year, the Pentagon said.

Hasib and other top militant commanders were killed in a joint raid by US Army Rangers and Afghan special forces.

At the time, the US military had said Hasib’s death would “help reach our goal of destroying them in 2017.”

“We will continue until they are annihilated. There is no safe haven for ISIS-K in Afghanistan,” said General John Nicholson, who leads US Forces-Afghanistan.

Pentagon officials say the group now numbers fewer than 1,000 in Afghanistan.

The compound used by Hasib in Nangarhar province was not far from the spot where on April 13, the US military dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, hitting IS positions.

The deployment of the so-called Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB) killed at least 95 jihadists, according to the Afghan defense ministry, but fighting in the area has continued.