Nobody foresaw Borussia Dortmund’s fairy tale run to Euro Champions League final, not even themselves
They are heading to Wembley and the symmetry of that escapes nobody. It has been 11 years since Jurgen Klopp led them there for their last Champions League final and the warmth of those days, of the entire Klopp era in fact, has been something the club have been longing for ever since. Dortmund are not back. Nobody would describe them as being the equal of that Klopp side but there lies the sweetness of this anomaly and the charm of their achievement. This is a great story that nobody saw coming.
Shunned for centuries, Voodoo is mutating into a powerful religion Haitians seek solace in to thwart bloody gang violence
The syncretic religion that melds Catholicism with animist beliefs has no official leader or creeds. It has a single God known as “Bondye,” Creole for “Good God,” and more than 1,000 spirits known as the lwa — some that aren’t always benevolent.
China’s faces serious demographic crisis as its rapidly ageing migrant workforce can’t afford to retire
Pensions in China are based on an internal passport system known as hukou, which divides the population along urban-rural lines, creating vast differences in incomes and access to social services. Monthly urban pensions range from roughly 3,000 yuan in less-developed provinces to about 6,000 yuan in Beijing and Shanghai. Rural pensions, introduced nationwide in 2009, are meagre.
Barons behind the brands: Money, power, povery and the corruption of America’s food industry
Being from rural Iowa and witnessing the 1980s Farm Crisis take hold of my family and neighbours, “Barons” takes a long overdue stand for the farm community of my youth. It’s a painful loss knowing that today’s industrial food system rises from the ashes of America’s family farms. And it is no accident.
Stripped of privacy and personal autonomy, global elites are now pushing us into ‘techno-totalitarianism’
McCollough called these entities “a group of very powerful controligarchs … who are trying to put in place techno-totalitarianism” and are “stripping the middle class of all of its assets, all of its resources, pushing us down into what is basically a serf class.”
Schools near Nairobi’s Dandora dumpsite plant bamboo to purify air, cope with vulture menace
Students hope the bamboo will help transform the school compound into a green haven in the litter-strewn Dandora neighbourhood. The publicly funded school relies on donations to afford the seedlings that retail at 400 Kenyan shillings ($3) each.
Balkan gangsters piggybacked on South America’s exports, are now biggest ‘locomotive’ driving Europe’s booming cocaine trade
Despite some takedowns of major Balkan traffickers, they continue to flood Europe with cocaine due to their ever-evolving tactics, officials said. Custodio, the Brazilian detective who led the Aleksandar Nesic probe, said Balkan gangs used to create dummy companies to facilitate the movement of their drugs, but are now acquiring legitimate exporters.
Narcotics trade: To oust Latin America cocaine crowd, Balkan cartels settled in South America, made roots, married local women
Balkan traffickers bribe or threaten Balkan sailors to tamper with shipping containers, stash cocaine in their belongings, or haul it onto their vessels from smaller boats while out at sea. Back on land, criminals within Europe’s Balkan diaspora community have provided distribution and retail infrastructure for street sales, giving the Balkan Cartel a presence along the entire supply chain, authorities said.
How Balkan gangsters orchestrated cocaine smuggling revolution in Europe, became drug lords
Balkan trafficking outfits have eschewed the top-down, territorial structure of cartels from Mexico and Colombia, working instead in small cells that are highly mobile, secretive and capable of moving astonishingly large loads of cocaine, counter-narcotics officials said.
Investigations reveal ‘Biden says he told Nigeria to kill fewer civilians, but Nigeria keeps killing lots of civilians’
Between 2000 and 2022, the US provided, facilitated or approved more than $2 billion in security aid, including weapons and equipment sales to Nigeria, according to report by Brown University’s Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies and the Security Assistance Monitor at the Centre for International Policy, a Washington think-tank. Over that time, the US also carried out more than 41,000 training courses for Nigerian military personnel.
