World Cup: ‘Being Neymar’ is a global industry in its own right as it is with Messi, Mbappe or CR7
What does Brazil’s No.10 Neymar da Silva Santos expect in Qatar? Neymar’s answer is cautious. “The World Cup is full of surprises,” he says. “You get teams that unexpectedly get very far even in the competition even if many don’t believe in them. But I believe the favourites are Argentina,...
World’s best dribbler Neymar on why thinks Argentina, France and Germany are Brazil’s main rivals
With just three days to go until the World Cup begins, there is an increasing expectation that much of what happens will revolve around how Brazil, led by their flamboyant ringmaster, their number 10, perform. That shirt is the most iconic in football, and those who wear it carry the...
How Ukraine war is shrinking democracy in Mozambique as liquified gas becomes Europe’s obsession
With outside attention focused on violent extremism and gas exports, Mozambique’s democratic backsliding is proceeding apace. In his first three years after becoming president in 2015, Filipe Nyusi’s governance led Mozambique to fall in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian one. A hybrid...
After Russian-made missile hit Poland, world is now on red alert for Third World War
Nato has convened an emergency summit after a “Russian-made” missile possibly fired by Ukraine crashed in Poland killing two in a “serious escalation” of the war in Ukraine. The world nervously awaited last night after US intelligence initially reported the weapon had been fired by the Russians – an act...
Paris Agreement doesn’t compel armies to report carbon emissions, now fuelled by Russian war in Ukraine
When the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did approve the US and European intervention in Libya in 2011, it was for the protection of civilians from the security forces of that country’s autocrat, Muammar Gadhafi. That campaign, however, quickly turned into one aimed at toppling his government by assisting the...
Fighting on wrong planet: Response to Ukraine war is the standard by which we’re judging – things don’t look good
Washington’s vaunted “rules-based international order” has undergone a stress test following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and here’s the news so far: it hasn’t held up well. In fact, the disparate reactions to Vladimir Putin’s war have only highlighted stark global divisions, which reflect the unequal distribution of wealth and power....
FTX cryptocurrency heist: World’s crypto tracers are tracking closely where last week’s loot ends up
Cryptocurrency has always offered a strange mix of temptations and challenges for anyone trying to steal it. As digital cash, held in multibillion-dollar sums on hackable, internet-connected networks, it presents a lucrative target. But once it’s stolen, the blockchains that almost every cryptocurrency is built on make it possible to...
How, why Black voters in Georgia faced waves of disinformation and misinformation in US midterm polls
Monday morning, the team at A-B Partners, a Washington DC political-communications firm that works with progressive groups, gathered on Zoom. They had less than 24 hours before the Election Day polls opened for a series of contests around the country that Democrats, at least, were billing as a last chance...
US midterms: Voters back changes to the Constitution to prohibit involuntary labour and slavery
Terrancé Akins worked the entire seven years that he was incarcerated in the Hardeman Correctional Facility, a private prison contracted to imprison people in Tennessee. “You couldn’t have a job,” he says. “We cooked. We cleaned. We washed the clothes. We taught the classes. The whole operation of the facility...
Russian cyberespionage: Instead of choosing stealthy espionage or disruptive attacks they become embedded
In 2018, Russia’s hacking agency, GRU, infected more than half a million routers worldwide with malware known as VPNFilter and they similarly attempted to create a botnet of hacked firewall devices that was discovered just ahead of Russia’s Ukraine invasion in February. But Mandiant analysts argue that only now are...
