In The News

Corruption in European Soccer: The New Yorker

Sam Knight June 11, 2019
The whistle-blowing organization Football Leaks has targeted corruption among dozens of soccer players, executives and clubs since 2015. Portuguese soccer aficionado Rui Pinto has reported on inflated salaries, large-scale tax evasion, controversial and secret deals and rape allegations against a major star. Currently being held for cybercrime charges, the young man leaked more than 88 million...

Sudan’s Protesters Expect Civilian Rule: Economist

June 3, 2019
Sudanese protestors have railed against internal turnover in government power, as in Awad Ibn Auf, former vice president and defense chief who briefly replaced the recently ousted Omar al-Bashir following his official resignation. Like his predecessor, Auf has long been the subject of international scrutiny for complicity in the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region underway since 2003. “Faced with a...

Viktor Orbán’s War on Intellect: Atlantic

Franklin Foer May 12, 2019
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Hungary was eager to join its Western European peers and was host to some of the best universities. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister in the early part of this century and again since 2010, is on a mission to systematically stamp out the intelligentsia elite class that he views as an anathema to the right-wing populist policies of his Fidesz party. Public...

Common Sense on the Border Crisis: RAND

Blas Nuñez-Neto May 4, 2019
Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants at the US-Mexico border rise despite the US trying family separations, deployed military personnel, Mexico sheltering asylum-seekers, a declared national emergency and strengthened border security. The policies do not work, and there is a humanitarian crisis. “This massive surge in migration is driven almost entirely by families and children from Central...

Ethiopia’s Media, Ethnic Tensions: Washington Post

Paul Schemm April 28, 2019
Ethiopia is undergoing tremendous transformation as the newly installed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pushes for broad free speech rights. This has led to a resurgence of a free press and outspoken journalists. The country, only recently embarking on its journey to mend ethnic conflicts and land disputes, faces a dilemma between social stability and free speech protection. Ethiopia will hold an...

Fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral: New York Times

Sona Patel and Alan Yuhas April 16, 2019
A fire destroyed the roof of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, causing the spire to collapse, and the New York Times reports “an outpouring of grief in France and around the world as the symbol of French culture and history burned.” The cathedral had been been under construction. Citizens and tourists watched from around the city, and people around the world watched the footage on social media and...

Assange Arrested: Reuters

Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Costas Pitas April 12, 2019
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London seven years ago after Sweden issued an arrest warrant for a rape charge. British police arrested him after Ecuador ended asylum; a judge convicted him on skipping bail. “Just hours later, U.S. prosecutors charged Assange with conspiracy in trying to access a classified U.S. government computer with former U.S....