By Jonathan Thatcher WEST JAVA, Indonesia – Rizki doesn’t have a job. A high school graduate, he’s what my mother would have called “a nice young man” — well spoken, polite and conservatively dressed. He’s also too short. He may look of average height and be in...
Corruption fuels a vicious cycle. It undermines democracy and human rights, and weak institutions cannot control corruption. Anti-government demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela, 1 July 2017 (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) Most countries including the United States are...
By Paul Radford After three decades of reporting on an endless succession of scandals in international sport, I sometimes feel the need to ask myself two obvious questions. “Why do you still watch sport obsessively? And why, oh why, do you love it so much?” The...
Ukraine has had two revolutions and a war since 2004 but is still mired in conflict and graft. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, 7 May 2018. (EPA-EFE/Mykhaylo Markiv) Four years ago, the then nascent war in eastern Ukraine suffered...
By John Mehaffey Soccer, the world’s leading football sport that stages its 21st World Cup in Russia over the next month, owes its global dominance to an essential simplicity. As in basketball, a flat surface plus a ball are the only requirements. The game initially...