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One of the best 7 minute speeches on gun control ever.

one of the better gun control speeches http://youtu.be/N47StpqUO2c

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Give up---Bankers Can Easily Avoid the EU Bonus Cap

Published: Thursday, 28 Feb 2013 | 3:37 PM ET By: John Carney Senior Editor,... more

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Harry Reid: "Cut, cap and balance worst piece of legislation ever"

The Senate on Friday voted to "table," or kill, a House Republican proposal... more

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Independent artist Smith Mob Crew new video Pay Style(SMC)

From Da Art Of Penatration CD Smith Mob 40 Cap Recording Artist

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'Thinking Cap' Designed to Promote Creativity

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Students to face unlimited fees

According to the BBC the Lord Browne's report has recommended lifting the cap of... more

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Is There a Leak? BP STILL Dragging Feet on Monitoring their Busted Well

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Thad Allen: 1.5 mile "Seismic Run" to detect "anything that might happen with the sea floor"

Latest update on the BP Gulf oil spill. Also, not included in the update: they have... more

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New cap appears to have contained BP Oil spill for now

After nearly three months of choking oil spewed from the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP... more

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BP Gulf Oil Spill Update: New Cap Delayed Until Wednesday

Update on the Gulf oil situation...

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UK to cut number of skilled workers from outside EU

Theresa May announced a cap to immigration outside the EU, which will reduce the... more

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How Drogba's Family Helps Abandoned Soccer Players

Before Dider Drogba was named 2009's African Footballer of the Year, he was a... more

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Right to Dream Soccer Academy: Scenes From Vanguard

In this scene from Vanguard's "Soccer's Lost Boys," correspondent... more

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Barack Obama turns the oil spill into his poor man's 9/11 to revive Cap-and-Trade climate legislation

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Mariana van Zeller is a correspondent for Vanguard.
Every four years, I look forward to the World Cup. It's the one time where my small country, Portugal, commands a little respect on the world stage. But this World Cup is different...I know too much.
Over the last six months, I've been investigating a particularly heartbreaking scandal for a Current TV documentary called "Soccer's Lost Boys," airing next Wednesday. The story took me from the dirt soccer pitches of Ghana to the migrant ghettos of Morocco and finally, to black market soccer games in Paris.
It's estimated that 20,000 young West African players are currently stranded throughout Europe--trafficked there by predatory agents who snatch them off the fields of Ghana and Senegal and Cameroon promising contracts with big European teams and then abandon them when those tryouts either don't materialize or don't go well.
Jean Claude Mbvoumin, one of the few advocates trying to help these kids through his small Paris-based organization Foot Solidaire, told me that 70 percent of the tryouts that took place in France last year were "uninvited," meaning that--like door-to-door salesmen--these agents just show up with a player--or three or 10--from parts unknown, hoping to get them in front of coaches. Not surprisingly, this approach leads far more often to heartbreak and suffering than to the fame and fortune promised these youngsters.
If you're reading this in the US, you may not be aware of what big industry soccer has become. Money on par with the salaries in the NFL, NBA and MLB are being paid to players from around the globe to play for teams in the UK, France, Italy, Spain. Soccer, or "football" as the rest of the world knows it, is the most global of sports and these days, there's perhaps no bigger market for promising new players than Africa.
Over the last decade there's been a surge in the number of Africans playing at big European clubs. To take the top English league for example, in 1989 it had only four players from Africa, all of them white Africans. In 2009, the league had 60 African-born players, nearly all of them blacks from West Africa. A handful, like Didier Drogba from the Ivory Coast or Michael Essien from Ghana, have risen to become global super stars and fabulously wealthy in the process. These rags-to-riches stories now serve as inspiration for thousands of young African boys who see soccer as their way out.
But the same desperation that drives many young Africans to pile 70 people in a fishing boat meant for seven to make the dangerous sea crossing to Europe, also makes them easy targets for unscrupulous agents, conmen and other unsavory characters. At the embassy of the Ivory Coast in Rabat, Morocco, the consular general pulled out a thick blue book--like an accountant's ledger--filled with the names and faces of young footballers who had been scammed and abandoned in Morocco. I stood in shock as page after page of young African faces stared back at me. My initial worries that we might be stretching some isolated, anecdotal cases of player trafficking into something bigger vanished on the spot. This problem was real--and real nasty.
I like to think of this story as an African Hoop Dreams, although a similar story could be told from South America or even Eastern Europe. Anywhere in the world where a passion of football is paired with the desperation of poverty, the conditions are ripe for the exploitation of young talent. As South Africa hosts the World Cup--the first African nation to do so--it's important that people realize that the growing popularity of European leagues around the globe has come at a cost.
The reason that FIFA, the governing body of the sport, has decided to hold the World Cup in Africa for the first time has nothing to do with the beauty of safari Africa--featured so prominently in ESPN's promo package--with its epic vistas and silhouetted giraffes. The passion for soccer in Africa lives in less picturesque places, like the war-torn Ivory Coast and the coastal slums of Accra. The World Cup is being held in Africa because the future of soccer is very much entwined with the future of the developing world.
The trafficking of young African players may be news to soccer's many millions of fans, but it's an open secret among those who oversee the sport. A few years ago, Sepp Blatter, FIFA's president, even accused top European clubs of "social and economic rape" in their search for new talent in Africa. But despite those harsh words, little has actually been done.
Now that FIFA is raking in billions of dollars in TV rights and sponsorships from the Cup in Africa, perhaps it's time to give a little back. The most popular sport in the world shouldn't be turning its back on thousands of its own.
"Soccer's Lost Boys" premieres on Current TV Wednesday, June 16 at 10/9c. Watch the episode trailer after the jump. Mariana van Zeller is a correspondent for Vanguard. Every four years, I look... more

MarianaVanZeller
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Soccer's Lost Boys: Vanguard Trailer

As South Africa hosts the 2010 World Cup, the focus will be on many of the... more

MarianaVanZeller
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WB5500: Ultrazoom Advanced Digital Camera

DSLR-like design 14 Mega Pixels Schneider-Kreuznach lens 26X optical zoom lens with... more

darwinstable
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Weekly Mulch: Why the Senate Climate Bill is Doomed

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger Image courtesy of Flickr user -Snugg-,... more

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Evan Kopelson on the Incentives to a Low Carbon Economy

Evan Kopelson looks at the incentives to drive America to a low carbon economy,... more

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