It's easy - and perhaps convenient - to find political issues in this year's World Cup in South Africa. Just the fact that the World Cup takes place in South Africa might be seen as a political issue in itself. But after North Korea sank a South Korean warship in March this year, it is even easier to make political issues out of North Korea and South Korea’s matches.

At least nine Somali teenagers have been killed by mortar fires while they were playing football game at a village stadium in the Wardhigley district in Mogadishu Wednesday, Somali Football Federation confirmed.

Review by Steve Menary of Hans Bonde's latest book, ‘Football With The Foe – Danish sport under the swastika’, which examines wartime sport during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

With less than six months to the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese government is failing in its pledge to allow free access to foreign journalists.

Following the disputed outcome of the presidential election held on the 27 December 2007, Kenya has been beset by a rash of violence along political, tribal and ethnic lines. Sport too has been a victim, though once the violence recedes, it is hoped that sport will be able to play a major role in reunifying the nation.

In Iraq kidnappers have released a blind Iraqi athlete and a paralympic coach just two days after capturing them. The two men’s experience is an exception to the rule as athletes in Iraq continue to be prime targets of abduction and assassination for political and economic reasons.

Murders and abductions of athletes and sport officials are rapidly becoming the norm in Iraq. In July 2006, most of Iraq’s Olympic Committee was abducted by men in uniforms, the coach of the Iraqi wrestling team was murdered and Iraq’s national football coach resigned following death threats.

Knowledge bank: In Liberia, Don Bosco Homes has succesfully used soccer tournaments to rehabilitate child soldiers and raise awareness of HIV/Aids and childrens' rights.