The NYT's take on the first act of the FIFA World Cup 2006.

An excerpt:

Forty-eight matches were needed to whittle a field of 32 entrants down to 16, and after all that, the surprise is that there were practically no surprises. All the top seeds advanced with little trouble, leaving the usual big fish — Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Germany, England and so on — still very much in the thick of it and almost all the minnows going home.

This is in marked contrast to Korea/Japan 2002, when several unfancied and untraditional teams, like South Korea, Turkey and the United States, went far.

But back in one of soccer's European homelands, almost everything has proceeded according to form, and the 16 remaining teams make up pretty much the same field you would have seen starting a World Cup in 1970: the usual contingent from Europe and South America; a surprise package or two from Africa and Oceania; and one team from the North and Central American region: Mexico, and definitely not the United States.

The only teams' presence that might be termed something of a surprise is that of Ecuador, which beat out Poland to advance to the Round of 16, and Ghana, which surged past the Czech Republic to go forward.

Neither of them are given much chance in their next matches, however: Ecuador must play England, and Ghana will go up against mighty Brazil.

Two Pakistani journalists, arrested March 5 for filming near an air base used by the United States, have been granted bail. Their relatives say they were tortured while in the custody of the Pakistani security ...   more »

A new Pew Research Center study finds both Muslims and Westerners holding unflattering views of the other one.

Martin Adler, a TV cameraman, was shot and killed Friday while covering a massive demostration in Mogadishu held in support of Thursday's peace agreement.

In Koreatown, supporters of the Republic of South Korea were out by the hundreds along Bloor Street. But there was to be no delirious street celebration this time like the quarter-final victory over Spain in 2002.

I watched the second half at Clinton's Tavern, which was totally packed -- mostly Koreans, but a healthy proportion of soccer tourists like myself.

Plenty o' chanting and singing  in Korean (and lots of premature screaming on marginal scoring chances :) ), but when Switzerland added a disputed insurance goal at the 77-minute mark,  things got real quiet real fast.

Many Korean fans started trickling out shortly after that. Instead of running in the streets after the game, there was aimless milling around and the occasional "fuck" heard as a verbal expression of frustration.

It would appear that some expressions are universal. :)

And since the Koreans were particularly in-our-face to those flying the flags of nations they defeated in 2002, it would appear some measure of balance has been restored.

From the Beeb. Spot the typo!

Frankie's stories

The rise of the "citizen journalist" is challenging the authority of traditional reporting. Citizen journalist Frankie Roberto has given up a week of his holiday to spend time in the offices of the BBC News website and see at first-hand what advatanges professional reporters have. Here, through the course of the week, he'll be publishing his stories. You can e-mail him using the form on the right, and find out more about his experiment here.

A Beeb story by Martin Shankleman on how HD (high definition) TV actually took away from the experience of watching the England-Paraguay World Cup match.

While the audience doesn't compare to TV, FIFA has served up 31 million streaming World Cup 2006 clips so far.

This Beeb article talks about how mobile devices that can offer TV and video are the rage at the Broadcast Asia trade show in Singapore.

An excerpt:

The World Cup seems to have energised people in South Korea, a pioneer in mobile TV.

Sales of handsets for the free-to-air terrestrial mobile service have soared this month to 10,000 per day.

According to analysts Informa Telecoms and Media, more than 210 million people across the world will be watching TV on mobile devices by 2011.

Asia-Pacific will lead the way in mobile TV growth. Informa forecasts more than 95 million subscribers in the region by 2011.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show found a news item that makes for a dandy quiz question: Of the 32 teams in the first round of the World Cup, guess which one drove around in an anonymous bus?

As a hint, you have two choices: Iran, or the United States.

Here's a Beeb feature on Iran's presence at the World Cup.