World Cup 2014: Algeria to donate $9m World Cup prize money to people of Gaza, because ‘they need it more than us’

Algeria to donate $9m World Cup prize money to people of Gaza, because ‘they need it more than us’

The Algerian national football team are to donate their entire World Cup prize fund to the embattled people of Gaza, it has been reported.

According to quotes attributed to Algeria’s star striker Islam Slimani, the team will give up all of the estimated $9 million (£5.25 million) they received as valiant losers in the round of 16
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Though Slimani himself plays for Sporting Lisbon and is touted for an even bigger move this summer, the reported donation will be a greater sacrifice for members of the squad based at more modest clubs in Algeria, Tunisia, the lower French leagues and Watford.
Yet speaking at a reception in Algiers where the team returned to a hero's welcome yesterday, Slimani apparently said: “They need it more than us.” The announcement was reported by the Jordanian football writer Waleed Abu Nada as well as the Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.


he Algerian team had already won support from around the world for their gutsy and creative performances throughout the tournament against more favoured nations.
They reached the knockout stages for the first time their history when a second-half Slimani goal saw them go through against Russia – and at Russia’s expense.


And they were actually the better side for large parts of their second round match against giants Germany, only losing after extra time 2-1.
If reports of their donation to Gaza are true, it will see Algeria gain a whole new set of fans beyond football around the world. They were also the only African side to make it through past the group stages – and their apparent willingness to give away the prize money is in stark contrast to the reported behaviour of the Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria teams.
But they may also face accusations of bringing politics to bear in the world of sport, as Argentina did when they were investigated by Fifa for showing a banner about the Falklands ahead of the tournament.
Algeria have traditionally been strong supporters of the Palestinian cause in the long-running  Middle East dispute with Israel centred on Gaza, and YouTube footage of the team’s open-top homecoming tour through Algiers yesterday showed at least one Palestinian flag draped from the bus by the players.

 The reported donation to the people of Gaza comes at a critical time in the conflict, as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggles to control a frenzied reaction to the murder of three Israeli hitch-hikers, which the country blames on Hamas.
Israel has begun sending troop reinforcements to its border with Gaza and begun intensifying air strikes, while more than a dozen Palestinian rockets struck southern Israel early this morning.

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Google Aims to Defrag Android Universe

Google is taking a different tack with Android for things other than smartphones. "Instead of trying to tackle fragmentation after the fact, ... they're trying to get ahead of it and trying to prevent fragmentation from happening," said Lookout Mobile Security's Marc Rogers. "We have millions of smartphones, and we're anticipating 10 billion things. You can imagine the scale of the problem."

 

As any Android user knows, the version of the operating system you're using can vary widely because it depends on parties other than Google. That's why nearly two-thirds of users are running a version of Android introduced in 2012 or earlier.

With Android making the leap to wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT), however, Google is aiming to make that kind of fragmentation of its mobile operating system a thing of the past. It plans to limit what a hardware maker can do to the Android interface and control updates to the operating system.
"I think Google has discovered that an open operating system is nice to get a lot of units deployed, but it doesn't necessarily provide a consistent user experience," Yankee Group Vice President Carl.

"They could have chosen to exercise more control when they started," he added. "They chose not to. If they had, they might not have gotten the rate of adoption they got."
Google did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

Bold Move

The move toward greater control over Android in wearables, autos and TVs makes sense, said Ross Rubin, principal analyst with Reticle Research.
With smartphones, people typically are wedded to one device, but a person may have multiple watches and TVs.
"Google wants to enforce more consistency across different devices from different brands, which is less important in the smartphone market," Rubin told Haqk.blogspot.com.
"It's also an opportunity for Google to address industry criticism about difficulties in upgrading to new versions of Android," he added.
Times have changed since Google was an upstart in a market dominated by Apple.
"Google may feel emboldened to do this at this point, because it feels the polish and functionality of its user interface is such that it can deliver a good, consistent user experience in these products," Rubin said.
If what Google is doing on the IoT side of Android catches on among consumers, it could influence the smartphone side of the operating system as well.
"If initiatives like TVs and smartwatches take off, consumers will want more consistency between those products and their phones, so Google will have more negotiating leverage to insist on cleaner software interfaces from their phone partners."

Getting Ahead of the Curve

Choosing to exercise control over Android now, as it enters the IoT market, as opposed to later is a smart move, contended Marc Rogers, a principal security researcher at Lookout Mobile Security.
"Instead of trying to tackle fragmentation after the fact, as they did with the smartphone industry, they're trying to get ahead of it and trying to prevent fragmentation from happening with things," Rogers told Haqk.blogspot.com.
"We have millions of smartphones, and we're anticipating 10 billion things," he continued. "You can imagine the scale of the problem with an exponential increase in manufacturers all modifying Google's code."
Google's tightening the reins on Android for things will reduce the kind of variety found in the smartphone market, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, he noted.
"From a security perspective, less variability and predictability is a good thing," Rogers said. "The less manufacturers have to tweak and code themselves, the less of a headache Google has managing security."

Security Problems

Fragmentation often is viewed as a contributor to Android's security problems.
"When a vulnerability is discovered, the ability to get a patch or move to the latest upgrade isn't in the hands of Google; it's in the hands of the hardware vendor," noted Michael Sutton, vice president of security research at Zscaler.
"We've seen many situations over time where some vulnerability is discovered, and end users end up waiting for -- or in some cases never get -- a patch that they need, because it has to be blessed by the hardware vendor," he told Haqk.blogspot.com.
By the same token, as Google improves the security of Android over time, many users can't take advantage of those advances because they're not allowed to upgrade their versions of the OS.
"If you can't upgrade to that latest edition, you can't benefit from those improvements," Sutton said.
Reducing or even eliminating fragmentation won't end Android's security problems, however.
"I still consider Android less secure than other operating systems -- even if it's the latest version," NSS Labs Practice Manager Chris Morales told Haqk.blogspot.com
"There tend to be more flaws with Android than in Windows Phone or iOS," he said.
"I don't know, though, if that's because it's targeted more often or it actually has more issues," he added. "A lot of times more flaws are found because a platform has lots of users."

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