Every Monday on Global Comment, we share the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need but that it’s easy to miss in our busy world. We distil the best of the web and recommend just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads.
Here are this week’s recommendations:
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe: Thank you for that beautiful madness (Alan Shearer / The Athletic)
Being present was surreal. Where did the French summon their response from? How did Argentina not buckle at the prospect of effectively having to win the game twice? On the bench, the substituted Angel Di Maria wept with joy and then despair and you could only marvel at how Mbappe and Messi weaved through all that emotion, all that pressure bearing down on them and finding a way to soar above it.
go-deeperAnd you can only feel for Mbappe, the first man since 1966 to score a hat-trick in the final, who ends the tournament with the Golden Boot and nothing else, yet… it felt appropriate that Messi prevailed. I said before the game that I thought it was written in the stars that the biggest star of all would shine and so he did, but we didn’t expect destiny to taunt and challenge him like that. We didn’t expect a miracle. We got one.
Still no justice for Kenyan women abused by UK troops (Phil Miller / Declassified UK)
Last year the British public donated £9,000 to Stacey, but the funds are being held in a trust until she turns 18, so her living conditions are unlikely to improve soon. The money was raised amid outrage at revelations from an inquest that a UK soldier was behind her murder – and had openly joked about it on social media.
Yet in all the time that has passed since that wave of publicity, little progress has actually been made to bring Wanjiru’s killer to trial. Esther fears a £40m military co-operation agreement between London and Nairobi, which expired last year, might even be extended.
“The Kenyan government said that their contract would not be renewed until the case is over, but they’re still training here, so we are beginning to wonder,” she observes sharply. The treaty allows for around 3,000 soldiers to exercise in Kenya annually. It was rubber stamped in London this January by a House of Lords scrutiny committee, whose members included John Astor – a defence minister at the time of Wanjiru’s murder.
We Revisited This Inspirational Little Boy’s Mission To Raise Money For Other Kids (Russell Howard)
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Image: Henry Mwenge