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Match-rigger denies World Cup fix
7/1/2014 10:40:02 PM
- Match-fixer denies predicting Cameroon would lose 4-0 to Croatia at World Cup
- German magazine reported Wilson Raj Perumal told journalist result before game was played
- Perumal admits having conversation but said it took place after match
- Der Spiegel and journalist Rafael Buschmann stand by the original story
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(CNN) -- Convicted Singaporean match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal is categorically denying a story published by German weekly Der Spiegel alleging that the Cameroon team was involved in fixing a World Cup game in Brazil.
The Cameroon federation -- known as FECAFOOT -- has pledged to investigate Der Spiegel's allegations, which focused on the national side's second Group A game against Croatia -- purportedly based on an interview with Perumal.
"Contrary to the 'revelations' published by the German weekly Der Spiegel that were picked up by news outlets worldwide, I did not predict the result of the Cameroon vs. Croatia match played on June 18, 2014," said Perumal in a statement published online.
"The Facebook chat with the Der Spiegel journalist took place a few days after the match -- June 21 -- as confirmed by my Facebook log, and was but an informal assessment of the behavior of the Cameroon team at the Brazil 2014 World Cup after they had played two of their three group stage matches, including the one with Croatia."
CNN has been sent screen grabs of two Facebook conversations between Perumal and the journalist, Rafael Buschmann, by the fixer's representative.
The first is dated the June 21 and the second is dated the June 26 -- in other words after the Croatia game -- where Perumal talks of "five to seven black sheeps," and "seven rotten apples" within the Cameroon team, adding "in my opinion they fixed all three matches."
Perumal's Facebook account does not show public updates, so CNN was unable to independently verify those exchanges.
"At no time did I make reference to four goals being scored or to a red card being issued," Perumal said.
"At no time did I suggest that I had any way of corroborating or substantiating what was meant to be an educated guess based on my extensive match-fixing experience," added Perumal, who was arrested in Helsinki in 2011 and sentenced to two years in prison for fixing games in Rovaniemi, northern Finland.
"Last but not least: at no time was I informed by the Der Spiegel journalist that our chat was going to end up in the German publication."
The Der Spiegel journalist, Rafael Buschmann, told CNN that the publication was confident in its reporting of the story.
"We firmly stand by our assertion that Mr. Perumal wrote in a Facebook chat with Der Spiegel some hours before the World Cup match Croatia vs. Cameroon, that the result of the match will be a 4-0 victory for Croatia and that a player of Cameroon will get a red card in the first half," Buschmann said.
That alleged prediction largely came true.
Midfielder Alex Song was red-carded during the game for lashing out at Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic, who scored twice in a 4-0 victory along with goals from Ivica Olic and Ivan Perisic.
CNN contacted Song's agent but he was not immediately available for comment.
Now living in Hungary, Perumal recently published a book -- "Kelong Kings" -- about his involvement in illegal match fixing, which was written in conjunction with investigative journalists Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano.
"I apologize to the Cameroon FA and to its fans if I inadvertently offended them; it was not my intention," said Perumal. "I strongly believe that Der Spiegel should also do the same since they placed words in my mouth that I did not utter."
"Kelong Kings" examines three decades of match-fixing efforts, including World Cup qualifiers, Olympic matches and the 2010 World Cup.
"I am now back in Hungary where I have testified against my former associates in a local match-fixing trial," said Perumal.
" 'Kelong Kings' is an honest account of what my life has been like until today.
"I have now turned a new leaf and wish to put my expertise at the disposal of those willing to truly fight the scourge of match-fixing.
"When the time is ripe I will share what I know with FIFA and UEFA, but I will not accept that my statements be manipulated at the detriment of others."
A FIFA spokesperson told reporters Tuesday that football's governing body could not comment on whether an investigation was underway on the alleged manipulation of the Cameroon-Croatia match.
FECAFOOT said in a statement Monday that "in 55 years of existence, it has never been sanctioned for, involved in, or even linked to match fixing or any fraud of any kind."
Read: Cameroon investigate match-fixing claims
Will U.S.'s football love affair last?
7/2/2014 1:37:17 PM
- NEW: Tim Howard: "Watching some of the scenes back home has been incredible"
- NEW: U.S. player: "Heroic display makes young Michael Jordans choose soccer over bball"
- NEW: Pro athletes from other sports show their support for the American team
- The U.S. is ousted from the World Cup after loss to Belgium, but manages to win over fans
(CNN) -- They watched by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands. In cozy sports bars and cavernous sports stadiums. In living rooms and in public spaces. In front of computer screens and in front of big screens in downtown plazas.
To echo the national team's mantra: They believed the Americans could win.
Their team did not, however, exiting the World Cup in the knockout round after losing 2-1 to Belgium.
But if anything can salve the wound of the U.S. team's elimination in the World Cup, it's how many in the country opened their eyes to soccer, as if for the first time.
"Our heroic display makes young Michael Jordans choose soccer over bball in High School now!" tweeted Terrence Boyd, a late cut from the U.S. National Team. "@ussoccer will be a real force."
Time will tell if more American athletes turn to soccer -- or football as it's known most everywhere else in the world -- over basketball, football or baseball thanks to the 2014 team.
Still, over the past few weeks, there's no denying that the Americans' performance has galvanized and, quite likely, created legions of fans.
While ratings weren't immediately available for Tuesday's match with Belgium, the Americans' first-round match against Ghana set a viewership record for ESPN's coverage of World Cup matches. Their game last week versus Germany was the network's second-highest rated World Cup match.
It's not just that people watched, it's how they watched. Social media buzzed every game, with people seemingly living and dying by every goal-scoring chance and save by stalwart U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard. And then there were the thousands who ventured down to Brazil in their red, white and blue -- in their clothing as well as their faces -- to cheer on their team.
The U.S. players repeatedly said they had noticed the groundswell of support, both in Brazil and back in the United States. It helped propel the team -- and, they hoped, will help contribute to their sport's growing popularity stateside.
"Watching some of the scenes back home has been incredible," said Howard, who was named "man of the match" after his tremendous, although losing, performance. "It fills us with pride and inspired us to push forward and feel like we could actually could do something, special because the feeling, the passion back home, was second to none."
The growth of soccer in the U.S.
On the world stage -- in economics, politics or whatever else -- Americans are rarely underdogs.
Yet that was the case in the world's biggest sporting event, especially after the team was put in what many called "the group of death."
The United States was one of two teams to advance from that group, leading up to its game with Belgium. The Red Devils prevailed thanks to two goals in extra time -- after 90 minutes of scoreless regulation -- in what U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann described as both "a thriller" and "a bummer."
"The whole country and the fans that came down to Brazil; they can be proud of their team," the German-born coach said on ESPN. "We take a lot, a tremendous amount away from this experience. We grew up a lot."
The same could be said of the U.S. soccer program, generally.
In many ways, this growth has been a long time coming. U.S. Youth Soccer notes that there are more than 3 million registered youth players, compared to just over 100,000 in the mid-1970s. That's out of about 24 million players total, ranking the country second only to China in terms of participation by a single nation, according to FIFA.
Major League Soccer has also seen a relative boom of late, with passionate fan bases in places like Seattle and Portland, Oregon, and games often attended by upwards of 20,000 people.
Still, some see soccer as a niche sport -- followed passionately, yes, but not by mainstream Americans.
The World Cup, though, may have changed that.
Fans -- both new ones and diehards -- energized
You could see the support at Chicago's Soldier Field, where thousands, some of whom admitted that they'd played hooky from work, gathered to watch the game.
The lakefront stadium is better known as home to the other game of football -- the NFL and its Chicago Bears -- but on Tuesday, its gates were opened to the public. Thousands of fans sat in the stands or stood on the gridiron, which was covered with a protective matting.
"National Watch Soccer Day," one fan said.
Similar scenes played out in AT&T Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys of American football lore.
Freedom Plaza in Washington was also packed with American fans. So was the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the attendees included President Barack Obama, who even started a cheer of "I believe that we will win!"
Rival sports leagues and stars, like the NFL, also offered their support.
Major League Baseball tweeted out pictures of Phillies, Astros and Twins players watching the U.S.-Belgium game. The Red Sox's Johnny Gomes rocked a tank top and shorts that doubled as American flags while taking batting practice.
Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant tweeted his congratulations on Twitter, saying, "Well done #USMNT mde our country proud. #USsoccerOntheRISE #WorldBWarned."
Bryant has made his love for "football" known for some time. But what got many in the U.S. soccer world so excited this summer was all those who usually don't care about the sport following the game -- like one man who posted to CNN.com's match blog, "I hate soccer and yet here I find myself hanging on every post about the game."
A patron at Nevada Smiths sports bar in New York, John Paul Ovadia, remarked how soccer was once a marginalized sport in the United States, but not any more.
"I think every four years there's more and more interest," Ovadia said. "And the further the U.S. goes, the more people are paying attention."
U.S. vs. Belgium preview: There's no room for error now
FIFA: U.S. World Cup fans most active online
Glossary for the budding American World Cup fan
CNN's Sean Farrell and Richard Roth contributed from New York; George Howell and Jennifer Goelz from Chicago. Michael Martinez wrote from Los Angeles.
U.S. secretary of defense, and goalie
7/2/2014 2:24:27 PM
- The 35-year-old goalie made a World Cup-record 16 saves against Belgium
- Howard is loaded with tattoos
- He was born in New Jersey to an African-American father and Hungarian mother
- His coaches say he's one of the best keepers in the world
(CNN) -- The word "epic" gets thrown around a lot these days, but there's no other way to describe what we saw Tuesday.
It was an epic battle. Team USA goalie Tim Howard on one hand. The entire Belgian team on the other.
Facing the relentless onslaught of Belgium's offense, Howard made 16 saves -- setting a World Cup record.
The United States lost the match 2-1 and is out of the tourney, but the nation gained a soccer hero.
Here's what you need to know about the 35-year-old Howard:
He's a devout Christian
Faith is a key part of Howard's life and shapes who he is.
"The most important thing in my life is Christ," Howard said in a 2006 interview with Campus Crusade for Christ. "He's more important to me than winning or losing or whether I'm playing or not. Everything else is just a bonus."
He was born in North Brunswick, New Jersey, to an African-American father and a Hungarian mother.
He is all tatted up
Howard loves his body art.
You want ink, you got it -- chest, abs, biceps, back.
His kids are there on his left pec. Jesus is on the left biceps. You'll find his home state of New Jersey on his belly.
There's a dove, too. A star. Some Roman numerals. The more you look, the more you find.
He is anti-fur
Howard bared his well-sculpted upper body for PETA's "Ink, not mink" campaign.
The pitch? "Fur only looks good on its original owner. Be comfortable in your own skin, and let animals keep theirs."
Ink not mink: Everton and USA keeper Tim Howard shows off his impressive body of tattoos... http://t.co/PcRmtLL4vm via @MailSport
— Ed Payne (@EdPayneCNN) July 2, 2014 He lives with Tourette's syndrome
For Howard, it's not a big deal -- just part of his life. But it does come with some misconceptions.
"It's something that I live with every day. For me now in my life, it's like breathing for me. If I woke up and didn't have Tourette's syndrome, it would feel weird -- not better or worse, just different. So I'm very happy and comfortable with it," he said.
Many know it only as the "swearing disease," but only about 10% of people with Tourette's syndrome swear uncontrollably.
"You know, we don't all curse," Howard told Yahoo Sports a couple of weeks ago. "I do on the field, unfortunately, to get my point across, but it's not because of my condition."
People with Tourette's syndrome suffer from involuntary tics, which can be either verbal or physical. Physical tics may include jumping or twitching. People with the syndrome describe a tic as being like a sneeze, impossible to hold in without extreme discomfort.
Twitter surrenders to Tourette's syndrome
He once scored a goal
How many goalkeepers can claim this feat?
While playing for Everton, his English Premier League team, Howard booted a ball the length of the pitch, catching the Bolton goalie by surprise.
The crowd and his teammates went nuts, but Howard told The Guardian he felt bad for the opposing keeper.
"You never want to see that happen," he said. "It's not nice, it's embarrassing."
He wasn't really that good when he started out
When Howard began his pro career as a 22-year-old goalkeeper for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars of MLS, he was known as a great athlete who could make great saves. Some reports have even said he could have played basketball in college.
But the 6-foot-3 Howard wasn't particularly good at other things, like distributing the ball after he made a nice stop. It's something he is much, much better at today.
In 2001 he was MLS goalkeeper of the year. And Manchester United, one of the most successful European clubs in history, worked out a transfer deal for him.
Howard spent four years with Manchester United before transferring to Everton.
He is the 'modern Jesus'
Even before the game ended Tuesday, Howard's incredible saves got Twitter in a tizzy.
Comparisons to Jesus abounded. Sample tweet: "Jesus saves, and so does Tim Howard."
Difference between Tim Howard and Jesus - Jesus had 11 guys he could trust
— Patrick Osgood (@PatrickOsgood) July 1, 2014 Then came the memes of all the things #TimHowardCouldSave: Dinosaurs, the Titanic, Blockbuster from closing.
He is the 'U.S. secretary of defense'
Well, at least he was for a little while on Tuesday, according to Wikipedia.
So impressive was his performance against the Belgians that someone edited the free on-line encyclopedia, pulling Chuck Hagel from the page and inserting Howard.
The folks at Wikipedia caught the vandalism and restored the real secretary of defense to his rightful position.
This is awesome. Someone changed the Wikipedia page for the US Secretary of Defense to Tim Howard pic.twitter.com/Jq826ov3m9
— Josh Parcell (@JoshParcell) July 2, 2014 He is one of the best goalies in the world
Don't believe us? Just ask his coaches.
His club coach has said there is no better goalkeeper in the Premier League.
"His belief and understanding of the game and his desire to achieve more is contagious," Roberto Martinez told FIFA.com.
National team coach Jurgen Klinsmann said in May that Howard is one of the top five goalies in the world.
And, if there were any doubters, he silenced them all on Tuesday.
OK RT @WithDrake: .@darth should really do something nice for @TimHowardGK.... Just to show our support. pic.twitter.com/n0Bz4ssSbC
— darth™ (@darth) July 1, 2014 He is coming back in 2018 (or is he?)
This may not be Howard's final World Cup. Plenty of goalies have played in their late 30s and early 40s.
But backup Brad Guzan, who plays at Aston Villa in England, is five years younger.
Howard has yet to say whether he wants to be in the net when the team tries to qualify for Russia, host of the 2018 World Cup.
And he wasn't giving any clues on Wednesday when he talked with CNN's Chris Cuomo.
"Right now, emotions are high and that's never a time to make an important decision," Howard said. "I'll speak to the important people who matter in this process and take my time and figure it out.
"It's a long four years, but also this team is very talented and very young -- and so it's exciting."
Off the field: The men of the U.S. team
Mourning Israeli family condemns revenge attacks
7/2/2014 3:26:50 PM
- NEW: Palestinian father: Israelis, not family dispute, to blame for son's abduction, killing
- NEW: Hamas says killing "refutes the Israeli narration of being the victim all the time"
- Netanyahu calls for speedy investigation to find out "who is behind this despicable murder"
- The incident rattles a region already on edge over the recent killing of 3 Israeli teenagers
Jerusalem (CNN) -- The discovery of a slain Palestinian teen in Jerusalem early Wednesday triggered clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, further inflaming tensions that spiked this week with the discovery of the three Israeli teens' bodies.
Mohammad Abu Khedair, 17, was heading from his Jerusalem home to a mosque for prayers around 4 a.m. when three men forced him into a car and drove away, his father, Hussain Abu Khedair, told CNN. His body was discovered about an hour later at a forest in the city.
The killing quickly triggered condemnations from Palestinian and Israeli leaders, as well as from the United States.
Those who spoke out passionately after the latest killing included an uncle of one of the slain Israeli teens, who called it "a forbidden action, and it has no forgiveness."
"Any act of revenge of any kind whatsoever is completely inappropriate and wrong. Murder is murder," said Yishai Frankel, uncle of Naftali Frankel, a 16-year-old dual Israeli-American citizen. "One should not differentiate between bloods, be it Arab or Jew.
"...The family issues an unequivocal call: There is no room for revenge, no room for actions of this type," added Frankel, who works to involve Palestinians in the Israeli high-tech industry, in remarks to Israel's Channel 2. "Gladly, we are citizens of a civilized country. Surely the action against the three boys deserves a most severe punishment, but the state should take care of it by law and by no means by people who take the law in their hands."
Israeli authorities are probing the latest death, with police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeting this effort will try to determine whether it is a "criminal or nationalistic" act -- the latter term referring to a politically motivated act in retaliation for the killings of the teens.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a speedy investigation to find "who is behind this despicable murder and the background to this act," according to a statement from his office.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu calls on all sides not to take the law into their own hands. Israel is a country of law and everyone is ordered to act according to the law."
Report: Body was 'charred and bore signs of violence'
"Settlers" kidnapped the teenager and his body "was charred and bore signs of violence," according to the Palestinian state news agency WAFA. DNA, through saliva samples, was used to positively identify the boy, his father said.
Rosenfeld told the Jerusalem Post the teen had significant burn marks. The same Israeli publication also reported that police are investigating previous kidnap attempts on members of the teenager's family related to a personal dispute.
But Hussain Abu Khedair, the boy's father, blamed Israelis and vehemently denied reports that this may have been tied to any sort of family dispute.
The teen's cousin, Majdi Abu Khedair, said whoever carried out the abduction was driving a car that had been used in an attempted abduction two days ago. A similar claim was made to Haaretz by Knesset member Ahmed Tibi.
"We blame the Israeli police for the kidnapping and killing of (Mohammad) and his burning," Khedair said. "The Israeli police and Israeli government should do the same as they have done in Hebron: Demolish and blow the settler houses who have done this crime."
The Israeli military destroyed the homes of the two suspects in the killings of the three Israeli teens.
Having repeatedly condemned the killings of the three Jewish teens, the United States condemned the Palestinian teen's killing. In a statement, Secretary of State of John Kerry called it "despicable and senseless."
"It is sickening to think of an innocent 17-year-old boy snatched off the streets and his life stolen from him and his family. There are no words to convey adequately our condolences to the Palestinian people."
He noted that both Israeli and Palestinian officials have condemned it, and he added to Netanyahu's call. "Those who undertake acts of vengeance only destabilize an already explosive and emotional situation."
Hamas -- the militant Islamic organization that controls Gaza -- said in a statement it hold the "Israeli occupation (fully) responsible," adding that the incident "exposes (Israel's) ugly ... racism" and "refutes the Israeli narration of being the victim all the time."
As news of the boy's death spread, clashes broke out between Palestinian residents and Israeli security forces in Shuafat, a neighborhood of Jerusalem, witnesses said.
Residents threw stones at Israeli security forces. The Israelis responded with occasional volleys of stun grenades or tear gas. A crew with the Palestinian Red Crescent said that more than 50 Palestinians were injured.
Also in Shuafat, Palestinian protesters attacked two Palestinians whom they mistook for undercover Israeli police, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Tensions in the region have been at a fever pitch since Monday, when the bodies of the Israeli teens were found in a field in the West Bank. The three had been abducted on their way home from school more than two weeks earlier.
Israelis rally against racism
On Tuesday, after the teens' funerals, several large groups of men marched around Jerusalem, chanting "death to Arabs." Packed crowds gathered Wednesday to reject that and all forms of racism at a Jerusalem rally.
"So great to be among Israel compatriots who less than a day after a suspected hate crime are here to say 'no to racism,' " columnist Meir Javedanfar wrote on Twitter.
"We are not a people of revenge but a people of comfort," said Nitzan Horowitz, a member of the Israeli Knesset, according to a tweet from professor Michael Pitkowsky.
The Israeli government, however, has vowed to exact revenge against Hamas, which Israel blames for the deaths of the three Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Frankel, 16.
Hamas praised the abductions but denied that it was responsible for what happened. It warned that if Netanyahu "brings a war on Gaza, the gates of hell will open to him."
At the teens' funerals, Netanyahu said the country would avenge their deaths at "the hands of evil men."
"A broad moral gulf separates us from our enemies," he said. "They sanctify death; we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty and we mercy and compassion. That is the secret of our strength."
Later, Netanyahu said hundreds of Hamas activists had been arrested, dozens of institutions in Gaza had closed, and homes had been demolished.
This marked an escalation of Israeli operations that have been ongoing since the West Bank teens went missing on June 13.
WAFA, the Palestinian state news agency, reported Wednesday that 15 Palestinians have been killed in that time. This figure includes six killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank, three in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, two dead of heart attacks after West Bank raids, plus the recently killed Palestinian teenager.
The violence, from both sides, shows few signs of abating.
More than 20 rockets were fired into southern Israel by midafternoon Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, adding that at least one was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. Israel also carried out an airstrike on a target that was used to launch four mortar rounds, the IDF said.
Opinion: Teens' killing hurts Israelis, bad for Palestinians
CNN's Kareem Khadder reported from Jerusalem; Jethro Mullen reported from Hong Kong; Josh Levs reported from Atlanta. CNN's Atika Shubert, Ben Wedeman, Greg Botelho, Michael Schwartz and Ali Younes contributed to this report.
Capturing heroes and villains
7/2/2014 5:39:58 PM
- Getty photographer Mike Hewitt captured iconic image of Maradona
- Former World Cup winner coached Argentina in theatrical style
- Hewitt also took image of stand out moment in 2010 final
- Nigel de Jong's kung-fu kick on Xabi Alonso shocked those watching
How are you celebrating the World Cup? Join the global conversation on CNN's Facebook Pulse
(CNN) -- Diego Maradona was a mesmerizing presence on the pitch during four World Cup finals as a player.
When he returned to football's biggest stage in 2010 as coach of Argentina, it soon became clear that his capacity to entertain remained undimmed.
His theatrical displays from the touchline during Argentina's matches became one of the unexpected highlights of the tournament.
Mike Hewitt, senior staff photographer at Getty Images, had a ringside seat as Maradona took charge for his first competitive World Cup finals match against Nigeria at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium.
"You just know that this was going to be a worldwide story," Hewitt told CNN's Sports Photo Masterclass series.
"I decided to try and sit as close to the dugout as I could get away with -- just to get a portrait or a reaction shot. I wanted to get in, get that feeling of what it's like to be part of that bench when and if Argentina scored."
It's quite a careful balancing act taking photos in these situations," adds Hewitt. "You don't want to get too close and start upsetting someone.
"But Maradona didn't seem to care. I don't think he even noticed I was there."
When Gabriel Heinze's diving header had the net bulging in the sixth minute, Hewitt took his chance.
"Obviously, there's a huge element of luck involved in it," the photographer concedes, pointing to the substitute on the left of the photo who jumped out of the dugout when he celebrated. "I'm glad he did it there and not bang in front of Maradona or I would have missed the picture."
It's an iconic image, he thinks -- one that brings Maradona's World Cup story up to date.
"He's a man that practically won it single-handedly for Argentina back in 1986 (in Mexico) and then was banned," Hewitt says referring to Maradona's ignominious exit from the 1994 U.S. tournament after testing positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine.
"For him to them come back as coach for the Argentinian team -- the whole world wants to know what's going to happen."
Maradona's last finals as a player in 1994 was also the scene of Hewitt's debut as a World Cup photographer.
Back then he was still using film, sending reels back to the office for processing with pictures ready for clients usually within a couple of hours.
"In Brazil, I'll be sending pictures instantly to the editors within a second of it actually happening," says Hewitt.
"It will be edited and cropped and captioned and then beamed to the world so people have it in two minutes."
Technology hasn't just helped make sports photography become more efficient, it's also helped it evolve.
"You're constantly under pressure because it's a competitive industry," adds Hewitt.
"There might be upwards of 200 photographers on the pitch and people are just looking for the absolute best image of a particular incident."
Hewitt, 52, has thrived in that cutthroat environment, and came up trumps a second time in South Africa when he captured the moment Dutchman Nigel de Jong's right boot violently connected with Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso's chest.
"It was a very feisty final. It happened very quickly, out of the blue, so I was just fortunate that I was in the right position to get the kung fu kick."
Where do I start?
Shoot park football. You don't need enormous expensive lens and you can get really close to the action.
Do I need a big fancy camera?
No, some of the amateur cameras are superb. Most have a fast-ish motordrive that shoot four or five frames a second.
Key things to remember?
Try and fill the frame as much as possible. Make the quality as good as you can.
Check where the light is coming from. Avoid shooting around midday -- it makes your job a lot easier when the sun is lower.
Sitting on the touchline level with the 18-yard line, Hewitt took the shot using his 400 mm lens.
"Because it was a night game under floodlights you're shooting wide open -- a very large aperture -- so the depth of field on these images is very small, maybe about six inches.
"But it's good because it throws the background out (of focus) completely and isolates the players very well. I must have shot it at about 1/1,000th of a second."
De Jong escaped with a booking -- one of 14 in the match -- but the tackle became perhaps the defining image of the final which Spain went onto win 1-0 after extra time.
"It's quite an iconic image from a World Cup final -- they don't come around very often," Hewitt says.
"There's a large element of luck involved -- being in the right place at the right time -- but you still have to get the image."
Hewitt experience extends across the sporting spectrum with a portfolio that includes six Olympic Games, four cricket World Cups, four rugby World Cups and two round the world yacht races to his name.
For now, another World Cup final at Rio's Maracana Stadium awaits Hewitt.
Not bad for a man who started out as an amateur snapper shooting park football on Hackney Marshes in east London.
"We get to go to some great places and cover some great events. I had the pleasure of photographing the Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti (in 2013) which was magnificent," he says.
"It's times like these where you think: 'well, life doesn't get any better.'"
Next week, Mike Hewitt discusses an incredible image of Lionel Messi in full flow
All must condemn Israeli teen murders
7/2/2014 8:55:36 PM
- Frida Ghitis: The killing of three Israeli students hurts Mideast peace process
- Ghitis: Israelis are consumed with grief, but they are watching how the world reacts
- She says Palestinians who are outraged should speak out loudly against the tragedy
- Ghitis: That would spark a positive reaction and create energy toward reconciliation
Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for the Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter @FridaGhitis. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- The people who killed three Israeli teenagers have hurt the Israeli people deeply, there's no doubt about that. But they have also harmed Palestinians, and they have hurt the cause of peace.
Anyone who fails to condemn this horrific act -- the murder of students going home from school -- is contributing to the poison that makes peace so difficult in the Mideast. Anyone who hesitates, who equivocates, is helping to prolong the conflict.
For Palestinians and their supporters around the world, if you remain silent about the killing of Israelis, you are adding to the duration and bitterness of this conflict. Excuse this atrocity, and you condemn the people of this area to remain enemies for the foreseeable future.
That does not mean you cannot criticize Israeli actions, but the cold-blooded murder of Israeli children will have the effect of making Israelis less willing to believe they can accept Palestinians as their neighbors and live in peace.
Israelis today are consumed with grief, but they are watching how the world reacts. They are watching how Palestinians react.
I, for one, am convinced that the vast majority of Israelis would strongly support, even advocate and push for a withdrawal from the West Bank if they really believed that they would be safe living alongside a Palestinian state. These attacks undermine their confidence. They provide evidence to back the claim that Palestinians will never let that happen, that what they really want is to destroy Israel.
In the hours after we learned that bodies of the three teens -- Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16 and Naftali Frankel, 16 -- had been found under a pile of rocks in a field near Hebron, reaction has been predictable and often disheartening, just as it was when we found out someone had kidnapped them on June 12.
Frankel, it's worth noting, was an American citizen, which brings up the question of how the United States will respond to his killing. Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier that "many indications point to Hamas involvement," noting that Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by many countries, has used kidnappings in the past. The FBI says it has launched an investigation.
The atrocities were swiftly condemned by some countries. On social media, there has been a flurry of accusations against Israel ahead of what is expected to be a strong Israeli reaction against Hamas, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is absolutely sure carried out the operation.
But others were slow to comment. It took the European Union's foreign policy chief almost a week to condemn the kidnappings. She did it only after Israel complained about European silence.
Days earlier, Israeli forces rushed into the West Bank in an urgent and ultimately unsuccessful effort to find the three before they were killed. The military deployment produced clashes with protesters in which five Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers. That received a great deal of attention.
The mothers of the kidnapped students appealed for help at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, describing "every mother's nightmare...waiting and waiting endlessly for her child to come home." They described their children, one was an amateur pastry chef. Another "loves to play guitar and basketball. He's a good student and a good boy," said a heartbroken Racheli Frankel of her son Neftali.
But the Human Rights Council reacted to her tearful words with chilling indifference.
Many others, including human rights organizations, tempered their criticism of the kidnapping by calling the boys "settlers." The truth is that two of the three did not live on the West Bank. They lived west of the Green Line well inside Israel. The third lived in a settlement called Efrat, in the Gush Etzion area, which was in Jewish hands before the 1967 war, even before the 1948 war, and even Jimmy Carter, a harsh critic of Israeli settlement, agrees it will remain in Israel after a Palestinian state is created. Every peace plan has agreed.
But that's hardly relevant. The teens were students, not warriors. Kidnappings are immoral. Murder is inhuman.
For some Palestinians, the kidnapping was cause for celebration. A new three-finger salute became popular, marking the capture of three Israelis. The Facebook page for Fatah, the Palestinian Authority's main party, had a number of cartoons, including one showing the three teenagers as Jewish rats, wearing yarmulkes, caught on a fishing line.
To his great credit, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the kidnapping. For that, he came under fierce criticism. Hamas, which is now part of the Palestinian Authority government in a unity deal with Fatah, made no effort to conceal its glee.
Hamas denies it had anything to do with the kidnapping. But earlier, its exiled chief, Khaled Meshal, was ambiguous about responsibility, saying only "I congratulate the abductors."
Opinion: Slain teens call for justice, not escalation
When Israeli authorities named two Hamas members as the perpetrators, the mother of one of the men told Israeli television "If he did it, I'll be proud of him." She joins other Palestinian mothers proud of children who commit murder, adding to Israelis' doubts about future coexistence.
Israelis are watching closely to see what Abbas does about his unity deal with Hamas, an organization that is openly committed to Israel's destruction. If Israel can show definitive proof that Hamas was indeed behind the kidnapping and killing, it is inconceivable that Abbas would let the unity deal stand. It is even more inconceivable that the United States and Europe would continue providing millions to support the Palestinian Authority under those conditions.
This killing hurts Israelis and Palestinians who want peace. The only way this tragedy could be turned into a positive step would be if the Palestinians who support reconciliation, who are outraged by what happened, would speak out loudly against it. That would spark a positive reaction and create energy toward reconciliation. Can that happen? In this atmosphere, we can only hope for a positive surprise.
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The mighty women of World War I
7/2/2014 8:53:55 PM
- Belinda Davis: World War I changed women across globe in ways that affect us today
- She says they took up "men's work," supported home front and raised kids in privation
- She says male society struggled with how to acknowledge women after war
- Davis: Family tensions returned with soldiers, still women got vote in many nations
Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series on the legacies of World War I. It will appear on CNN.com/Opinion in the weeks leading up to the 100-year anniversary of the war's outbreak in August. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is guest editor for the series. Belinda Davis is professor and vice chair for graduate studies in the Department of History at Rutgers University. She is author of "Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin" (Chapel Hill 2000); and co-editor of "Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Transnational Identities in 1960s/70s, West Germany and the U.S." (New York 2012).
(CNN) -- Some 100 years ago, a woman in Pittsburgh or St. Denis in France or Petrograd, Russia, might have awakened at dawn, while her young children slept, to prepare for her first shift at a nearby munitions factory. Her husband, off fighting in World War I, had left her to test the limits of her own physical ability, as she provided food, shelter, warmth for her family, sometimes confronting great physical danger at work -- perhaps, for example, hanging suspended to load powerful explosives into the shells that other women had produced.
When her work day was done, she went looking for food to buy, often standing in line for hours for scarce basic goods, scrounged for hard-to-come-by fuel to feed the furnace and cooked dinner. She washed the children, put them to bed, cleaned up and wrote a letter to her husband, keeping her worry off the page, before sleeping a few hours. And then she got up and did it again.
A century ago, as nations and empires began mobilizing to send 65 million men to war, millions of women across the globe moved to fill in the holes created in civilian society. From Britain to Bosnia to Baghdad, across the United States and Europe and India and Africa, women would become single heads of household in unprecedented numbers.
The first World War began August 4, 1914, in the wake of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28 of that year. In the next two months, CNN.com/Opinion will feature articles on the weapons of war, its language, the role of women, battlefield injuries and the rise of aerial surveillance.
They would serve directly on the battlefields as nurses and ambulance drivers and cooks. Yet they also had to keep their nations' home fronts running, moving into "men's" jobs, from smelting iron, to driving streetcars, to plowing fields -- as well as working to administer new public and private organizations in support of the war.
How a century-old war affects you
The war changed life for women, and it changed the women themselves. When men returned from war, they inevitably tried to reassert their dominance in family and society. But their own broken conditions and circumstances at home challenged these attempts.
Women once again had to navigate a tricky terrain laid by men. Yet women had displayed to the world and to themselves their competence in "total war." Indeed, the war created a lasting legacy for women, marked by new political rights in many countries -- and marked also by widespread and enduring anxiety over rising feminine power.
In 1914, women were not new to the paid workforce. Individual industrial jobs were often considered as specifically for women or for men; entire industries, such as textiles, were "women's industries," while men dominated in metal forges and machine factories. While wealthier women continued to shun paid work, by the turn of the century, lower-middle-class women had begun moving heavily into positions as clerks and secretaries, and women remained central to farming labor.
But with the declaration of war, economic shifts and official pressure pushed them increasingly into war production and into "men's" jobs (even as, in France, authorities contradicted themselves and confused women by urging them rather to stay at home and have more babies). If only 170,000 women in Britain worked in metal factories on the eve of war, by its end in 1918, there were nearly 600,000.
In the United States and Great Britain, women confronted wartime shortages of food and housing.
As they took on jobs outside the home, many relied on irregular child care or were forced to leave children without care. While, as in other combatant countries, American women generally strove to "do their part" for the war effort and accepted official assignments of war-related work, from factory work to food distribution, some balked at having to "register" with authorities.
How World War I gave us 'cooties'
British propaganda posters declaring soldiers' dependence on female munitions workers gave women a sense that their labor contributions would be important and acknowledged.
Yet, even as women munitions workers faced heavy labor and harsh conditions -- along with danger such as in the Barnbow National Factory explosion of 1916 near Leeds, England, that killed 35 -- others condemned them for the relatively high wages they earned. It was a reflection of class tensions raised by the restructured wartime economy and women's role in it.
British authorities offered small "separation allowances," subsidies to soldiers' families based on the loss of income, and in turn assumed the right to check up on soldiers' wives, to make sure they were not drinking or sleeping with other men.
A woman who followed her own factory shift with dancing or a quick drink at the pub confronted public accusations of being a "flaunting flapper" or an "amateur girl" -- effectively a prostitute -- even as fellow male workers and soldiers on leave might proposition and harass her.
Some women felt new "freedom" during the war; others saw changing "moral standards" as the result of women who had seen their men "swallowed up in that ever-increasing wave of death ..."
In continental Europe, where the war was actually fought, conditions on the home front were even more challenging. Many women took on "men's work" to support the war effort and to ensure their families' survival but also found themselves subject to still more controlling government policies that came with "total war." Women living in captured territories suffered added misery, billeting and serving often abusive foreign soldiers.
The 'bionic men' of World War I
In Italy, urban women were effectively drafted into agricultural labor. Women farmers were, however, little mollified by this motley work force intended to substitute for missing men and draught animals. In European cities, women often stood in line for hours for a chance to purchase spoiled potatoes; together with barefoot children, they tried to scavenge food and fuel from public parks, a practice that had become a full-time job in itself
In Germany, a 1916 policy reserved scarce food supplies only for women who worked in munitions factories, as officials announced that "the entire remaining civilian population, including women, were to be militarized through this plan." In the extraordinarily frigid winter of 1916-17, as schools shut down for lack of heat, the policy left few adults available to care for children.
By the end of hostilities, the war had transformed women's lives.
In many warring nations, acknowledging women's contributions became critical to warding off challenges to politicians' own power in the tumultuous postwar conditions, across Europe especially. Women won voting rights during hostilities or soon after in the United States, Canada and Great Britain; in the German Republic and the new Soviet republics; and in the new states of Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Economic rights were a different matter.
Demobilizing soldiers and groups claiming to represent them pressured officials and factory owners alike to "make room" in the workforce for returning men by laying off all women although women frequently remained the only potential earners in their households. This was one manifestation of powerful and contentious culture wars over the desirability and even possibility of returning to some halcyon past -- one that, like today, was in part imagined.
Battles ensued across European and North American societies over how to otherwise recognize women's work during the war.
Should newly impoverished women receive government assistance on the basis of their wartime contributions or only as dependents of wounded or fallen soldiers -- or perhaps not at all?
In Britain, authorities shunned the arguments of women's groups and deferred rather to claims of the need to put men back in their "proper" role of economic power, by retaining the wartime notion of benefits deriving only through the husband.
In Germany and Russia, conversely, women were now in principle to have equal status, though the practice did not always follow the principle. The divided attitudes about the value of female work that informed these debates lingers today.
The flood of some 50,000,000 men back home at war's end in 1918 and 1919 also brought new tensions into family life. Returning soldiers imagined home as a refuge of normality after the nightmare of war. Yet men's physical and psychological injuries often precluded any return to their prewar existences, as did the social and economic upheaval of these years.
What was "normal" had of course changed for the women left behind. With their new roles and autonomy, they were often blamed for this world turned upside down. Such gender conflicts lasted through the 20th century and beyond, like many other legacies of World War I.
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Did Facebook violate ethics?
7/2/2014 8:57:29 PM
- Facebook conducted a study on nearly 700,000 users by manipulating their news feeds
- Robert Klitzman: Facebook basically tried to alter people's mood without their knowledge
- He says despite Facebook's user policy, this study violates accepted research ethics
- Klitzman: We should try to avoid as much as possible becoming human guinea pigs
Editor's note: Robert Klitzman is a professor of psychiatry and director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University. He is author of the forthcoming book, "The Ethics Police?: The Struggle to Make Human Research Safe." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Like many people, I use Facebook to keep up with friends about all kinds of things -- deaths, births, the latest fads, jokes.
So I was disturbed to learn about an article, "Experimental Evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks" published last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
Facebook had subjected nearly 700,000 users in an experiment without their knowledge, manipulating these individuals' news feeds, reducing positive or negative content, and examining the emotions of these individuals' subsequent posts.
Facebook essentially sought to manipulate people's mood. This is not a trivial undertaking. What if a depressed person became more depressed? Facebook says that the effect wasn't large, but it was large enough for the authors to publish the study in a major science journal.
This experiment is scandalous and violates accepted research ethics.
In 1974, following revelations of ethical violations in the Tuskegee Syphilis study, Congress passed the National Research Act. At Tuskegee, researchers followed African-American men with syphilis for decades and did not tell the subjects when penicillin became available as an effective treatment. The researchers feared that the subjects, if informed, would take the drug and be cured, ending the experiment.
Public outcry led to federal regulations governing research on humans, requiring informed consent. These rules pertain, by law, to all studies conducted using federal funds, but have been extended by essentially all universities and pharmaceutical and biotech companies in this country to cover all research on humans, becoming the universally-accepted standard.
According to these regulations, all research must respect the rights of individual research subjects, and scientific investigators must therefore explain to participants the purposes of the study, describe the procedures (and which of these are experimental) and "any reasonably foreseeable risks or discomforts."
Facebook followed none of these mandates. The company has argued that the study was permissible because the website's data use policy states, "we may use the information we receive about you...for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement," and that "we may make friend suggestions, pick stories for your News Feed or suggest people to tag in photos."
But while the company is not legally required to follow this law, two of the study's three authors are affiliated with universities -- Cornell and the University of California at San Francisco -- that publicly uphold this standard.
The National Research Act led to the establishment of local research ethics committees, known as Institutional Review Boards (or IRBs), which can waive the informed consent requirement in certain instances, provided, "whenever appropriate, the subjects will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation" -- that is, researchers should "debrief" the participants afterwards.
Such a debriefing apparently did not occur here, but easily could have. Facebook said it reviewed the research internally, but there is no evidence that that review was by an IRB or met the standards of the federal regulations.
Moreover, the journal, PNAS, mandates that "all experiments have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki," which also dictates that subjects be informed of the study's "aims, methods...and the discomfort it may entail."
The lead author, Adam Kramer, apologized on Facebook, writing, "my coauthors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused." But that statement falls far short. The problem is not only how the study was described, but how it was conducted.
Many researchers try to avoid having to obtain appropriate informed consent, since they worry that potential subjects, if asked, would refuse to participate. Pharmaceutical, insurance and Internet companies and others are increasingly studying us, acquiring massive amounts of data about us -- about not only our Internet use, but our genomes and medical records. Many medical centers are building enormous biobanks. Countless websites now examine our behavior online. They ask us to scroll down and click "I accept," assuming we're unlikely to read the dense legalese and simply accept their terms.
In July 2011, President Obama released proposals to improve the current system of oversight on human research. The federal Office of Human Research Protections received public comments for a few months but appears to have put this on the back burner.
Social scientists have complained that the current regulations are onerous and that their research should be excused from IRB review.
The current system is overly bureaucratic and needs reform. But as this controversial Facebook experiment suggests, it should not be scrapped.
Good experiments benefit society. But in their zeal to conduct research, some social scientists overlook how their studies may impinge on people's rights. As the amount of research on humans continues to grow, more violations will probably occur. We should try to avoid as much as possible becoming human guinea pigs.
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Anger spills over as family condemns 'reprisal' murder
7/2/2014 7:21:15 PM
- NEW: Israeli military says its airstrikes were focused on 15 Hamas targets in Gaza
- NEW: Palestinian medical sources: At least 10 are hurt in the strikes, 1 seriously
- This comes amid Palestinian anger over the kidnapping, killing of a teen
- Israel vows to get those responsible; late teen's father blames Netanyahu
Jerusalem (CNN) -- The discovery of a slain Palestinian teen in Jerusalem early Wednesday further inflamed tensions in a region already unsettled over the killings of three Israeli teens, not to mention decades of entrenched enmity between all sides.
Mohammad Abu Khedair, 17, was heading from his home to a mosque in the middle-class neighborhood of Shuafat for prayers around 4 a.m. when three men forced him into a car and drove off, his father, Hussain Abu Khedair, told CNN. His body was found about an hour later at a forest in Jerusalem.
The killing quickly triggered condemnations from Palestinian and Israeli leaders, as well as from the United States.
Abducted Palestinian teen was kind, beloved
Those who spoke out passionately included an uncle of one of the three Israeli teens whose bodies were found earlier this week. He called the young Palestinian's killing "a forbidden action, and it has no forgiveness."
"Any act of revenge of any kind whatsoever is completely inappropriate and wrong. Murder is murder," said Yishai Frankel, uncle of Naftali Frankel, a 16-year-old dual Israeli-American citizen, to Israel's Channel 2. "One should not differentiate between bloods, be it Arab or Jew.
Israeli authorities are probing Wednesday's death, with police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeting this effort will try to determine if it is a "criminal or nationalistic" act -- the latter term referring to a politically motivated act in retaliation for the Israeli teens' killings.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN late Wednesday that investigators "at this stage cannot say who did this killing." This came hours after Netanyahu's office promised a speedy investigation to find "who is behind this despicable murder and the background to this act," according to a statement from his office.
"Netanyahu calls on all sides not to take the law into their own hands. Israel is a country of law and everyone is ordered to act according to the law."
The killing riled many Palestinians, particularly in Jerusalem. But it didn't happen in isolation.
Israelis and Palestinians continue to trade blows -- over longstanding issues unrelated to Abu Khedair's death -- through rocket attacks and airstrikes.
All this violence, from various angles, leads to one big question: When will it stop?
Report: Body was 'charred and bore signs of violence'
"Settlers" kidnapped the teenager and his body "was charred and bore signs of violence," according to the Palestinian state news agency WAFA. DNA, through saliva samples, was used to positively identify the boy, his father said.
Rosenfeld told the Jerusalem Post the teen had significant burn marks. The same Israeli publication also reported police are looking into previous kidnap attempts on members of the teenager's family related to a personal dispute.
Yet Hussain Abu Khedair, the boy's father, blamed Israelis and vehemently denied reports that this may have been tied to any sort of family dispute.
"Netanyahu is responsible for the crime," the father told CNN, "because he is the one who is giving the settlers the cover and supporting them."
The teen's cousin, Majdi Abu Khedair, said whoever carried out the abduction was driving a car that had been used in an attempted abduction two days ago. A similar claim was made to Haaretz by Knesset member Ahmed Tibi.
The cousin passionately suggested: "The Israeli police and Israeli government should do the same as they have done in Hebron: Demolish and blow the settler houses who have done this crime."
The Israeli military destroyed the homes of the two suspects in the killings of the three Israeli teens.
When confronted with this suggestion, Regev insisted "we are totally color blind when it comes to this sort of criminal act."
"There's no difference between a Jewish resident of Jerusalem or an Arab resident of Jerusalem," the spokesman said. "... Police will get to the bottom of this."
"It is sickening to think of an innocent 17-year-old boy snatched off the streets and his life stolen from him and his family," said Secretary of State of John Kerry, who talked with Netanyahu by phone about the situation. "There are no words to convey adequately our condolences to the Palestinian people."
He noted that both Israeli and Palestinian officials have condemned it, and he added to Netanyahu's call. "Those who undertake acts of vengeance only destabilize an already explosive and emotional situation."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah party and is based in the West Bank, called Mohammad Abu Khedair's father and promised that those behind his abduction and death will be brought to justice, WAFA, the Palestinian state news agency, reported.
And Hamas -- the militant Islamic organization that controls Gaza -- said in a statement that it holds the "Israeli occupation (fully) responsible," adding that the incident "exposes (Israel's) ugly ... racism" and "refutes the Israeli narration of being the victim all the time."
Anger, clashes in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem
As news of the boy's death spread, public anger in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem rose to levels rarely, if ever, seen since the Second Intifada, or uprising, last decade.
That led to several clashes around the city, the biggest of which was centered in Shuafat.
Residents there threw stones at security forces and the Israeli authorities responded with occasional volleys of stun grenades or tear gas. Some protesters attacked two Palestinians whom they mistook for undercover Israeli police, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The clashes expanded and continued through midnight in the Palestinian neighborhood, with a large amount of Israeli forces on hand.
In Suwwaneh, Palestinians threw rocks at a nearby settlement and several of them were injured by rubber bullets, witnesses said. And some tossed Molotov cocktails at an Israel settlement in Silwan, outside Jerusalem's Old City.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that more than 100 were injured, most of them in Shuafat, in the clashes.
Israeli airstrikes into Gaza
Meanwhile, the dangerous back-and-forth between Gaza and Israel was erupting yet again.
Rockets from the Palestinian territory into Israel was met by at least eight airstrikes within about an hour early Thursday.
Three hit a Hamas intelligence building in Gaza city, while at least one struck the Qassam training camp in Beit Hanoun.
Palestinian medical sources reported at least 10 injured, one of them seriously.
Israel Defense Forces said the airstrikes -- going after 15 Hamas targets -- were in response to the firing of more than 20 rockets into Israel since Wednesday.
This is in addition to other actions -- including the arrests of hundreds of Hamas activists, the demolition of homes and the closure of dozens of institutions in Gaza, according to Netanyahu -- targeting Hamas and focused in Gaza. This action follows the abduction of Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frankel as they were on their way home from school June 13; the three were found dead on Monday in a West Bank field.
Hamas praised the kidnappings but denied that it was responsible for what happened. It warned that if Netanyahu "brings a war on Gaza, the gates of hell will open to him."
At the teens' funerals, Netanyahu said the country would avenge their deaths at "the hands of evil men."
"A broad moral gulf separates us from our enemies," he said. "They sanctify death; we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty and we mercy and compassion. That is the secret of our strength."
Opinion: Teens' killing hurts Israelis, bad for Palestinians
Opinion: Slain teens call for justice, not escalation
CNN's Kareem Khadder reported from Jerusalem; Greg Botelho and Josh Levs reported from Atlanta. CNN's Atika Shubert, Ben Wedeman, Jethro Mullen, Michael Schwartz and Ali Younes contributed to this report.
Heroes, villains caught on camera
7/2/2014 10:09:03 PM
- Getty photographer Mike Hewitt captured iconic image of Maradona
- Former World Cup winner coached Argentina in theatrical style
- Hewitt also took image of stand out moment in 2010 final
- Nigel de Jong's kung-fu kick on Xabi Alonso shocked those watching
How are you celebrating the World Cup? Join the global conversation on CNN's Facebook Pulse
(CNN) -- Diego Maradona was a mesmerizing presence on the pitch during four World Cup finals as a player.
When he returned to football's biggest stage in 2010 as coach of Argentina, it soon became clear that his capacity to entertain remained undimmed.
His theatrical displays from the touchline during Argentina's matches became one of the unexpected highlights of the tournament.
Mike Hewitt, senior staff photographer at Getty Images, had a ringside seat as Maradona took charge for his first competitive World Cup finals match against Nigeria at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium.
"You just know that this was going to be a worldwide story," Hewitt told CNN's Sports Photo Masterclass series.
"I decided to try and sit as close to the dugout as I could get away with -- just to get a portrait or a reaction shot. I wanted to get in, get that feeling of what it's like to be part of that bench when and if Argentina scored."
It's quite a careful balancing act taking photos in these situations," adds Hewitt. "You don't want to get too close and start upsetting someone.
"But Maradona didn't seem to care. I don't think he even noticed I was there."
When Gabriel Heinze's diving header had the net bulging in the sixth minute, Hewitt took his chance.
"Obviously, there's a huge element of luck involved in it," the photographer concedes, pointing to the substitute on the left of the photo who jumped out of the dugout when he celebrated. "I'm glad he did it there and not bang in front of Maradona or I would have missed the picture."
It's an iconic image, he thinks -- one that brings Maradona's World Cup story up to date.
"He's a man that practically won it single-handedly for Argentina back in 1986 (in Mexico) and then was banned," Hewitt says referring to Maradona's ignominious exit from the 1994 U.S. tournament after testing positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine.
"For him to them come back as coach for the Argentinian team -- the whole world wants to know what's going to happen."
Maradona's last finals as a player in 1994 was also the scene of Hewitt's debut as a World Cup photographer.
Back then he was still using film, sending reels back to the office for processing with pictures ready for clients usually within a couple of hours.
"In Brazil, I'll be sending pictures instantly to the editors within a second of it actually happening," says Hewitt.
"It will be edited and cropped and captioned and then beamed to the world so people have it in two minutes."
Technology hasn't just helped make sports photography become more efficient, it's also helped it evolve.
"You're constantly under pressure because it's a competitive industry," adds Hewitt.
"There might be upwards of 200 photographers on the pitch and people are just looking for the absolute best image of a particular incident."
Hewitt, 52, has thrived in that cutthroat environment, and came up trumps a second time in South Africa when he captured the moment Dutchman Nigel de Jong's right boot violently connected with Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso's chest.
"It was a very feisty final. It happened very quickly, out of the blue, so I was just fortunate that I was in the right position to get the kung fu kick."
Where do I start?
Shoot park football. You don't need enormous expensive lens and you can get really close to the action.
Do I need a big fancy camera?
No, some of the amateur cameras are superb. Most have a fast-ish motordrive that shoot four or five frames a second.
Key things to remember?
Try and fill the frame as much as possible. Make the quality as good as you can.
Check where the light is coming from. Avoid shooting around midday -- it makes your job a lot easier when the sun is lower.
Sitting on the touchline level with the 18-yard line, Hewitt took the shot using his 400 mm lens.
"Because it was a night game under floodlights you're shooting wide open -- a very large aperture -- so the depth of field on these images is very small, maybe about six inches.
"But it's good because it throws the background out (of focus) completely and isolates the players very well. I must have shot it at about 1/1,000th of a second."
De Jong escaped with a booking -- one of 14 in the match -- but the tackle became perhaps the defining image of the final which Spain went onto win 1-0 after extra time.
"It's quite an iconic image from a World Cup final -- they don't come around very often," Hewitt says.
"There's a large element of luck involved -- being in the right place at the right time -- but you still have to get the image."
Hewitt experience extends across the sporting spectrum with a portfolio that includes six Olympic Games, four cricket World Cups, four rugby World Cups and two round the world yacht races to his name.
For now, another World Cup final at Rio's Maracana Stadium awaits Hewitt.
Not bad for a man who started out as an amateur snapper shooting park football on Hackney Marshes in east London.
"We get to go to some great places and cover some great events. I had the pleasure of photographing the Beach Soccer World Cup in Tahiti (in 2013) which was magnificent," he says.
"It's times like these where you think: 'well, life doesn't get any better.'"
Next week, Mike Hewitt discusses an incredible image of Lionel Messi in full flow
WHO: 'Drastic action needed' on Ebola
7/2/2014 11:30:10 PM
- At least 759 cases have been reported since March
- WHO is going to send teams to help locals fight the epidemic
- Ebola virus outbreaks are usually confined to remote areas, but this one is different
(CNN) -- The Ebola epidemic isn't getting any better in Africa.
The World Health Organization reports there have been 759 cases, including 467 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since the outbreak began in March, according to a statement the organization released on Tuesday.
The World Health Organization has said "drastic action is needed" to stop the deadly outbreak in West Africa. It has sent teams of experts to help locals deal with the epidemic. WHO will meet this week to discuss how to contain it.
Relief workers on the ground said the epidemic has hit unprecedented proportions.
"The epidemic is out of control," said Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders.
Complicating matters, the countries hit hardest by the epidemic have major medical infrastructure challenges. There is also a real sense of mistrust toward health workers from communities. In Sierra Leone and Guinea, WHO has said that community members have thrown stones at health care workers trying to investigate the outbreak.
In April, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Conakry, Guinea, to report on what was being done to treat patients and contain the outbreak.
"It took only moments to feel the impact of what was happening here," Gupta wrote after landing in Conakry. "There is a lot we know about Ebola, and it scares us almost as much as what we don't know."
Ebola outbreaks usually are confined to remote areas, making the disease easier to contain. But this outbreak is different; patients have been identified in 60 locations in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Officials believe the wide footprint of this outbreak is partly because of the proximity between the jungle where the virus was first identified and cities such as Conakry. The capital in Guinea has a population of 2 million and an international airport.
People are traveling without realizing they're carrying the deadly virus. It can take between two and 21 days after exposure for someone to feel sick.
Ebola is a violent killer. The symptoms, at first, mimic the flu: headache, fever, fatigue. What comes next sounds like something out of a horror movie: significant diarrhea and vomiting, while the virus shuts off the blood's ability to clot.
As a result, patients often suffer internal and external hemorrhaging. Many die in an average of 10 days.
Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, has been working to fight the epidemic since March. The group has sent more than 300 staff members and 40 tons of equipment and supplies to the region to help fight the epidemic.
Still, the group warns, it's not enough.
"Despite the human resources and equipment deployed by MSF in the three affected countries, we are no longer able to send teams to the new outbreak sites."
The good news is that Ebola isn't as easily spread as one may think. A patient isn't contagious -- meaning they can't spread the virus to other people -- until they are already showing symptoms.
Serious protective measures
Inside the isolation treatment areas in Conakry, doctors focus on keeping the patients hydrated with IV drips and other liquid nutrients. Health officials have urged residents to seek treatment at the first sign of flu-like symptoms.
There is no cure or vaccine to treat Ebola, but MSF has shown it doesn't have to be a death sentence if it's treated early. Ebola typically kills 90% of patients. This outbreak, the death rate has dropped to roughly 60%.
The outbreak will be considered contained after 42 days -- twice the incubation period -- with no new Ebola cases.
READ: Get the fast facts on Ebola
READ: We're aliens in Ebola's world
READ: What is Ebola and why does it kill?
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