Cape Verde rarely played international football some 25 years ago but now head to next year's finals in North America as one of the nine African representatives.
Captain Mohamed Salah scored for Egypt as they eased to a 2-0 victory over Ethiopia in their 2026 World Cup qualifier on Friday, but 2022 semi-finalists Morocco needed a late winner from Bilal El Khannouss to defeat unfancied Niger.
Flexing its muscles over Taiwan, China on Monday sailed its aircraft carrier close to the estranged island amid tensions with the US following President-elect Donald Trump's telephone call with the Taiwanese president.
Argentina moved back into the top 10 of the FIFA rankings on Wednesday and Brazil also climbed, although the two South American giants were upstaged by tiny Sao Tome and Principe, who leapt 53 places.
Thanks to celebrity activism and widespread media attention, the magazine notes, HIV, malaria and starvation are well-known diseases of the third world. But there's another resource-draining plague afflicting these countries - smoking.
Indian national football team slumped to its worst-ever FIFA rankings, 171, in the 209-nation chart.
Factbox explaining how the voting system will work at the FIFA presidential election on Friday.
The third Lusofonia Games, slated to be held in Goa in November, have been postponed to January due to the slow progress of infrastructure work. The Games of 'Lusophone' (Portuguese-speaking countries) will now be held from January 18 to 29, 2014.
About 77 per cent of girls aged between 15 and 19 in India have been subjected to sexual violence by their spouses, according to a report by UNICEF which said more than half of the girls in the age group faced physical abuse at the hands of their parents.
'Chinese pressure on Taiwan is unlikely to ease till Beijing feels that stability is being restored in the Sino-US relationship,' says former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.