“The official mascot of Africa’s first World Cup — a stuffed leopard with spiked green hair — was made in China. The official World Cup anthem, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” was written by the Colombian pop star Shakira. The official restaurant? McDonald’s. And with less than three weeks before the world’s most watched sporting event, only 36,000 of the almost three million tickets have been sold in Africa outside of South Africa itself, the host. On a continent whose people mostly live on the wrong side of the digital divide, tickets were mainly marketed online.” (NYT)