2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is the 20th FIFA World Cup, a tournament for the men's football world championship, that is currently taking place in Brazil.

It began on 12 June, with a group stage, and is scheduled to conclude on 13 July with the final.[1] It is the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the first being in 1950. Brazil was elected unchallenged as host nation in 2007 after the international football federation, FIFA, decreed that the tournament would be staged in South America for the first time since 1978 in Argentina, and the fifth time overall.

The national teams of 31 countries advanced through qualification competitions that began in June 2011 to participate with the host nation Brazil in the final tournament. A total of 64 matches are being played in 12 cities across Brazil in either new or redeveloped stadiums. For the first time at a World Cup finals, match officials are using goal-line technology, as well as vanishing foam for free kicks.

With the host country, all world champion teams since the first World Cup in 1930 – Argentina, England, France, Germany (who won three times as West Germany), Italy, Spain and Uruguay – have qualified for this competition. Spain were the title holders, having defeated the Netherlands 1–0 in the 2010 final to win their first World Cup but they were eliminated after losses in the first two matches at the group stage against Chile and the Netherlands. All seven previous World Cup tournaments staged in the Americas (four in South America and three in North America) were won by South American teams.

WHITE NIGHTS

The White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia is an annual international arts festival during the season of the midnight sun. The White Nights Festival consists of a series of classical ballet, opera and music events and includes performances by Russian dancers, singers, musicians and actors, as well as famous international guest stars. The Scarlet Sails celebration is the culmination of the White Nights season, the largest public event anywhere in Russia with the annual estimated attendance about one million people, most of whom are students from thousands of schools and colleges, both local and international.

Organised by the Saint Petersburg City Administration, the festival begins in May with the "Stars of the White Nights" at Mariinsky Theatre and ends in July. However, some performances connected to the festival take place before and after the official dates.

Numerous night-time cultural festivals, White Night festivals, have been inspired by this, in French they are called Nuit Blanche.

The "Stars of the White Nights" (Музыкальный фестиваль «Звезды белых ночей») is a series of classical ballet, opera and orchestral performances at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Mariinsky Concert Hall, as the essential part of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. The artistic director of the festival is Valery Gergiev.[1] During the festival, there are daily evening performances at the Mariinsky Theatre (either ballet or opera) and almost daily evening performances at the Mariinsky Concert Hall (either classical concert or opera-in-concert). Usually evening performances start at 7 pm, but sometimes may also start at 6 pm or 8 pm. In addition, sometimes there are morning or daytime performances as well, that can start either at 12 am, or at 2 pm or at 4 pm.

The "Stars of the White Nights" festival was originally started by the first mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, and has been held annually since 1993. Some of the stars who performed here include Plácido Domingo, Olga Borodina, Alfred Brendel, Anna Netrebko, Carlo Maria Giulini, Yuri Temirkanov, Gidon Kremer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alexander Toradze, Deborah Voigt, James Conlon and many other classical performers.

The "Stars of the White Nights Festival" runs from May through July (usually from the 2nd half of May till the 2nd half of July) at the Mariinsky Theatre and the newly built Mariinsky Concert Hall - one of the best-sounding halls in the world. For 2008, expect world-class performances by Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Alfred Brendel, Maxim Vengerov, Maria Guleghina, Bryn Terfel and Thomas Hampson, not to mention the ultimate Mariinsky ballerinas Ulyana Lopatkina and Diana Vishneva.

Tickets to the Festival performances: because of the high demand, usually tickets are sold out several weeks or even months before the performance date. Especially for the ones with Valery Gergiev participation. If you are a traveler to St. Petersburg, it is better to buy tickets in advance - getting tickets on the spot after your arrival to St. Petersburg may become quite expensive.


The Scarlet Sails celebration in St. Petersburg is the most famous public event during the White Nights, known in Russian as "Alye Parusa" festivity. The event is highly popular for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year: "Scarlet Sails" celebration in St. Petersburg

This tradition began here after the end of World War II, when schools united to celebrate the ending of a school year in connection with symbolism of the popular children's book "Scarlet Sails" by Alexander Grin. At that time a boat with scarlet sails was sailing along the English Embankment and the Admiralty Embankment towards the Winter Palace. Although it was designed to update the rusty revolutionary propaganda, the "Scarlet Sails" tradition has become a popular public event, annually celebrating the ending of the school year in June. The "Scarlet sails" appearance is now the most popular part of the White Nights celebration.

The popularity of both the book and the tradition was boosted after the 1961 release of the movie titled "Alye parusa" ("Scarlet sails" in English), starring Anastasiya Vertinskaya and Vasily Lanovoy.

Carnivals of the White Nights
A series of carnivals take place during the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. The largest and most internationally renowned carnival takes place in the Peterhof suburb of St. Petersburg. There actors dressed in period costumes from the times of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great give performances reproducing some of the historic events of that period. Period carriages are ridden around the Peterhof park as part of the carnival.

Carnivals at the Catherine Palace and in the Pavlovsk suburb of St. Petersburg are renowned for their highly artistic reproduction of the historic events that took place at those palaces. Period carriages are driven around the Catherine park as part of the carnival entertainment.

The Palace Square in St. Petersburg serves as a natural stage for numerous carnival events and appearances showing period costumes of the Tsars and Tsarinas.

Star performances at the Palace Square


Palace Square with the Alexander Column view from the Winter Palace
Every summer in St. Petersburg the Palace Square becomes a stage for international stars of popular music. This wide square has been used for official military parades and massive demonstrations, as well as for political events and large-scale shows and other entertainment. The most recent appearances were those of Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Scorpions & other stars.

Star appearances are usually connected with the White Nights, though some appearances may not coincide with the time of the White Nights Festival because of individual schedules or other reasons (such as the postponement of The Rolling Stones' appearance in 2006 owing to the temporary disability of Keith Richards). In July 2007, they rolled their show in front of the Tsar's Winter Palace before a crowd of 50 thousand Russian fans.

White Nights Festival in the media
Several film festivals take place around the time of the White Nights Festival.

During the entire season of the White Nights the St. Petersburg news media, newspapers and television are focused on the White Nights Festival, showcasing its numerous events.

Ian Somerhalder Foundation

MISSION
The Ian Somerhalder Foundation aims to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures.

BACKGROUND
Founded by actor Ian Somerhalder in 2010, the Ian Somerhalder Foundation (IS FOUNDATION) is dedicated to protecting the environment and animals. The IS FOUNDATION is comprised of a group of people who view the environment as an interconnected organism of which we are not separate but a part of. There is no differentiation between all living things: trees, rivers, animals and humans. We are all one interdependent organism.

INITIATIVES
Nature does not behave independently. It works in unison with all its elements. Working independently to transform our planet is like trying to playing a violin with no strings. Communities of businesses, organizations, people and projects must begin to connect resources and skills to passions and projects. The IS Foundation will behave in full collaborative spirit by joining with other non-profit, for-profit and governing bodies globally to:

1. Distribute funds and resources towards global conservation, green energy development/deployment and educational tools.

2. Create awareness that global deforestation can be seen as a national/international and global security risk.

3. Create mobility by engaging and supporting the most powerful, yet disregarded, disrespected and overlooked population on the planet – our youth.

4. End animal cruelty and promote programs such as: “species specific sterilization drugs”; transfer and re-train abandoned animals into assistive and therapy guides.

5. Support and creating sustainable strategies for “no-kill shelters”.

MICHAEL JACKSON

Jackson was born Michael Joseph Jackson in Gary, Indiana on August 29, 1958, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His father Joe Jackson had been a guitarist, but was forced to give up his musical ambitions, following his marriage to Katherine (Scruse). Together, they prodded their growing family's musical interests at home. By the early 1960s, the older boys Jackie, Tito and Jermaine had begun performing around the city; by 1964, Michael and Marlon had joined in.

A musical prodigy, Michael's singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the dominant voice and focus of the Jackson 5. An opening act for such soul groups as the O-Jays and James Brown, it was Gladys Knight (not Diana Ross) who officially brought the group to Berry Gordy's attention, and by 1969, the boys were producing back-to-back chart-busting hits as Motown artists ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Got to Be There," etc.). As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as one of the most accomplished black pop / soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon.

Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, "Thriller" in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978), but had much better luck with elaborate music videos.

In the 1990s, the downside as an 1980s pop phenomenon began to rear itself. Michael grew terribly child-like and introverted by his peerless celebrity. A rather timorous, androgynous figure to begin with, his physical appearance began to change drastically, and his behavior grew alarmingly bizarre, making him a consistent target for scandal-making, despite his numerous charitable acts. Two brief marriages -- one to Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley -- were forged and two children produced by his second wife during that time, but the purposes behind them appeared image-oriented. Despite it all, Jackson's passion and artistry as a singer, dancer, writer and businessman are unparalleled, and it is these prodigious talents that will ultimately prevail over the extremely negative aspects of his seriously troubled adult life.