News Views Blog

More rain is drowning in flood-ravaged Pakistan

he expected Islamabad – More rain is drowning in flood-ravaged Pakistan on Saturday and even the heaviest rains in the coming days, we accelerated and exacerbated the crisis, and radical Islamic groups to fill gaps in a partial response to the government.

Have been affected by Pakistani authorities estimate up to 13 million people across the country in South Asia through the rising waters. And killed about 1500 people, mostly in the northwestern part of the region most affected.

Heavy flooding, which began about two weeks ago had washed away roads and bridges, and lines of communication are many, have hampered rescue efforts. Justified the continuing monsoon rains in many of the helicopters in an attempt to rescue people and aid the phrase, including six helicopters on loan from U.S. troops manned in Afghanistan.

The national government was formed in response and chaos in some cases, and confidence in its ability to meet the decision shook President Asif Ali Zardari to travel to France and Europe in the midst of the crisis.

Floods receded slightly on Friday in the north-west of the country, but heavy rain in the evening and Saturday morning, while rising rivers and streams. Farooq said Pakistan Meteorological House is expected to torrential rains in Afghanistan to take things further during the next 36 hours, swelling the Kabul River has grown in the north-west Pakistan.

This probably means more of sadness and Punjab and Sindh provinces, as well as a flood of new flow of the river east and south.

Authorities have adopted a variety of fees on the number of persons from among the 175 million people of Pakistan affected by the floods.

The United Nations has been touched four million people, including 1.5 million seriously, which means that homes were damaged or destroyed. But Pakistani authorities have put the figure much higher.

Punjab and North West, and displaced flood of 12 million people, “said Amal Masoud, a national disaster official of the Department of the Authority. Sindh province, were evacuated about 1 million people, or being helped out of their homes,” said Jam Saifullah, the region’s minister for irrigation.

The United Nations said the disaster was an “equal footing” with the Kashmir earthquake in 2005 – which killed about 73000 people – in terms of the number of people who need assistance and damage to infrastructure.

About 30 000 Pakistani soldiers and to rebuild bridges and the provision of food and setting up relief camps in the northwestern part of the country, which is a key battleground in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Was donated by foreign countries and the United Nations millions of dollars.

U.S. soldiers have been printed in the war effort in Afghanistan to run four helicopters Chinook and Black Hawk, and six to evacuate people from the Swat Valley, northwest of the country, support the campaign there. About 85 U.S. troops involved, although the rain was not much traffic.

Also help in the relief efforts of Islamic charities, such as e-Falah Foundation Insaniat, which Western officials believe is linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group accused of bomb attacks in Mumbai in 2008. The Brotherhood is officially banned, but not ban appeal in court and enforced unevenly.

The Director of Hafiz Abdul Rauf is the group in 1912 to provide medical and food for 100,000 people every day. And helped the institution after the earthquake in Kashmir under a different name.

“The next step, and will begin to provide shelter, but is currently providing food and medicine to flood victims is our priority,” said Rauf.

He criticized government officials, saying it does not do much to hold press conferences and ads. But he was satisfied with the efforts of the United States.

“All the help and donate to is welcome,” he said.

world cup draw 2010

Ten players experience been short-listed for the Golden Ball as top player at the World Cup. Chances are it will come lowered to Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands and Xavi Hernandez of Spain. The 5-7 midfielders are towering figures today in the uppermost game of their lives.

Xavi, whose corner kick set up Carles Puyol’s lucrative header in the 1-0 semifinal win for the duration of Germany, personifies Spain’s patient, high- purchase offense. No player at the World Cup has passed additionally often or wrapped up more passes. He has yet to score, but the Spanish attack flows with him.

Sneijder has been more spectacular. His five goals are linked for tops in the tournament, and they include game-winners against Japan in the first round, Slovakia in the second sweet and Brazil in the quarterfinals. He was voted man of the match for the 3-2 semifinal win over Uruguay, as Xavi was for Spain in the victory through Germany.

Having spent three seasons providing Real Madrid, Sneijder is a familiar foil for Xavi and Spain’s other Barcelona-based players. He left before last season for Inter Milan, where he won the Italian league and cup championships as good as the European Champions League, helping knock off Barcelona along the way. He would become the primarily player to celebrate league, domestic cup, European and World Cup titles in the same year.

Sneijder and Xavi rather still personify what we have seen from their teams in South Africa. Xavi is all grace, skill and efficiency; Sneijder is cunning, surprise and opportunism. Xavi has designed frequent patches of brilliance but can’t match Sneijder when it comes to thrills.

Against Brazil, Sneijder delivered a cross based on information from the right side that eluded goalkeeper Julio Cesar, whose path was blocked by teammate Felipe Melo, and sailed into the net. Three minutes later, he scored what he claimed was the first went goal of his life.

Today, the two difference- makers meet with a chance for each to put his imprint on this World Cup. More than one trophy may be at stake.

world cup finals

The FIFA World Cup (also called the Football World Cup, the Soccer World Cup, or simply the World Cup) is an international association football competition contested by the senior men’s national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.

The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

The 18 tournaments that have been concluded have been won by seven different national teams. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each. England and France have won a single title each, both at home, while Spain or the Netherlands will win their first World Cup in South Africa, which will also be the first win for a European team in a finals tournament held outside of Europe.

The World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The current World Cup is being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.

Previous international competitions

The world’s first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884.At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.

After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.

At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.

With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.

In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event.This paved the way for the world’s first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium.Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay

Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s professional era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.

The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.

The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[10] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.

World Cups before World War II

After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games.Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.

The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.

World Cups after World War II

The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football,[13] but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA’s invitation.[14] The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the “Maracanazo” (Portuguese: Maracanaço).

Map of countries’ best results

In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams.[15] Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.

Expansion to 32 teams

The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,[16] and then to 32 in 1998,allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. In recent years, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, and those who have reached the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; and Ghana as quarter-finalists in 2010. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1998 and 2006 were all from Europe or South America.

Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds; 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, while a record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Other FIFA tournaments

An equivalent tournament for women’s football, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China.[19] The women’s tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men’s, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.

Football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men’s football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players.Women’s football made its Olympic debut in 1996, and is contested between full national sides with no age restrictions.

The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.

FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup)..

Trophy

From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil’s third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.

After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: “The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory.

This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.

At the present, all members (players and coaches) of the top three teams receive winners’ (gold), runner-ups’ (silver), and third-place medals (bronze). Prior to the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners’ medals.

Format

Main article: FIFA World Cup qualification

Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament.They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams.

The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations received automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, were the first defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
For the various formats used in previous tournaments, see History of the FIFA World Cup#Format of each final tournament.

The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.

In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.The other teams are assigned to different “pots”, usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.

Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams.The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).

The FIFA World Cup (also called the Football World Cup, the Soccer World Cup, or simply the World Cup) is an international association football competition contested by the senior men’s national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.

The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

The 18 tournaments that have been concluded have been won by seven different national teams. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each. England and France have won a single title each, both at home, while Spain or the Netherlands will win their first World Cup in South Africa, which will also be the first win for a European team in a finals tournament held outside of Europe.

The World Cup is the world’s most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The current World Cup is being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.

Previous international competitions

The world’s first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England,with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884.At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.

After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.

At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.

With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.

In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event.This paved the way for the world’s first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium.Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay

Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s professional era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.

The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.

The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[10] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.

World Cups before World War II

After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games.Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.

The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.

World Cups after World War II

The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football,[13] but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA’s invitation.[14] The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the “Maracanazo” (Portuguese: Maracanaço).

Map of countries’ best results

In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams.[15] Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.

Expansion to 32 teams

The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982,[16] and then to 32 in 1998,allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. In recent years, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, and those who have reached the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; and Ghana as quarter-finalists in 2010. Nevertheless, European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1998 and 2006 were all from Europe or South America.

Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds; 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, while a record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Other FIFA tournaments

An equivalent tournament for women’s football, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China.[19] The women’s tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men’s, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.

Football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men’s football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players.Women’s football made its Olympic debut in 1996, and is contested between full national sides with no age restrictions.

The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.

FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup)..

Trophy

From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil’s third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.

After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: “The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory.

This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.

At the present, all members (players and coaches) of the top three teams receive winners’ (gold), runner-ups’ (silver), and third-place medals (bronze). Prior to the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners’ medals.

Format

Main article: FIFA World Cup qualification

Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament.They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams.

The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations received automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, were the first defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
For the various formats used in previous tournaments, see History of the FIFA World Cup#Format of each final tournament.

The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.

In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.The other teams are assigned to different “pots”, usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.

Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams.The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).

The ranking of each team in each group is determined as follows:

1. Greatest number of points in group matches
2. Greatest goal difference in group matches
3. Greatest number of goals scored in group matches
4. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
5. If any of the teams above remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots

The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the “eigth-finals” (aka “round of 16″ or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.

Hosts

Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing.The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.

Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since 1978, and will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.

2022 World Cups

The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a “Hosting Agreement” from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018.This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.
Performances
See also: Results of host nations in the FIFA World Cup

Six of the seven champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exception being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950. England (1966) and France (1998) won their only titles while playing as host nations. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934) and Argentina (1978) won their first titles as host nations but have gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their second title on home soil.

Other nations have also been successful when hosting the tournament. Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), Korea Republic (fourth place in 2002), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) was the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round.

Organisation and media coverage

The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.

Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.[42] Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.

Records

Two players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Germany’s Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998) both played in five tournaments.Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 25 appearances.Brazil’s Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cup winners’ medals (1958, 1962, and 1970),[56] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer (1966-74) is the only player to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams, and is also the only player to collect all three types of medals (gold, silver, bronze).

The overall top goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil’s Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals (1998–2006). Germany’s Miroslav Klose (2002–2010) and Gerd Müller (1970–1974) are second, with 14 goals.[58] The fourth placed goalscorer, France’s Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, as all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.

Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[60] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938).All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.

Among the national teams, Germany have played the most World Cup matches, with 99, while Brazil have scored the most World Cup goals, with 210. The two teams have played each other only once in the World Cup, in the 2002 final.

1. Greatest number of points in group matches
2. Greatest goal difference in group matches
3. Greatest number of goals scored in group matches
4. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
5. If any of the teams above remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots

The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the “eigth-finals” (aka “round of 16″ or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.

Hosts

Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing.The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.

Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since 1978, and will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.

2022 World Cups

The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA’s Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a “Hosting Agreement” from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany’s victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018.This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.
Performances

Six of the seven champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exception being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950. England (1966) and France (1998) won their only titles while playing as host nations. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934) and Argentina (1978) won their first titles as host nations but have gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their second title on home soil.

Other nations have also been successful when hosting the tournament. Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), Korea Republic (fourth place in 2002), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) was the only host nation to fail to advance beyond the first round.

Organisation and media coverage

The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.

Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot.Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.

Records

Two players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Germany’s Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998) both played in five tournaments.Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 25 appearances.Brazil’s Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cup winners’ medals (1958, 1962, and 1970),[56] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer (1966-74) is the only player to be named to three Finals All-Star Teams, and is also the only player to collect all three types of medals (gold, silver, bronze).

The overall top goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil’s Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals (1998–2006). Germany’s Miroslav Klose (2002–2010) and Gerd Müller (1970–1974) are second, with 14 goals.[58] The fourth placed goalscorer, France’s Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, as all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.

Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[60] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938).All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.

Among the national teams, Germany have played the most World Cup matches, with 9, while Brazil have scored the most World Cup goals, with 210.The two teams have played each other only once in the World Cup, in the 2002 final.

Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow

Pigs still can’t fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won’t need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic – and quality of life – will undoubtedly improve.

The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country’s parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn’t exactly turned out as planned – scientists have said it’s not feasible – this time, Luzhkov says, there’s no way he can fail. (See TIME’s photo-essay “Vladimir Putin: Action Figure.”)

Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new, he says. Ahead of the two main holidays celebrated in the city each year – Victory Day in May and City Day in September – the often cash-strapped air force is paid to make sure that it doesn’t, well, rain on the parades. With a city budget of $40 billion a year (larger than New York City’s budget), Moscow can easily afford the $2-3 million price tag to keep the skies blue as spectators watch the tanks and rocket launchers roll along Red Square. Now there’s a new challenge for the air force: Moscow’s notorious blizzards.

“You know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?” Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. “Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then outside Moscow there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won’t snow as much. It will make financial sense.” (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)

The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council, which is dominated by Luzhkov’s supporters. Then the city’s Department of Housing and Public Works described how it would work. The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 – and only to prevent “very big and serious snow” from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.

So far the main objection to the plan has come from Moscow’s suburbs, which will likely be inundated with snow if the plan goes forward. Alla Kachan, the Moscow region’s ecology minister, said the proposal still needs to be assessed by environmental experts and discussed with the people living in the area before Luzhkov can enact it. “The citizens of the region have some concerns. We have received lots of messages,” she told the RIA news agency. (Read TIME’s 1991 article “The End of the U.S.S.R.”)

With only a few weeks left before winter comes, environmentalists will have to work fast to keep Luzhkov from implementing his zaniest plan to date – and to stop the first snowflakes from wafting down to the city streets.

NY House race seen as test for GOP, Obama

ALBANY, N.Y. – President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton are lending their political star power to an unlikely Democratic bid to win a special congressional election in an area that’s been a Republican bastion for more than a century.

The Nov. 3 contest in upstate New York’s 23rd Congressional District, a sprawling, 11-county area where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 45,000, is shaping up as a test of a struggling GOP and a possible gauge of Obama’s coattails.

Obama, who carried the district by 5 percentage points in his landslide victory in New York last year, forced the special election when he named the incumbent, Republican John McHugh, his Army secretary. The president will host a fundraiser for the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, on Tuesday in New York City.

In a fundraising e-mail for Owens, Clinton called the special election “bigger than just one candidate or one office … victory or defeat will also be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s agenda.”

Owens, 60, a Plattsburgh lawyer and retired Air Force captain, is one of three candidates competing for the seat. The others are Republican Dierdre Scozzafava, 49, a state Assemblywoman, and Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, 59, a businessman.

Hoffman’s spokesman, Rob Ryan, said the race will be a referendum on Obama’s first 10 months and on the future of the Republican Party.

Democrats see an opening in the traditionally Republican district because Scozzafava and Hoffman are splitting the conservative vote. An Oct. 15 survey by Siena College showed Owens with 33 percent, Scozzafava with 29 percent and Hoffman with 23 percent. The poll of 617 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Conservative groups such as The Club for Growth have endorsed Hoffman. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed Scozzafava last week, in a move apparently aimed as shoring up the Republican’s support among conservatives.

Republicans have complained that Obama picked McHugh for the Army job because he viewed the 23rd as vulnerable. Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand won the nearby 20th district, another longtime GOP stronghold, in 2006, and Democrat Scott Murphy won a close special election in March to hold the seat after Gillibrand was appointed to the U.S. Senate.

Whatever Obama’s motivations, McHugh, who represented the 23rd District since 1993, has the credentials for the Army job. He served on the House Armed Services Committee for years and worked with the oft-deployed 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, which is in the district.

The compressed time frame of a special election — McHugh was confirmed only last month — leaves voters with little-known candidates and little time for introductions.

In the state Assembly, Scozzafava, of Gouverneur, has broken with the Republican conference only 5 percent of the time, but on high-profile issues such as same-sex marriage, greenhouse gas emissions, sex education in schools and gender identity discrimination. In the past she’s won the Working Families Line — a liberal minority party closely associated with the Democratic Party. It endorsed Owens this time.

Scozzafava’s potential crossover appeal has the National Republican Congressional Committee hopeful it can hold onto the seat, one of only three that the Republicans controlled in the state’s 29-member congressional delegation.

Owens, is the managing partner at the law firm Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, & Trombley, and has practiced law for 30 years. Hoffman, of North Elba, is the managing partner in an accounting firm and oversees a family business that includes investment, real estate and construction.

State GOP Chairman Edward Cox said the 23rd is a swing district with varied demographics, including organized labor, hunting enthusiasts and farmers. He said the combined vote of Conservatives and Republicans will be heard as a rejection of Obama’s agenda — no matter the winner.

“The national relevance is that the vote against Obama is going to be overwhelming,” Cox said.

June O’Neill, executive committee chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said the seat is symbolically important for Republicans nationally.

“Let’s face it,” she said, “this seat should be a safe Republican seat and — as recent events and the most recent poll has shown — it is no longer a safe Republican seat.”

Pakistan, Taliban both claim success in fighting

MIR ALI, Pakistan – The Pakistani army and the Taliban claimed to be inflicting heavy casualties on each other as fierce fighting raged Sunday on the second day of a military assault on an al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border.

The outcome of the operation in South Waziristan stands to shape the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan and the militant groups seeking to topple its U.S.-backed government. The region is home to jihadists behind soaring terrorist attacks around the country, as well as al-Qaida and other extremists believed to be plotting strikes in the West.

The army said 60 militants had been killed on the first day of the operation, while six soldiers had died. The Taliban claimed to have inflicted “heavy casualties” on the army and to have pushed invading soldiers back into their bases.

It was not possible to independently verify the conflicting claims because the army is blocking access to the battlefield and surrounding towns.

“We know how to fight this war and defeat the enemy with the minimum loss of our men,” Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told The Associated Press from an undisclosed location. “This is a war imposed on us and we will defend our land till our last man and our last drop of our blood. This is a war bound to end in the defeat of the Pakistan army.”

Tariq also said the Taliban were behind three commando-style raids on law enforcement agencies in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday that killed around 30 people as well as the deadly bombing of a police station in the northwestern city of Peshawar a day later.

Accounts from residents and those fleeing South Waziristan on Sunday suggested that the 30,000 Pakistani troops were in for a bloodier time than in the Swat Valley, another northwestern region that the army successfully wrested away from insurgents earlier this year.

“Militants are offering very tough resistance to any movement of troops,” Ehsan Mahsud, a resident of Makeen, a town in the region, told The Associated Press in the town of Mir Ali, close to the battle zone. He and a friend arrived there early Sunday after traveling through the night.

Mahsud said the army appeared to be mostly relying on air strikes and artillery against militants occupying high ground. He said the insurgents were firing heavy machine guns at helicopter gunships, forcing the air force to use higher-flying jets.

The army is up against about 10,000 local militants and about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them from Central Asia. They control roughly 1,275 square miles (3,310 square kilometers) of territory, or about half of South Waziristan, in areas loyal to former militant chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August.

Officials have said they envisage the operation will last two months, when winter weather will make fighting difficult.

A brief army statement said 60 militants had been killed, along with six soldiers, since Saturday. It said the army had secured high regions close to Razmak, where the army has had a base for several years, and destroyed six militant anti-aircraft gun positions.

A resident in Wana — the main town in South Waziristan and in the heart of Taliban-held territory — said the insurgents had left the town and were stationed on the borders of the region, determined to block any army advance.

“All the Taliban who used to be around here have gone to take their position to protect the Mehsud boundary,” Azamatullah Wazir said by phone Sunday. “The army will face difficulty to get in there.”

Intelligence officials said Saturday that the ground troops were advancing on two flanks and a northern front of a central part of South Waziristan controlled by the Mehsuds. The areas being surrounded include the insurgent bases of Ladha and Makeen, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media.

As many as 150,000 civilians — possibly more — have left in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault, but as many as 350,000 could still be in the region. The United Nations has been stockpiling relief supplies in a town near the region, but authorities are not expecting a major refugee crisis like the one that occurred during the offensive this year in the Swat Valley.

Over the last three months, the Pakistani air force has been bombing targets in South Waziristan, while the army has said it has sealed off many Taliban supply and escape routes. The military has been trying to secure the support of local tribal armies in the fight.

Revolutionary Guard commanders killed in Iran bomb

TEHRAN, Iran – A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders. More than two dozen others were wounded, state radio reported.

The commanders were on their way to a meeting with local tribal leaders in the Pishin district near Iran’s border with Pakistan when an attacker with explosives around his waist blew himself up, IRNA said. The explosion occurred at the entrance of a sports complex where the meeting was to be held.

Top provincial prosecutor Mohammad Marzieh was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying that a militant group from Iran’s Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility.

The region in Iran’s southeast has been the focus of violent attacks by Jundallah, which has waged a low-level insurgency in recent years. The group accuses Iran’s Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite targets in the southeast.

Iranian officials have accused Jundallah of receiving support from al-Qaida and the Taliban in neighboring Pakistan, though some analysts who have studied the group dispute such a link.

Jundallah’s campaign is one of several small-scale ethnic and religious insurgencies in Iran that have fueled sporadic and sometimes deadly attacks in recent years — though none have amounted to a serious threat to the government.

The attack does raise questions about Iran’s grip on a sensitive border region beset by criminal gangs and drug smuggling.

The latest violence, a symptom of the tension between Iran’s majority Shiites and impoverished minority Sunnis in the southeast, appeared to have no connection with the street unrest triggered by the dispute over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June.

Ahmadinejad vowed to strike back at those behind Sunday’s attack, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“The criminals will soon get the response for their anti-human crimes,” IRNA quoted him as saying. Ahmadinejad also accused unspecified foreigners of involvement.

Iranian officials have often raised concerns that the United States might try to incite members of Iran’s many ethnic and religious minorities against the Shiite-led government, which is dominated by ethnic Persians.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States condemned what he called an “act of terrorism.” Reports of alleged U.S. involvement are “completely false,” he said.

The Guard commanders targeted Sunday were heading to a meeting with local tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.

In April, Iran increased security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, at the center of the tension, by placing it under the command of the Guard, which took over from local police forces.

The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guard controls Iran’s missile program and has its own ground, naval and air units.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, condemned the assassination of the Guard commanders, saying the bombing was aimed at disrupting security in southeastern Iran.

“We express our condolences for their martyrdom. … The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province,” Larijani told an open session of the parliament broadcast live on state radio.

In May, Jundallah claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 25 people in Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, which has witnessed some of Jundallah’s worst attacks. Thirteen members of the faction were convicted in the attack and hanged in July.

Jundallah is made up of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, which can also be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The group has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against Iranian soldiers and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.

Jundallah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The seven were released a month later, apparently after negotiations through tribal mediators.

Despite Iran’s claims of an al-Qaida link, Chris Zambelis, a Washington-based risk management consultant who has studied Jundallah, said in a recent article that there is no evidence al-Qaida is supporting the group. He does note, however, that the group has begun to use the kinds of suicide bombings associated with the global terror network.

He said Jundallah likely looks to Baluchi insurgents in Pakistan as a source of inspiration and possibly material support. Its ties to the Taliban based in Pakistani Baluchistan are less clear, but Zambelis said any connections are probably limited to smuggling between the two countries.

“Jundallah’s contacts with the Taliban are most likely based on jointly profiting from the illicit trade and smuggling as opposed to ideology,” Zambelis wrote in the July issue of West Point’s CTC Sentinel.

3rd person dies in Ariz. sweat lodge ceremony case

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – An Arizona homicide investigation now includes three deaths after a woman died more than a week after participating in a sweat lodge ceremony that hospitalized nearly two dozen people.

Liz Neuman of Minnesota died Saturday at a Flagstaff hospital, Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said.

The 49-year-old suffered multiple organ damage during the Oct. 8 ceremony at a resort near Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement.

Authorities were treating all three deaths as homicides, but no charges have been filed.

D’Evelyn did not provide a city of residence for Neuman, but public records showed an address in Prior Lake, about 25 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

Neuman was among more than 50 people crowded inside the sweat lodge run by self-help guru James Arthur Ray. An emergency call two hours after they entered the lodge reported two people not breathing.

Twenty-one people were taken to area hospitals with illnesses ranging from dehydration to kidney failure. Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee died upon arrival at a hospital.

No one else remains hospitalized.

Authorities haven’t determined what caused the deaths. Autopsy results on Brown and Shore are pending further testing.

The Rev. Meredith Ann Murray of Bellingham, Wash., who has completed all of Ray’s retreats, said Neuman was among Ray’s earliest followers and had attended dozens of his events.

According to Ray’s Web site, Neuman was the leader of the Minneapolis-area “Journey Expansion Team.” The teams, developed by Ray’s friends and followers around the country, meet to exchange ideas on his principles. The next Minneapolis-area meeting is scheduled for Oct. 23.

Ray had rented the Angel Valley Retreat Center for his five-day “Spiritual Warrior” event that culminated in the sweat lodge ceremony. Participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend the retreat.

Ray declined to be interviewed by the sheriff’s office on the night of the incident and Arizona authorities said he had not spoken to them as of Thursday. In his first public appearance Tuesday in Los Angeles, Ray told a crowd of about 200 that he has hired his own investigative team to determine what went wrong.

His spokesman, Howard Bragman, has said that Ray’s team and Ray’s attorney are cooperating with the sheriff’s investigators.

More than 100 people attended the funeral for Brown on Saturday at Holy Name of Jesus Church in Otisville, N.Y., according to The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. The avid hiker and surfer who had a passion for art was remembered as a spiritual seeker.

Services for Shore were held late Saturday afternoon at the Hubbard Lodge in Milwaukee.

Sales Tax Holiday

A tax holiday is a temporary reduction or elimination of a tax. Governments usually create tax holidays as incentives for business investment. The taxes that are most commonly reduced by national and local governments are sales taxes. In developing countries, governments sometimes reduce or eliminate corporate taxes for the purpose of attracting Foreign Direct Investment or stimulating growth in selected industries.

Tax holiday is given in respect of particular activities, and sometimes also only in particular areas with a view to develop that area of business.

Contents [hide] 1 Sales tax holidays in the United States 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Sales tax holidays in the United States

A statewide sales tax holiday was first enacted by the New York Legislature in 1996 and enabled the first tax-free week in January of 1997. Local governments in New York were given the option of whether or not to participate. ^[1] Since then, the initiative has been adopted by thirteen states. It commonly takes place as a form of tax-free weekend lasting Friday through Sunday, usually during a major shopping period for necessities, such as just before school starts. During that period, sales tax is not collected on selected items, such as clothing and school supplies. The items subject to the sales tax exemption may also be restricted by price (for example, clothing up to $100), but consumers are free to buy unlimited quantity of items.

As with other sales taxes, visiting residents of non-participating states who purchase tax-free goods (holiday or not) may still have to pay “use tax” on their goods that they take home.

State (Or Capital)	Items Included	Period	Days
Alabama	clothing, computers, school supplies, books	1st weekend in August	3
Connecticut	clothing	3rd week in August	7
District of Columbia	clothing, school supplies	August and November	9
Georgia	clothing, school supplies, computers	1st weekend of August	4
Iowa	clothing	1st weekend of August	2
Massachusetts[2]	school supplies, computers, sports equipment, health & beauty aid	2nd weekend of August	2
Missouri	clothing, school supplies, computers	1st weekend in August	-
New Mexico	clothing, school supplies, computers	1st weekend of August	3
North Carolina	clothing, school supplies, computers, sport equipment	1st weekend of August	3
Oklahoma	clothing	1st weekend of August	3
South Carolina	clothing, school supplies, computers	1st weekend of August	3
Tennessee	clothing, school supplies, computers	1st weekend of August	3
Texas[3]	Cd’s, DVD Movies,cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, clothing, diapers, backpacks , school supplies	3rd weekend of August	3
Virginia	clothing, school supplies	1st weekend of August	3

Seven states in the U.S. (Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Texas, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) do not impose general sales taxes at all (but may still tax gas, cigarettes, alcohol, meals, etc). See Sales taxes in the United States for details.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver critical at Mass. hospital

BARNSTABLE, Mass. – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a sister of President John F. Kennedy and a longtime champion for the disabled, was in a Massachusetts hospital with family at her side.

The 88-year-old Shriver, who has been weakened in recent years by a series of strokes, was in critical condition Friday.

Her husband, 1972 vice presidential candidate and former Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver, was at her side along with their children and grandchildren at Cape Cod Hospital in Barnstable, said family spokesman Stephen Rivers.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the husband of Shriver’s daughter, Maria, was also there, said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.

The Shrivers live in Hyannis Port, near the family compound where her brother, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been staying as he undergoes treatment for brain cancer. He left the compound Friday in a golf cart with his wife and dog, headed toward the area where the family sailboat is docked.

Eunice Shriver is the fifth of the nine Kennedy children. Edward Kennedy and Jean Kennedy Smith are her sole surviving siblings.

In a recent interview posted on eunicekennedyshriver.org, Sen. Kennedy said his sister has never backed down from the rest of the competitive clan.

“She always strived to be the best, and she in many respects has made such an extraordinary difference in the lives of so many people around the world,” he said.

Shriver is perhaps best known for her work to establish the Special Olympics, inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.

She organized the first Special Olympics in 1968 in Chicago. The two-day event drew more than 1,000 participants from 26 states and Canada. By 2003, the Special Olympics World Summer Games, held that year in Dublin, Ireland, involved more than 6,500 athletes from 150 countries.