--The Champions League Since 1992--

The UEFA Champions League, which evolved from the European Champion Clubs' Cup, is a seasonal club football competition organised by UEFA since 1992 (or overall in its older format since 1955) for the most successful football clubs in Europe. The prize, the European Champion Clubs' Cup (more commonly known as the European Cup), is the most prestigious club trophy in the sport. The UEFA Champions League is separate from the UEFA Cup.

The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three preliminary knockout qualifying rounds. The 16 surviving teams join 16 seeded teams in a group stage. Eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout rounds, which end with the final match in May. Previously only the champions of their respective national league could participate in the competition; however, this was changed in 1997 to allow the runners-up of the stronger leagues to compete as well.

The title has been held by 21 different clubs, 12 of which have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holder is Real Madrid with their nine wins.
The current holders Manchester United defeated Chelsea 6-5 on penalties, after the scores were level at 1-1 after extra time in Moscow on 21 May 2008.

The tournament was inaugurated in 1955, at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and editor of L'Équipe Gabriel Hanot, as a continental competition for winners of the European national football leagues, as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, abbreviated to European Cup.

The competition began as the 1955–56 using a two-leg knockout format where the teams would play two matches, one at home and one away, and the team with the highest overall score qualifying for the next round of the competition. Entry was restricted to the teams that won their national league championships, plus the current European Cup holder.

This qualification system continued until 1992. In the 1992–93 season, the tournament was renamed UEFA Champions League and in 1997–98, eligibility was expanded to include not just domestic champions but also the best performing runners up according to UEFA's coefficient ranking list.

In UEFA's coefficient system, a team finishing second in the Spanish La Liga would be more deserving of an automatic place in the Champions League than a team finishing first in, for example, Polish Ekstraklasa. As a result, the system was restructured so that national champions from lower ranked countries had to qualify for the group stages, while runners-up from higher ranked countries would automatically get places.

Between 1960 and 2004 the winner of the tournament qualified for the now defunct Intercontinental Cup against the winner of the Copa Libertadores of South America. Since then, with FIFA taking over, the winner automatically qualifies for the FIFA Club World Cup with other winners of continental club championships.

QUALIFICATION

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Teams that finish 1st to 4th in the strongest leagues go to the qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League.

The number of places in the competition depends on the association's rank in the UEFA coefficients table:

• associations ranked 1 to 3 have four positions,
• associations ranked 4 to 6 have three positions,
• associations ranked 7 to 15 have two positions,
• associations ranked 16 or lower have one position.

--Doraemon @ 40--

Doraemon (ドラえもん Doraemon) is a Japanese manga series created by Fujiko F. Fujio (the pen name of Hiroshi Fujimoto) which later became an anime series and Asian franchise. The series is about a robotic cat named Doraemon, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a schoolboy, Nobita Nobi (野比 のび太 ,Nobi Nobita).

In March 2008, Japan's Foreign Ministry appointed Doraemon as the nation's first "anime ambassador." Ministry spokesman explained the novel decision as an attempt to help people in other countries to understand Japanese anime better and to deepen their interest in Japanese culture." The Foreign Ministry action confirms that Doraemon has come to be considered a Japanese cultural icon. In 2002, the anime character was acclaimed as an Asian Hero in a special feature survey conducted by Time Asia magazine.

The series first appeared in December 1969, when it was published simultaneously in six different magazines. In total, 1,344 stories were created in the original series, which are published by Shogakukan under the Tentōmushi (てんとう虫 ?) manga brand, extending to forty-five volumes. The volumes are collected in the Takaoka Central Library in Toyama, Japan. Fujio was born in Toyama.

A majority of Doraemon episodes are comedies with moral lessons regarding values such as integrity, perseverance, courage, family and respect for elders. Several noteworthy environmental issues are often visited, including homeless animals, endangered species, deforestation, and pollution. Topics such as dinosaurs, the flat earth theory, wormhole traveling, Gulliver's Travels, and the history of Japan are often covered.

Doraemon was awarded the first Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga in 1982, and the first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 1997.

~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon

~http://dora-world.com/dora2007/top.html

~http://doraemon.wingsee.com/

~http://dora-movie.com/top.html

~http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1317

--The Highest Paying Sports Events in the World--

1. The FIFA World Cup

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The FIFA Football World Cup pays out the biggest prize fund in sport. The winners of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany shared $21 million, with an additional $260 million shared between the other teams participating in the tournament for a total payout in excess of $280 million.

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2. The Champions League

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Europe's biggest and glitziest regional football tournament offers the biggest cash payout to a winning team in international sport. The club winning the Champions League final is rewarded for this achievement with $170 million in prize money. Even the losers in the final are handsomely rewarded with a cheque for $60 million.

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~http://champions-league-betting.com/worlds-highest-paying-sports-events

--Protectorate and Protection--

A protectorate, in international law, is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity, in exchange for which the protectorate usually accepts specified obligations, which may vary greatly, depending on the real nature of their relationship. However, it retains sufficient measure of sovereignty and remains a state under international law.
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French protectorates
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• Saar (1947-1956), not colonial or amical, but a former part of Germany that would by referendum return to it, in fact a re-edition of a former League of Nations mandate. Most French protectorates were colonial:

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Asia

• Present India: Arkat (Arcot/Carnatic) was 1692 - 1750 a French protectorate until 1763 independence recognized under British protectorate.
• French Indochina until 1953/54:
• Cambodia 11 August 1863
• Annam and Tonkin 6 June 1884
• Laos 3 October 1893

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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectorate

~http://www.yourdictionary.com/protectorate#usage

~http://www.thefreedictionary.com/protectorate

--What Are YOU Doing???--

--International Women's Day 2009--

International Working Woman's Day (IWD) is marked on March 8 every year. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.

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Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries (primarily Russia and the countries of former Soviet bloc). In some celebrations, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother's Day and St Valentine's Day mixed together. In others, however, the political and human rights theme as designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

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The IWD is also celebrated as the first spring holiday, as in the listed countries the first day of March is considered the first day of the spring season.

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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women

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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman

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~http://www.womansday.com/video/