Any defining moment of a year is usually an analysis in past tense. Rarely ever is it a judgment in future tense. But that’s exactly how it is in the case of Qatar successfully bidding in 2010 to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. While winning the bid is victory enough to become a defining moment for the present, the real impact lies in what this success could do for the Gulf in general and for Qatar in particular over the next decade and beyond.

Some 16,000 foreign guests are expected to come Bangladesh to see the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup matches. The host countries -- Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka -- are now busy giving a facelift to the tournament venues. But this mega event is especially significant for Bangladesh. This is the first time the country is going to co-host the cricket world cup.

But think of modern Egypt, and images of poverty, corruption and an often-repressive military regime are more likely to come up. Last June, the country’s Ministry of Information hired one of the largest public relations agencies in the world in a bid to change that.

"Incredible India." For tourism purposes, that slogan has served India well, but it is insufficient to convey the identity of a rising world power...More and more, India is a significant player in world affairs, and yet it lacks a consistent profile that it can present to the rest of the world.

As they prepared to face their second big strike in four years, America’s coal-mining bosses knew they had to do something about the newspapers. It was 1906—a time of rising resentment against robber-baron capitalism and the heyday of muckraking “yellow journalism”.

For most Qataris, the world's most watched sporting event represents a chance to offer a new image of their homeland and the wider Middle East. "This is not just for Qatar, but for the whole region," Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, wife of the country's ruler, told Reuters in an interview.

Minister of Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, has decried the prolonged strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in state-owned universities in the South East, saying that it constitutes a threat to re-branding Nigeria project.