On Moscow City Day, the capital hosted a unique visual event: Alfa-Show 4D, a magnificent video projection show on Sparrow Hills dedicated to Alfa-Bank’s 20th anniversary. For half an hour, the facade of the main building of Moscow State University became a giant screen 25,500 square metres in size, as a multitude of spectators (nearly 800,000 people who attended the celebration) witnessed a strikingly beautiful audiovisual show.

Sonnet Technologies announced that its Fusion™ D400QR5 four-drive RAID 5 SATA storage system played a key role in the post-production editing process for "Hell and Back Again", the Academy Award® nominated documentary describing the experience of a U.S. soldier wounded in Afghanistan. The feature-length film was directed by Danfung Dennis, a renowned photojournalist whose still photographs have been published in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous other well-known newspapers and periodicals.

Celebrated annually on 26th January Australia Day (previously known as Anniversary Day, Foundation Day, and ANA Day) is the official national day of Australia. The date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland. Community festivals, concerts and citizenship ceremonies accompany the day in large and small communities and cities around the nation. A special event is always the celebrations in Sydney – like this year in the town’s Darling Harbour.

Sky News Arabia, the 24 hour Arabic language multi-platform breaking news service launching in spring 2012, today unveiled six of its presenters who are now on-board and immersed in rehearsals.  The presenters, drawn from across the Arab world, are the latest additions to the Sky News Arabia team as the channel continues, on track, to its launch.  All of the channel’s presenters have now been selected with further announcements expected in the coming weeks.

Sky News Arabia, the 24-hour Arabic language multi-platform breaking news service, will launch on 6th May, 2012. The channel, which promises “a new horizon” for news reporting across the Arab world, will be available on Transponder 14 on Arabsat Badr 4, Transponder 15 on Nilesat 201, on du IPTV and e-Life platforms plus in high definition on the OSN pay-TV platform.

High End Systems, a Barco company, DL.3 Digital Lights and intellaspot automated luminaires helped define the political landscape for The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2012. The week-long event in February drew thousands to the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, D.C. for presentations, press conferences, panel sessions and parties.

The 2012 Australia Day celebrations saw production and lighting designer Paul Collison create a glittering cityscape in the centre of Sydney’s Darling Harbour, using a battery of Clay Paky Sharpys.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has joined 12 other international broadcasting bodies in founding the landmark Future of Broadcast Television (FOBTV) initiative in Las Vegas.

The Burgtheater in Vienna has added five DPA d:fineTM omnidirectional headsets to its armoury of more than 70 DPA microphones. The d:fines were purchased from DPA’s Austrian distributor, Studer Austria.

On Sunday at 8pm(UAE time)Sky News Arabia, the multi-platform 24-hour Arabic rolling news channel, broadcast for the first time to over 50 million homes across the Middle East and North Africa.

Vladimir Putin has been inaugurated as president of Russia in a lavish ceremony in the capital, Moscow. To picture Mr Putins way to the Kremlin XD motion equipped two motorcycles with gyro-stabilized RF camera heads.

The G20  is the most important  financial and economic international summit. It is comprised of 20 members, the world’s major and emerging economies. In 2012 the meeting will take place in Los Cabos. Past locations include Heilgendamm, Washington, London, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Seoul, and Cannes. The summit’s meetings will be held at the new Convention Center in San Jose del Cabo.

Clay Paky Sharpys took centre stage at the recent Espectáculo Conmemorativo, the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, held at Fuerte Guadalupe in Puebla, Mexico. The site was the location of the 1862 battle in which the Mexican army defeated Napoleon's soldiers during the French invasion. The Mexican victory is celebrated yearly on the fifth of May, Cinco de Mayo.

Live sound provider Hoffmann deployed a HARMAN audio system to support the debates of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio +20, held in the city of Rio de Janeiro from June 13-22. Hoffmann was responsible for the deployment of the system, which included HARMAN’s AKG microphones, JBL EON510 portable powered loudspeakers and a Soundcraft Vi1 console.

Mexico undoubtedly knows how to celebrate. When the country recently marked the 150th anniversary of Cinco de Mayo – the commemoration of the Battle of Puebla, which halted an invasion by the French – it pulled out all the stops with an array of festivities and special events.