World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

Friends, family mourn Swiss bus crash victims - more pics

[Mr Lick]

Syrian refugees arrive by truck near the border between Syria and Turkey at Reyhanli in Antakya. The Syrian regime will persist with its strategy of bombing into submission pockets of rebel resistance as it remains convinced it alone holds the key to resolving a crisis now entering a second year, analysts say.












Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad as they hold pictures of two Turkish journalists whom activists say are missing in Syria, in front of the Syrian Consulate in Istanbul March 15, 2012

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In a national scene conveying a message to the whole world of the Syrian people's commitment to national unity away from foreign interferences and dictates, millions of Syrians on Thursday streamed into the homeland's streets and squares throughout the provinces in a global march for Syria.

Waving Syrian flags and banners with national slogans on them, the jubilant participants voiced rejection of foreign interference in the Syrian people's internal affairs and support to the comprehensive reform program led by President Bashar al-Assad to build the renewed Syria.

[Mr Lick]

How would the sky look through infrared eyes? The scientists behind NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission have served up that kind of view with an all-sky map of infrared wavelengths, centered on the glowing Milky Way.
The map was unveiled this week to mark the completion of WISE's infrared sky atlas, more than two years after the $320 million mission was launched. The telescope collected more than 2.7 million images in four infrared wavelengths and sent down more than 15 trillion bytes of data. The WISE spacecraft was shut down a year ago, after surveying the entire sky one and a half times, but scientists needed still more time to analyze and organize the data.

The images were combined into an atlas of more than 18,000 images. The atlas is accompanied by a catalog listing the infrared properties of more than 560 million individual objects, ranging from near-Earth asteroids to far-flung galaxies.

Wednesday's release of the catalog meets the fundamental objective of a mission that was conceived in 1998.

"Today, WISE delivers the fruit of 14 years of effort to the astronomical community," UCLA astronomer Edward Wright, the mission's principal investigator, said in a NASA news release.

[Mr Lick]

Technicians install a wind turbine blade at Alstom's offshore wind site in Le Carnet, on the Loire Estuary, near Saint Nazaire on March 16. French power and transport engineering company Alstom will start its new direct drive Haliade 150 - 6MW offshore wind turbine in April.

[Mr Lick]

This is one lucky loggerhead! Just weeks after a 4 inch-long fishing hook got caught in this turtle's throat, it was released back into the ocean Thursday, looking healthy and rehabilitated.



SeaWorld's senior veterinarian, Lara Croft, and aquarium staff members removing the large hook from the turtle's throat.

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Iran dispatched a second cargo of humanitarian aid to Syria to help the people in the Muslim country, who are facing a shortage of food and medical supplies.

[Mr Lick]

Actor George Clooney leaves the Washington Metropolitan Police Department after being arrested outside the Embassy of Sudan March 16, 2012 in Washington, DC. United to End Genocide, the Enough Campaign and Amnesty International held a rally to call on the United States and world leaders to stop the violence in South Sudan and prevent hundreds of thousands of people from starving.

[Mr Lick]

A house is destroyed by tornado damage in Dexter, Mich., on March 16. Initial estimates indicate the tornado that hit Dexter, northwest of Ann Arbor, Thursday evening was packing winds of around 135 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Steven Freitag said Friday.

[Mr Lick]

An Afghan policemen looks at the wreckage from a crashed Turkish helicopter on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. A Turkish military helicopter crashed into a house near the Afghan capital Friday, killing several Turkish soldiers on board and young girls on the ground



An Israeli police dog attacks a demonstrator during a protest in the village of Kufr Qaddum near the Israeli settlement of Kdumim in the northern West Bank



Samba dancers arrive for the last day of the Cheltenham horse racing Festival in Gloucestershire, England.



Mexican navy sailors patrol the beach as revelers relax during spring break 2012 in Cancun Mexico. The Texas Department of Public Safety recently issued an advisory to college students to avoid Mexico during Spring Break because of drug cartel violence and other criminal activity, even in resort areas and the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau responded by strongly disagreeing with the statement.

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The newly elected Egyptian Parliament has passed a measure to halt natural gas exports to Israel and to expel Israel’s Ambassador in Cairo. A Parliamentary report describes Israel as Egypt’s number one enemy.

Moreover, Egypt’s new Islamic-majority parliament has decided to vote on ending aid from the United States, which, it says, has no respect for the country’s sovereignty.

[Mr Lick]

Damascus bombings

[Mr Lick]

Robert Bales and the Afghan villager shootings

The US army has named Robert Bales as American soldier suspected of shooting dead 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province. Bales is being held in solitary confinement at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas. His lawyer has described Bales as a decorated soldier who had been wounded on multiple tours of duty in Iraq, and said the shooting took place the day after Bales saw a comrade's leg blown off



Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, shown in a US army photograph, has been named as the soldier suspected of massacring 16 Afghan villagers



A reporter outside the empty home of Robert Bales in Bonney Lake, Washington. The military says it has moved his family to a secure location for their protection



A van believed to be carrying Robert Bales leaves Kansas City international airport. The army has confirmed he is being held at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas



John Henry Browne, the lawyer representing Robert Bales, gives a press conference in Seattle



An Afghan woman with the body of her grandchild, one of the alleged victims of Robert Bales



Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, prays with local leaders and relatives of the victims during a meeting at the presidential palace in Kabul



US and Afghan soldiers stand guard at their base in Panjwai in the aftermath of the civilian massacre

[Mr Lick]

A technical worker digs out a human bone from a mass grave in a cemetery at Teba, southern Spanish province of Malaga March 16, 2012. The remains of about 125 people might be buried in the mass grave in Teba after they were killed during the Spanish Civil War from 1937 to 1949, the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory of Antequera and its shire said. The mass grave is the second largest discovered during an exhumation process so far in Spain.



Libyans hold funeral prayers for five men who were killed in 1997 but were only found and identified recently, at Tripoli's Martyrs Square March 16, 2012. Their bodies were found in a hospital mortuary refrigerator after the fall of Tripoli in August last year. The men were said to have been killed in the fighting in Tajoura suburb after the 1996 assassination attempt on Muammar Gaddafi in the southern town of Brack al-Shati. Their bodies were only recently identified by relatives and will be buried in their hometowns.



Ethiopian migrants wait to be repatriated at a transit center in the western Yemeni town of Haradh, on the border with Saudi Arabia March 16, 2012. Some 12,000 migrants, mostly from the Horn of Africa, are stranded in Haradh, which they use as a stepping stone to reach Saudi Arabia, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Last week, local media reported atrocities committed against migrants by trafficking gangs which kidnap migrants for ransom from their families in the Gulf Arab states.



Naomi Laet, 22, an Israeli pro-Palestinian activist, is escorted by Israeli border police officers after she was treated for a head injury sustained from a rubber bullet fired by Israeli security forces during clashes with Palestinian stone-throwers at a weekly protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah March 16, 2012.



Guinea-Bissau presidential candidate Kumba Yala (front L) attends a campaign rally in the capital Bissau March 16, 2012. The tiny, unstable West-African country will elect a new president on Sunday after former president Malam Bacai Sanha died in a Paris hospital in January.

[Mr Lick]

Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University student charged with bias intimidation, departs the courtroom with his mother after hearing the verdict in his trial at the Superior Court of New Jersey in Middlesex County, New Brunswick, New Jersey March 16, 2012. Ravi who spied on the sexual tryst of his roommate, who later committed suicide, was found guilty of hate crimes on Friday in a case that put a national spotlight on gay bullying



This undated file photograph provided by Joseph and Jane Clementi shows their son Tyler Clementi at a family function. Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate's love life was convicted Friday,, March 16, 2012, of bias intimidation and invasion of privacy of Clementi



Tyler Clementi's parents Jane (C) and Joe (R) Clementi are comforted by family members, including their son James (L), after hearing the verdict in the bias intimidation trial of Dharun Ravi at the Superior Court of New Jersey in Middlesex County, New Brunswick,

[Mr Lick]

Nazi camp guard Demjanjuk dies

John Demjanjuk was found guilty in 2011

John Demjanjuk, who was found guilty for his role as a guard at a Nazi death camp in World War II, has died aged 91, German police say.

He had been sentenced in May 2011 by a German court to five years in prison, but was released pending an appeal.

He died at a home for the elderly.

The court said Demjanjuk, 91, was a guard at Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He denied this, saying he was a prisoner of war and a victim too.

An estimated 250,000 people died in the gas chambers at Sobibor. Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of the 28,060 people who were killed there while he was a guard.

Demjanjuk's family said during his trial that he was very ill.

He was also convicted on similar charges by a court in Israel in 1986, but the verdict was overturned when doubts emerged about his identity

[Mr Lick]

Public servants in lower-paid regions 'to get pay freeze'



Public sector workers in some parts of the UK should have their pay frozen until it falls in line with the private sector, Chancellor George Osborne is expected to say in Wednesday's Budget.

He will reveal initial plans to axe national pay rates for civil servants such as Jobcentre and DVLA staff.

The Treasury says public sector pay in some parts of England and Wales is up to 18% higher than the private sector.

Unions have criticised the plans, which they say will drive down regional pay.

The move would mean local factors, such as the cost of living and private sector pay rates, would now be taken into account for public sector workers.

Treasury research suggests

[Mr Lick]

Falkland Islands oil dispute: UK hits back at Argentina



Foreign minister of Argentina, Hector Timmerman: "We will defend our natural resources"


The UK has hit back at Argentina's threats of court action over Falkland Islands oil exploration, calling its behaviour "illegal intimidation".

Foreign minister Hector Timmerman had threatened legal action against firms drilling off the UK territory, over which Argentina claims sovereignty.

But the UK Foreign Office said it was a legitimate commercial venture.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would "continue to protect and defend" the islands.

In threatening legal action against oil prospectors, Mr Timmerman had told reporters: "The gas and oil that is found in the South Atlantic belongs to the Argentinian people.

"All these companies are entering illegal territory."

[Mr Lick]

Damascus, Syria: Security officers inspect the site of a bombing



Halabja, Iraq: On the 24th anniversary of a gas attack by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1988, a Kurdish woman visits the grave of her relatives



Benghazi, Libya: Protesters jump on a car during clashes in the eastern city between backers and opponents of federalism

[Mr Lick]

Chennai, India: Students hold a large poster of Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar after he batted for his landmark 100th century



Suining, China: A patient undergoes treatment for a cervical injury at the Suining City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM is an ancient medical system that takes a deep understanding of the laws and patterns of nature and applies them to the human body that has been practiced for more than five thousand years



Newtownards, Northern Ireland: The Global Rainbow is projected into the night sky from Scrabo Tower

[Mr Lick]

St Patrick's Day

People around the world have been celebrating St Patrick's Day




The Sydney Opera House joins Sky Tower in Auckland, and Table Mountain in South Africa in going green to celebrate St Patrick's Day



A member of the Irish Guards collapses before the arrival of the Duchess of Cambridge for the St Patrick's Day parade at the Mons barracks in Aldershot



The Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand



Musicians perform as they take part in a St Patrick's Day Parade in Arbat Street in central Moscow

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

The Monaco palace illuminated in green



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Chicago






Barack Obama drinks a Guinness with his ancestral cousin Henry Healy, from Moneygall, Ireland (centre), and the owner of a pub in Moneygall, Ollie Hayes, in the Dubliner Restaurant and Pub in Washington









Atlanta

[Mr Lick]

Hot air balloons float above the Pyramid of the Sun of Teotihuacan during the international hot air balloon festival outside Mexico City on Saturday

[Mr Lick]

Syrian security officers inspecting the site of a bomb blast in Damascus on March 17, 2012.