World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

Labour lifts Lord Ahmed's suspension



A peer suspended by the Labour Party for allegedly offering a £10m bounty on the head of US President Barack Obama has had the suspension lifted.

Lord Ahmed, who denied the accusations published in Pakistani newspaper the Express Tribune, thanked Chief Whip Lord Bassam for a "fair" investigation.

Labour confirmed the suspension had been lifted but did not explain why.

His alleged remarks followed reports the US offered $10m for the conviction of a Pakistani-based militant leader.

The supposed bounty was said to be for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The Indian government blames Mr Saeed and his organisation for carrying out several militant attacks on its territory, including the 2008 Mumbai shootings which left 165 dead plus nine of the 10 gunmen.

[Mr Lick]

Riot police stand guard during an anti-government rally in Santiago, Chile



Madonna performs on stage in Berlin



Tropical storm Debby is declared a statewide emergency by the governor

[Mr Lick]

has been formally charged with using performance-enhancing drugs by the US Anti-Doping Agency.

The case will now be heard by an arbitration panel, who will decide the outcome of the hearing.

Armstrong, whose seven wins came consecutively between 1999 to 2005, could be stripped of his titles and banned from cycling if found guilty.

However, the 40-year-old denies doping, noting he has never failed a drug test.

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Chinese celebrations on the return of Hong Kong

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Chines space crew return to earth.

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Angry passengers reported queuing for nearly two and a half hours last week – with some starting far outside the immigration hall – to be met with empty passport control desks and uninterested staff. Labour on Sunday night warned the Government it had to get a grip of the “immediate crisis brewing less than four weeks before the Olympics”. BAA, which runs Heathrow, admitted that target times for passengers passing through immigration were missed.

[Mr Lick]

Enrique Pena Nieto, presidential candidate for the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), greets supporters at his party's headquarters in Mexico City as exit poll results begin to come in for general elections in Mexico early Monday, July 2, 2012.



The party that ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century claimed victory in a presidential election on Sunday as a senior election official said the party's candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto, held an irreversible lead over his rivals. President Felipe Calderon congratulated him on his win.

Pena Nieto, on track to return his once long-dominant opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power, had between 37.9 and 38.55 percent of the vote, ahead of second-placed leftist challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had between 30.9 and 31.86 percent of the vote.






Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) react after exit polls showed him to be in second place, in Mexico City on July 1, 2012

[Mr Lick]

Mario Balotelli of Italy cries as he shows his dejection following defeat in the Euro 2012 final match between Spain and Italy at the Olympic Stadium on July 1, 2012 in Kiev, Ukraine.

[Mr Lick]

Russian space agency rescue team members carry U.S. astronaut Donald Pettit shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz TMA-03M space capsule at the southeast of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, July 1.

[Mr Lick]

A crowd in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle watches NASA's Super Guppy aircraft approach Boeing Field, carrying a key piece of a space shuttle mockup that will go on display at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

Today NASA delivered a key piece of the mockup that astronauts used for space shuttle practice to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, my hometown. And it arrived aboard one of the most ungainly-looking airplanes ever built. The wingless mockup is known as the Full Fuselage Trainer, or FFT. The plane has a nickname that's more colorful: the Super Guppy.

The Super Guppy looks more like a Super Whale. The wide-body turboprop airplane has a cargo hold that's been built up into a bulbous shape, specifically to carry big stuff for outer space. Only five of the Guppies were ever produced, and they were used to cart spacecraft components around for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and shuttle programs. This Super Guppy is the only one of its kind still flying, and this week's odyssey with the most important piece of the Full Fuselage Trainer is one of the highest-profile flights the plane has ever taken.

[Mr Lick]

A worker uses a chainsaw to clear branches from a tree that fell onto the 14th fairway at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., Saturday, June 30, 2012, after a strong storm blew through overnight. The AT&T National golf tournament was postponed to allow workers to clear the course. More than two million people across the eastern U.S. lost power after violent storms and two people died, including a 90-year-old woman asleep in bed when a tree slammed into her home, a police spokeswoman said Saturday.



An uprooted tree caused damage to electrical lines and a home in the American University neighborhood of Washington, DC, on June 30, 2012 the morning after a violent storm swept through the area.

[Mr Lick]

Workers mark out an Olympic Lane on the Embankment in London in preparation for the Olympic Games. The lanes can only be used by athletes and Olympic officials and will be off limits to other drivers. Best stick to cycling during the Games then



The streamers are out in Rugby and Dunchurch as Katherine Spaughton carries the Olympic flame in the torch relay

[Mr Lick]

Two sisters return to the remains of their family's home in Mountain Shadows, Colorado Springs, for the first time since they were evacuated. Their home was one of more than 350 burned in the Waldo Canyon fire



Yohan Blake beats Usain Bolt in the men's 200m final at the Jamaican Olympic trials in Kingston. It's the second time Blake has beaten Bolt in his favoured event, though Bolt's coach has no doubt that he will be fully ready for the Olympics at the end of the month



Stranded villagers wave to a helicopter as they wait to be rescued in Tezpur, India. The floods from monsoon rains in north-eastern India killed dozens of people, with more than 2,000 villages inundated as rivers breached their banks



A girl collects water from a puddle at the flooded Jamam refugee camp in South Sudan's Upper Nile. Refugees have streamed into the Upper Nile region following conflict in northern parts of South Sudan, swelling refugee camps. Added to this, heavy rains and contaminated water pose a grave threat to those already displaced from their homes

[Mr Lick]

Nablus, West Bank: Palestinian protesters wearing masks run for cover during clashes with Israeli forces



Tataliguri, India: Villagers travel on a country boat through flood waters



Guatemala City, Guatemala: Transgender marchers ride in a bus ahead of a Gay Pride parade

[Mr Lick]

Managua, Nicaragua: A prosthetic limb left behind on a seat during the Central American and Caribbean Wheelchair Basketball Championship

[Mr Lick]

Hong Kong protests

Fifteen years after British colonial rule ended and China regained control of the city, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in the annual pro-democracy march. Protesters chanted slogans against new Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying just hours after he was sworn in



Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents march in the annual pro-democracy protest. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the handover to Chinese rule






A protester hits an image of a wolf representing new Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying






Leung Chun-ying and his wife, Regina, shake hands with supporters after being sworn in. Leung began his term amid falling popularity ratings, there is rising public discontent over widening inequality and lack of full democracy in the former British colony



A Hong Kong protester is restrained as he chants slogans as Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks at the inauguration

[Mr Lick]

Nuclear power protests in Japan

Protesters stage demonstrations across Japan as technicians at the Ohi nuclear facility on the country's west coast prepare to restart a reactor, the first to come back online since the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country last year.

Restarting Japan's nuclear power stations will avert dire power shortages and sustain the economy, the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has said. But the issue has divided the country, resulting in an increasingly hostile showdown between the government and those doubtful about its atomic safety claims.
























People protesting against the restart of Ohi nuclear power plant park their vehicles to block a road

[Mr Lick]

A firefighter carries a hose next to burning trees during a wildfire in Carlet near Valencia, Spain July 1, 2012. More than fifty thousand hectares had been burnt in wildfires in the Valencia region since Thursday, according to local media.



Spain's Iker Casillas lifts up the trophy after defeating Italy to win the Euro 2012 final soccer match at the Olympic stadium in Kiev, July 1, 2012.

[Mr Lick]

Protesters set fire to piles of voting materials after storming the office of the national election commission in Benghazi July 1, 2012. Armed protesters calling for greater autonomy for Libya's east, stormed the national election commission in Benghazi on Sunday, burning materials and breaking computer equipment outside, less than a week before the North African country holds an election. About 300 men carried computers and ballot boxes from the building in Libya's second city and began crushing them while chanting pro-federalism slogans, a Reuters correspondent at the scene said.



Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez carries a baby during a rally in Maracay, some 100 km (62 miles) west of Caracas July 1, 2012. President Chavez defied his health problems to join a massive rally while opposition rival Henrique Capriles took to the remotest corners of Venezuela at Sunday's formal launch of the presidential race.

[Mr Lick]

Barclays to review 'flawed' practices as Agius resigns



Barclays has promised a "root and branch review" and announced the resignation of its chairman Marcus Agius following the inter-bank lending rate-fixing scandal.
In a statement, Mr Agius said: "The buck stops with me."

Last week Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

Barclays' chief executive Bob Diamond will appear before MPs on the Treasury Committee on Wednesday.

Mr Agius is due to answer their questions on Thursday.

Mr Agius has also stepped down as chairman of the British Bankers' Association, which is responsible for compiling Libor.

But, Barclays said Mr Agius would remain in his post at the bank until "an orderly succession is assured".

[Mr Lick]

Police budget cuts 'risk to three forces', HMIC warns



Three police forces may not be able to provide a "sufficiently efficient or effective service" due to budget cuts, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary says.

Its report on the impact of 20% funding cuts to police in England and Wales by 2015 said the Met Police, Devon and Cornwall and Lincolnshire were at risk.
There would be 5,800 fewer front-line officers across the 43 forces, it said.

Policing minister Nick Herbert said the report made it clear "the front line of policing is being protected overall''

[Mr Lick]

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dies



The former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, has died at the age of 96, officials say.

In a statement announcing the death, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to his "deep loyalty to Israel".

As leader of the right-wing Likud party, Mr Shamir was prime minister between 1983-1984, and in 1986-1992.

In office, he gained a reputation as an uncompromising opponent of Palestinian statehood.

"He was part of a marvellous generation which created the state of Israel and struggled for the Jewish people," Mr Netanyahu said in his statement.

Born in Poland in 1915, Yitzhak Shamir moved to what was then Palestine. His father, mother and sisters were killed in Nazi-occupied Poland.

In Palestine, Mr Shamir joined a Zionist paramilitary organisation fighting against forces of the British mandate for the creation of a Jewish state.

After the founding of Israel in 1948, he joined its Mossad intelligence service before launching a political career in the 1970s.

During his second term as prime minister, he ordered a military solution to the first Palestinian intifada (uprising) which began in 1987.

He persistently advocated the creation of a Greater Israel encompassing all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river.

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(Reuters) - "Barclays Plc Chief Executive Bob Diamond quit with immediate effect on Tuesday over an interest rate-rigging scandal, becoming the highest-profile victim so far in a probe that spans a dozen major banks across the world.

Britain's third-largest bank said that outgoing chairman Marcus Agius - who himself announced his departure a day earlier - would lead the search for a new executive.

"The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise - I cannot let that happen," Diamond said in a statement."

There doesn't appear to be any handcuffs showing, where are the boys in blue.

[Mr Lick]

Syrian children play at a camp named "Container City" on the Turkish-Syrian border of Oncupinar in the Kilis province, southern Turkey on July 3, 2012.

Syrians fleeing civil unrest have found habitat in temporary homes located on the Turkish-Syrian border in Kilis, Turkey. The homes are mostly used by Turkish Muslims traveling on a pilgrimage to Mecca

[Mr Lick]

Flood-affected people walk through a damaged road at Marigaon district in the northeastern Indian state of Assam on Tuesday. At least 77 people have been killed and nearly two million affected by heavy monsoon rains that caused floods in Assam, in what the prime minister on Monday called one of the worst such disasters to strike recently. The mighty Brahmaputra River and many of its tributaries have breached their banks after downpours, washing away thousands of homes mostly made of bamboo and straw, as well as roads, bridges and power lines.



Indian army soldiers rescue flood affected villagers in Phateki, 270 kilometers (169 miles) east of Gauhati on Monday. Nearly half a million people took refuge in relief camps set up in government buildings after the devastating floods killed 95 people and left 14 missing in northeastern Assam state.






Medicine is sprayed on the feet of a flood affected victim in Phatekai village in the worst flood affected Sonitpur district of Assam state about 270 km from Guwahati city, India, on Tuesday. Over 80 people have died as a result of the floods in Assam.