World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

Holidays 4 UK: Brighton tour operator collapses




A tour operator with more than 12,000 holidaymakers currently abroad has gone into administration.

Brighton-based Holidays 4 UK, which also traded as Aegean Flights, sold packages and flights to Turkey.

The Foreign Office said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) would ensure that all customers were able to fly home as planned.

It said customers should arrive at the airport in time to check in for their flights as normal.

Travel association ABTA said there were currently 12,800 people abroad with the company and all were in Turkey.

[Mr Lick]

A malnourished child at the Dadaad camp, Kenya

[Mr Lick]

A policeman chases a protester in Srinagar, Kashmir where a man had died in police custody

[Mr Lick]

Students in Malabon, Philippines use chairs to cross their flooded school compound

[Mr Lick]

Salisbury Cathedral sculpture exhibition (My home town)



More than 20 figures have been placed around Salisbury Cathedral by figurative sculptor Sean Henry

[Mr Lick]

The photographs were taken by Noor Behram, a journalist from the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, and they document what he says are the civilian victims of unmanned aircraft 'drone' attacks carried out by U.S. forces.



In this Aug. 23, 2010 photo provided by Noor Behram, a man holds debris from a missile strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan. The Beaconsfield gallery in London is staging an exhibit of photographs taken by Behram allegedly showing innocent civilians killed by U.S. drone missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal region.

[Mr Lick]

A policeman wearing protective equipment walks near a house where bomb squad officers are working to protect an 18-year-old girl in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Mosman, August 3, 2011. Australian bomb squads rushed to a house in a Sydney suburb Wednesday to defuse what media reports said may be an explosive device strapped to a young woman's body. Police said they could not confirm the reports that the device was strapped to the woman's neck or that the bomb scare was part of an extortion plot.



Onlookers stand behind a police tape near a house where bomb squad officers are working to defuse what media reports said may be an explosive device strapped to a young woman's body, August 3, 2011.

[Mr Lick]

Italy 'to default' but Spain may 'just' escape



On Wednesday Silvio Berlusconi told parliament that Italy's economy was "solid"


Debt-laden Italy is likely to default, but Spain might just avoid it, according to the British think tank, the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

With the countries weighed down by debt, the think tank modelled "good" and "bad" economic scenarios for both.

It found that Italy will not avoid default unless it sees an unlikely big jump in economic growth.

However, it said, "there is a real chance that Spain may avoid default".

Even though Italy has managed to run tight budgets, and has vowed to eliminate its deficit by 2014, the economy needs a significant boost in growth.

But its economy grew by just 0.1% in the first quarter of 2011 and further growth is expected to remain sluggish.

On Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi addressed parliament, saying the economy was "strong" and the nation's banks "solvent".

But many economists believe that the eurozone's third largest economy risks being engulfed in the debt crisis.

In a report published on Thursday, the CEBR calculated that Italy's debt would rise from 128% of annual output to 150% by 2017 if bond yields stay above the current 6% and growth remains stagnant.

"Even if the cost of borrowing goes back down to 4%, the growth rate is so anaemic that we see the debt-GDP ratio remaining at 123% in 2018," said Doug McWilliams, the CEBR's chief executive.

The conditions in Spain are better because its debt is much lower. Even under the "bad" scenario, Madrid's debt ratio would climb to no higher than 75% of national output.

"Fingers crossed but there is a real chance that Spain may avoid default and debt restructuring, unless it gets dragged down by contagion," Mr McWilliams said.

"Realistically, Italy is bound to default, but Spain may just get away without having to do so," he said.

[Mr Lick]

US charges 72 over global child porn operation




The US has charged 72 people it alleges were part of a global child pornography network used to share photos and videos of sexual abuse.

Announcing charges after 20 months of Operation Delego, senior US officials said some 600 users of a site known as "Dreamboard" had been investigated.

Attorney General Eric Holder said some images on the site showed the abuse of infants and young children.

The US has 43 of those charged in custody, with nine held overseas.

The 20 others charged as part of the US probe remain at large, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, and are known only by their internet pseudonyms.

Operation Delego represents the largest prosecution to date in the US of those who have participated in an "online bulletin board conceived and operated for the sole purpose of promoting child sexual abuse, disseminating child pornography and evading law enforcement", the statement said.

Dreamboard was created in 2008 and shut down in early 2011 when it became evident the US government had launched a probe into the online network.

The charges being handed to members of the website carry sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison.

[Mr Lick]

Elderly father chained up like dog in southern Russia




A married couple in southern Russia face charges after the wife's elderly father was found by police chained up in a yard like a dog.

Prosecutors took the unusual step of releasing photos of the victim online, showing him sitting on a mattress with a chain attaching his leg to a tree.

Neighbours alerted police after hearing the 70-year-old man's cries for help. He was allegedly chained for five days.

The couple are being accused of false imprisonment and are said to have fled.

In order to stop the old man from wandering into the street, they had kept him chained up from 28 July to 1 August, investigators were quoted as saying.

According to the Russian news website, Life News, the victim, who lived in the village of Gluboky, can barely see or hear, and is in very poor health

[Mr Lick]

Using data from the VISTA infrared survey telescope at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile, an international team of astronomers has discovered 96 new open clusters hidden by the dust in the Milky Way. Thirty of the clusters are shown in this mosaic.

[Mr Lick]

Texas State Park police officer Thomas Bigham walks across the cracked lake bed of O.C. Fisher Lake Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, in San Angelo, Texas. A combination of the long periods of 100 plus degree days and the lack of rain in the drought -stricken region has dried up the lake that once spanned over 5400 acres.

[Mr Lick]

U.S. President Barack Obama pays for his lunch and that of an unidentified woman at Good Stuff Eatery in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, August 3. With the President were OMB Director Jack Lew, Assistant to the President and Director, Legislative Affairs Rob Nabors, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Nancy Ann DeParle, Chief of Staff to the Vice President Bruce Reed and Director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling.

[Mr Lick]

When Cuba legalizes buying and selling by the end of the year — as the government promised again this week — José and many others expect a cascade of changes: higher prices, mass relocation, property taxes and a flood of money from Cubans in the United States and around the world.



People look at removable tattoos for sale at a soviet-era apartment block in Havana July 3. Cuba will authorize limited housing and car markets by 2012, the Communist party newspaper Granma said on Friday, a move awaited by local residents since the early 1960s when home and most auto sales were banned. Granma, reporting on a recent meeting of top level party, government and other officials, said Cubans would still be prohibited from owning more than one home. But for the first time, they could buy and sell the dwellings with minimal government interference.






Cuban self-employed Lorenzo Conejo fixes a bicycle wheel's spokes in front of his house, on June 21 in Havana. Many Cubans make their business using any tools or workspace available in an effort to adapt to the the new economic rules.



A man repairs his house in Havana July 13. Cuba has begun lifting restrictions on individual economic activity earning applause from local residents even as the moves stoke anger over why the prohibitions existed in the first place and the many that remain. President Raul Castro has loosened regulation since taking over for his ailing brother Fidel as he moves Cuba's Soviet-style economy in a more market friendly direction and battles the paralyzing and often corrupt bureaucracy and black market it has fostered.

[Mr Lick]

In this image released by the National Film Preservation Foundation, Betty Compson, center, is shown in a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock film, "The White Shadow." The New Zealand Film Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation announced the discovery of the 1923 film, thought to be the earliest surviving feature by Alfred Hitchcock.

[Mr Lick]

Zoo owner and artist Aleksandr Pylyshenko lies next to female African lion Katya inside a cage at a private zoo situated in his yard in the city of Vasilyevka, southeastern Ukraine August 3. Pylyshenko decided to spend five weeks in a cage with a pair of African lions, Katya and Samson, to get money for improving the lions' living conditions, according to local media. He is broadcasting it on internet to attract the public's attention to plight of wild animals in private Ukrainian zoos, which do not get enough funding.

[Mr Lick]

Shell oil spills in the Niger delta

Shell has accepted liability for two massive oil spills that have had severe consequences for the economy, health and development of the community of Bodo in Nigeria




The wellhead near the village of K-dere, Ogoniland. The crude oil that gushed unchecked from the two Bodo spills which occurred in 2008 has clearly devastated the 20 sq km network of creeks and inlets on which Bodo and as many as 30 other smaller settlements depend for food, water and fuel






The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama. No attempt has been made to clean up the oil which has collected on the creek sides, washes in and out on the tides and has seeped deep into the water table and farmland






The wellhead near village of K-dere, Ogoniland. Shell has accepted responsibility for the 2008 double rupture of the Bodo-Bonny trans-Niger pipeline that pumps 120,000 barrels of oil a day though Bodo



According to the communities in Bodo, the company has in two years only offered £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil. The offers were rejected as 'insulting, provocative and beggarly' by the chiefs of Bodo but later accepted on legal advice

[Mr Lick]

Egypt's military crackdown on Tahrir Square sit-in

In the week Hosni Mubarak went on trial, the military violently suspended a sit-in in Tahrir Square




It was about 3pm when screams came out from Tahrir street. Protesters began knocking rocks and wooden sticks on the pavement while chanting: “Wake up people, armoured vehicles are coming.”



lots of military police with sticks and armoured vehicles standing by.

[Mr Lick]

Protesters started to protect the square by facing military forces and preventing them from entering. They announced that they wouldn’t leave until they got all martyrs’ rights, or they would die here.



Brigadier General Mamdouh Abbas was present. The same man was also in Maspero and Abbassya.



After a few minutes, military police attacked protesters, beating some and arresting others

[Mr Lick]

Central Security Forces troops came through Muhammad Mahmoud street



Armoured vehicles had already stormed the square. They were firing their machine guns into the air, and some locals were cheering the army as the sit-in was being dispersed



The military police knocked down tents of protesters

[Mr Lick]

Greece in Crisis









The W nightclub in Athens. Many young Greeks are struggling with new austerity measures

[Mr Lick]

Taxi drivers protest outside the Athens parliament building. Cabbies are angry at moves to loosen restrictions on licensing rules as part of its austerity programme



Dr Georgios Papadakisa, a doctor with Medecines Du Monde who works in Athens and Perama. The charity used to just deal with emergencies in the developing world, but have now set up clinics in Greece to help refugees and the homeless

[Mr Lick]

An abandoned three-storey villa in Zografou which was built with a controversial foreign loan



A shipyard in Perama, a town with very high unemployment. There is still some work refitting ships and some luxury shipbuilding but most workers work on a casual basis



Leonidas Samiou in the Klimaka hostel, Athens. The 47-year-old former painter and decorator has been unemployed for three years



Police search suspected illegal immigrants in the Omonia area of Athens

[Mr Lick]

Norway in mourning




A young woman cries during the funeral ceremony for Mona Abdninur, 18, in Hoeybraeten, near Oslo, August 2, 2011.






Mourners carry the coffin of Mona Abdninur, 18, during the funeral ceremony in Hoeybraeten, near Oslo, August 2, 2011.

[Mr Lick]