World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

Exactly one week on, a group of rescue workers observes a minute of silence to mourn for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, Japan, on Friday, March 18.




A crying man takes pictures of a devastated area in Minamisanriku, northern Japan on Friday.






Japan Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers and residents transport metal barrels containing heating oil after they were delivered to a shelter for survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Minamisanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture on Friday.



Fire trucks converge in preparation to spray water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear on Friday. Smoke billowed from a building at the crippled plant Friday as emergency crews worked to reconnect electricity to cooling systems on the overheating nuclear fuel rods



U.S. soldiers and civilians remove debris from the harbor of Hachinohe on Friday.






Firefighters march toward assigned areas to search for victims of the March 11 quake and tsunami in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture on March 18.




Caskets are placed at a mortuary in Rifucho, northern Japan, Friday.



Family members stand in front of their collapsed house in Onagawa, Friday



Australian rescue workers take a break after searching for bodies in Minamisaririku, Miyage prefecture on Friday. Analysts say power blackouts due to the deepening nuclear crisis could hinder recovery.



International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection team members arrive in Japan on Friday.

[Mr Lick]

Latest from Libya



People gather near a burning aircraft north of Benghazi, Libya, Thursday, March 17. Witnesses said the aircraft was piloted by anti-Gadhafi rebels and crashed for mechanical reasons. Gadhafi's forces encircled a key eastern city and his warplanes went deeper into rebel-held territory to bombard Benghazi's airport Thursday, threatening an all-out offensive to bring down the rebellion.



A Libyan bank cashier gives a client outdated bank notes, which had been removed from circulation several years ago and reissued recently by the central bank due to cash shortage, at a bank in Tripoli on Thursday.

[Mr Lick]

'I will come again tomorrow': Boy, 9, desperately searches for missing family in Japan



Nine-year-old Toshihito Aisawa pictured at an evacuation centre in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan on March 15. He is holding two handwritten signs as he continues his search for his father, mother, grandmother and two cousins lost in the quake and tsunami of March 11. On one is written their names, on the other "I will come again tomorrow".

[Mr Lick]

Bahrian uprising









Doctors form a human chain at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama fearing an attack by riot police





Thousands of anti-government protesters march to the Saudi embassy in Manama on March 15, a day after a Saudi-led military force entered the country to defend its Sunni monarchy from a Shiite-led protest movement. The yellow sign center foreground reads: "The Saudi army came to protect the illegitimate government, not the aggrieved, legitimate nation" and the banner at right says: "The Saudi army's entry to Bahrain is an occupation we will never accept."

[Mr Lick]

Workers hold hammers as they prepare to destroy a Lamborghini Gallardo L140 luxury sports car to mark World Consumer Rights Day in Qingdao city, eastern Shandong province, China on March 15. The car's owner hired people to publicly destroy the vehicle when it failed to function after a service by an official Lamborghini service station. The protest was made to provoke public support and goad the manufacturer to respect his consumer rights.

[Mr Lick]

'Lovely' Ky. woman accused of horrific war crimes

Croatian factory worker allegedly killed a prisoner and forced others to drink his blood




STANTON, Ky. — The arrest of a Croatian woman in small-town Kentucky for alleged war crimes two decades ago in the former Yugoslavia "brings her long run from justice to an end," a U.S. marshal said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Wier ordered that Azra Basic, 52, be held without bond pending an April 1 status hearing and appointed her a lawyer.
Prosecutors argued that no bail amount would guarantee Basic's presence in court.

This week, acquaintances were shocked to hear the secret that Bosnian war crimes investigators said Basic has been hiding for two decades.
As a soldier in the Croatian army, she killed a prisoner and tortured others by forcing them to drink human blood and gasoline, authorities said.

[Mr Lick]

NASA spacecraft now circling Mercury — a first

Messenger probe enters orbit more than six years after launch




A well-traveled NASA probe made history Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft ever to enter into orbit around Mercury

Applause and handshakes broke out in Messenger's mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and carried over into a nearby auditorium, where a live webcast of Messenger's Mercury arrival was being broadcast.
"The mood is fantastic," said NASA's science mission chief, Ed Weiler. The whooping and hollering could be heard through the webcast, and it was not unexpected.

After all, it's not every day an emissary from Earth — even if robotic — takes up station around a planet for the very first time.
"It only happens once in human history, and it's just beginning," Weiler said of humanity's first mission to study Mercury from orbit. "We're going to learn a lot more about Mercury than we've ever seen."

[Mr Lick]

Yemeni forces open fire on protesters, killing at least 31


Violence represents government's harshest response; at least 3 children among the dead




A medic helps an injured anti-government protester in Sanaa, Yemen, on Friday. Doctors confirmed that of the dead, at least three are children

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni security forces firing from rooftops and houses shot at tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators, killing at least 31 — including three children — as the protesters entered a downtown square in the capital to demand the ouster of their autocratic president.

[Mr Lick]

Chelsea get Man Utd in last eight of Champions League




Terry missed a crucial penalty in the 2008 final and Man Utd lifted the trophy



Chelsea and Manchester United have been drawn to face each other in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while Tottenham will play Real Madrid. Barcelona meet Shakhtar Donetsk, with reigning champions Inter Milan drawn against Schalke.

[Mr Lick]

Japan earthquake and tsunami: Remembering the moment




One week on the people of Japan pause for a minute's silence

[Mr Lick]

A boy in Yamada was reunited with his mother after 4 anxious days

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Acapulco gunfight kills two young Mexican children



Mexican soldiers secure the scene of the killings

Two boys, aged six and two, have been shot dead in the Mexican city of Acapulco as attackers chased a man through their house, officials said.
Gunmen in a convoy of a six trucks raced through a residential area, pursuing a man who tried to hide in the house, witnesses said.

The assailants opened fire, killing the children and a woman said to be in her 60s, and injuring a 23-year-old woman.

[Mr Lick]

A police officer detains a young Indian protester






Pakistani's demonstrating against the release of US contracter Raymond Davis



Indian students smear each others face with coloured powder during festivities in Allahabad



Those sinister looking ladies again in Tehran



A Canadian soldier with suspected appendicitis is treated by a medic on a Black Hawk helicopter

[Mr Lick]

Terror plot BA man Rajib Karim gets 30 years



A former British Airways software engineer has been jailed for 30 years for plotting to blow up a plane.

Rajib Karim, 31, from Newcastle, used his job to access information for an al-Qaeda preacher based in Yemen to target BA's flights in the US.

Sentencing him at Woolwich Crown Court, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said he was a committed jihadist who planned offences "about as grave as could be imagined".
The judge said he had worked "incessantly" for terrorist purposes

[Mr Lick]

Bahrain destroyed the statue at the Pearl roundabout, the focal point and symbol of weeks of pro-democracy protests there

[Mr Lick]

Yemini forces open fire on protesters

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Farmers transport wheat crop on camels at Pipalgaon village on the outskirts of the northern Indian city of Allahabad March 18, 2011.

[Mr Lick]

Japan's Humanitarian challenge

[Mr Lick]

Survivor found amidst Japan's devastation after 8 days

[Mr Lick]

Syrian forces kill three protesters in southern city




DERAA, Syria (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed three protesters in the southern city of Deraa on Friday, residents said, in the most violent response to protests against Syria's ruling elite since revolts swept through the Arab world.

The demonstrators were taking part in a peaceful protest demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption in Syria, which has been ruled under emergency laws by PresidentBashar al-Assad's Baath Party for nearly half a century.




President Bashar al-Assad inherited power from his father in 2000

[Mr Lick]

Yemen protests turn deadly




An anti-government protester shouts slogans during a rally demanding the ouster of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa March 18, 2011. Yemen's beleaguered president declared a state of emergency after gunmen including snipers shot dead at least 25 protesters at an anti-government rally, but denied his police forces were behind the violence.



Anti-government protesters carry an injured fellow protester in Sanaa March 18, 2011.

[Mr Lick]

A Haitian man attends a concert organized by the party of presidential candidate Michel Martelly in downtown Port-au-Prince March 17, 2011.




Aurora borealis, or northern lights, fill the sky over Finnmark during the 1000 km (621 miles) long Finnmarkslopet, world's northernmost sled dog race, taking place in Finnmark county, northern Norway, March 13, 2011.







Vehicles travel along the destroyed landscape after the earthquake and tsunami in Minamisanriku City, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, March 17, 2011.




People walk past a car damaged with shotgun pellets in the village of Sitra March 17, 2011.




Horses jump a fence in The Pertemps Final during the Cheltenham Festival horse racing meet in Gloucestershire, western England March 17, 2011.



Cars drive on the Pearl Square flyover past a checkpoint set up by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) forces as roads to the center of Manama reopen after protesters were cleared in the crackdown in Manama March 17, 2011.




Libyan government army rocket launchers are seen in the desert near the west gate of town Ajdabiyah March 16, 2011. Picture taken March 16, 2011.



A boy flashes the victory sign during a rally demanding the ouster of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh outside Sanaa University March 17, 2011.



An aerial view taken from a helicopter from Japan's Self-Defence Force shows damage to the No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in this handout taken March 16, 2011 and released March 17, 2011



Children watch a rally from behind the closed gate of a market, guarded by a policeman, against the release of CIA contractor Raymond Davis in Karachi March 17, 2011



Anti-government protesters throw a fellow protester into the air during a rally demanding the ouster of Yemen's President Saleh outside Sanaa University March 17, 2011



The body of a victim is covered with a blanket after it was retrieved from the rubble of Rikuzentakat, days after the area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami March 17, 2011.

[Mr Lick]

A Somalian refugee who fled the unrest in Libya holds a loaf of bread as he walks in a refugee camp near the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Ras Jdir March 15, 2011.




A fisherman casts his line in an artificial lake in Tirana, Albania, March 14, 2011.




Hickory, who made history as the first-ever Scottish Deerhound to win "Best in Show" at the Westminster Dog Show, is pictured on a sofa at her breeder's 56-acre farm in Flint Hill, Virginia, March 11, 2011. Five-year-old Hickory, whose full name is Grand Champion Foxcliffe Hickory Wind, has retired from show competition and returned to where she was born. Scottish Deerhounds, a large but gentle dog with an effortless galloping gait, do not bark after three years of age, an unusual trait.



Semyon, aged 6, looks at his father, Valentin Panin, an 83-year-old blind man, who sits on a bed of their wooden house in the Taiga wood on a bank of the Mana river, about 35 km (22 miles) southeast of Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, March 11, 2011. Valentin Panin, 83, and his wife Ekaterina, 35, got married in 1993 and began to lead a hermit way of life. The couple, who have four children now, with Valentin assisting the delivery himself, live in the wood separately from people and are occupied mostly with farming and poultry breeding.




Rebel fighters sit on a sofa at a check point in Ajdabiyah, Libya, March 15, 2011.
Love that photo



A boy bats during a baseball practice in the coastal town of Ocumare February 25, 2011. Boys as young as five years old are training in Venezuela's Little Leagues. Some of them live in the city's slums or poorer neighborhoods and think baseball could be a ticket to a different life. Being a major league baseball player is the dream of thousands of children, but in Venezuela it is also a chance for a brighter future. In 2010 a record 58 Venezuelans played in Major League Baseball in the United States, making up more than a quarter of all the players born outside the U.S. Between 1939 and 2010 a total of 258 Venezuelans have gone on to play in major league teams in the United States.




An Israeli border police officer is engulfed by flames after a petrol bomb was thrown at him during clashes with Palestinians in the mostly Arab neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem March 18, 2011. A Israeli police spokesperson said that the officer was treated at the scene and later taken to hospital for his injuries.




A Chadian refugee waits in line for food distribution at the Libya-Egypt border after fleeing fighting in eastern Libya, March 16,




Men daubed in colours celebrate "Lathmar Holi", also known as the Festival of Colours, at Barsana in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 14, 2011. This tradition heralds the beginning of spring and is celebrated all over India.




Ethnic minority delegates wave to journalists as they leave the Great Hall of the People after the closing ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing March 13, 2011.