Oct. 3 Photo Brief: Michael Phelps golfs in Scotland, Paris fashion escalates, Britain mourns slain officers, Medvedev and machine gun
Michael Phelps golfs in Scotland, Britain mourns slain officers, Mennonites in Mexico, Medvedev and machine gun, a big croc, a big rock and more in today’s daily brief.
- A bull runs towards a crowd of devotees during the final day of the Indra Jatra Festival in Kathmandu. The annual festival, named after Indra, the Hindu god of rain and heaven, is celebrated by worshipping, rejoicing, singing, dancing and feasting in Kathmandu Valley to mark the end of monsoon season. The festival, during which Indra, the living goddess Kumari and other deities are worshipped, starts after the erecting of a “lingo”, a long wooden pole, on September 27 and ends after it is pulled down on October 3. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)
- Girls eat cucumber at the Mennonite community of Buenos Aires in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Over 80,000 Mennonites live in Mexico after they established themselves for the first time in the 1920s. Mennonites arrange their lives according to their religious beliefs; they have their own educational system and do not participate in the government or serve in the military. Their origins date back to Switzerland in the 16th century as part of the Reformation until a movement was founded by the Dutch priest Menno Simon who believed in a different interpretation of the scriptures, hence the name Mennonites, meaning “Followers of Menno”. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)
- A man poses for pictures as he walks through an art installation entitled “Rain Room” during a photocall at the Barbican in London. The ‘Rain Room’ is a 100 square meter field of falling water which visitors are invited to walk into. As the visitor walks through the rain stops around them, giving them an experience of how it might feel to control the rain. The installation opens to the public on October 4, (Leon Neal/GettyImages)
- A woman walks on a pavement covered with autumn leaves in central Minsk. (Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)
- British police personnel attend the funeral of murdered police colleague Nicola Hughes at Manchester Cathedral in Manchester, north-west England. PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, were killed in a gun and grenade attack as they responded to what they thought was a routine burglary call in Tameside, Greater Manchester, northwestern England, on September 18, 2012. (Andrew Yates/GettyImages)
- A police officer cries as the coffin of Greater Manchester Police constable Nicola Hughes is carried into Manchester Cathedral for her funeral service in Manchester, northern England. Hughes and fellow officer pc Fiona Bone were shot and killed in a gun and grenade attack in Hattersley near Manchester on September 18. (Nigel Roddis/Reuters)
- Police officers carry the coffin of Greater Manchester Police constable Nicola Hughes into Manchester Cathedral for her funeral service in Manchester, northern England. Hughes and fellow officer pc Fiona Bone were shot and killed in a gun and grenade attack in Hattersley near Manchester on September 18. (Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)
- A model holds the “Archduke Joseph” historical diamond during a Christie’s auction preview in Geneva. Once part of the collection of the Archduke Joseph of Austria (1872-1962), the D color diamond, weighing 76,02 carats and mined at the legendary Indian Golkonda mine, is expected to reach between 15 million and 20 million US dollars at an auction on November 13 in Geneva. (Fabrice Coffrini/GettyImages)
- Gabriel Guallo of Ecuador’s Quichua tribe stands with a tarantula on his face to demonstrate how he is planning to break a world record, in El Tena. Guallo hopes to carry 250 tarantulas on his body for 60 seconds during a special ceremony in February 2013 to break what he says is the existing record for most tarantulas carried on the body (240 tarantulas for 30 seconds). (Guillermo Granja/Reuters)
- A 700 kilogram crocodile called Rex – who is one of the world’s largest crocodiles – cruises around his enclosure after receiving his first feed following three months of hibernation at WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo. Throughout winter, it is common for crocodiles to enter a period of inactivity where they survive on their existing energy stores inside their body but once the weather starts warming up, so does their appetiteto indicate their need to replenish their energy. Rex, who has been a resident of WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo since 2009, was a so-called rogue crocodile who was captured and placed into a crocodile farm near Darwin in the Northern Territory when his taste for local pet dogs drew him too close to the human population. (William West)
- Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps of the USA in action during the practice round of The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at The Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
- Iranian smugglers drive a boat loaded with sheep at the Omani port of Khasab. Until recently the Iranian boats and their fearless young skippers escorted several cargoes a day across the narrow Strait of Hormuz – loaded with everything from soft drinks to mobile phones and cosmetics – bought in the flourishing trading centers of the United Arab Emirates and sold to merchants in Iran. The proximity of Iran to the UAE and Oman and their historic trade and finance links have supported thriving trade, which in recent years has undermined the impact of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies on Tehran – until now. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)
- Bavarian farmers transport their cows on a boat over the picturesque Lake Koenigssee at dusk. Before the winter season approaches the farmers have to drive their cattle down from their Alpine meadows to a narrow valley that can only be reached by boat. (Michael Dalder/Reuters)
- Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev fires a machine gun as visits a weapons factory in Klimovsk outside Moscow. (Alexander Astafyev/GettyImages)
- A handout picture released by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows what the official agency described as the scene of car bomb explosions that hit the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Three car bombs tore through the heart of Syria’s commercial capital in the morning, killing at least 27 people and wounding 72 others. (SANA/GettyImages)
- Men walk on a road amid wreckage, after blasts ripped through Aleppo’s main Saadallah al-Jabari Square. Four blasts ripped through a government-controlled district close to a military officers’ club in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 90 on Wednesday, opposition activists said. (George Ourfalian/Reuters)
- Men run amid wreckage, after three blasts ripped through Aleppo’s main Saadallah al-Jabari Square, and a fourth a few hundred meters away near Bab al-Jinein. Explosions in government-controlled districts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 27 people and wounded more than 70 on Wednesday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV reported, quoting a Syrian official source. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 40 people were killed and 90 wounded, citing medical sources. (SANA/Reuters)
- An ethnic Shan Buddhist novice monk attends class at the Thone Htat monastery in Yangon. Thone Htat monastery houses a free school run by Buddhist monks and attended by 37 Buddhist novice monks and 10 other students. All of the Buddhist attendees are from the Shan, Pa-O and Wa ethnic groups. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)
- A man plays the saxophone in front of the Berlin Wall in Berlin. Wednesday marks the 22nd anniversary of German reunification, after decades of division into Soviet-controlled communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east and the Federal Republic of Germany in the west. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)
- Models present creations by U.S. designer Marc Jacobs as part of his Spring/Summer 2013 women’s ready-to-wear fashion show for French fashion house Louis Vuitton during Paris fashion week. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
- Participants fight during an opposition rally in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. Police clashed with at least 2,000 opposition protesters demanding that the government nationalizes the country’s flagship gold venture with Canada on Wednesday. (Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters)
- A participant of a hot air balloon festival prepares a balloon for a flight over the Neguev desert in Timna Valley national park, southern Israel. (Jack Guez/GettyImages)
- A fireman inspects the back end of the badly damaged Lamma IV passenger boat after a collision, near the shores of Hong Kong’s Lamma island the morning after it was pulled out of the waters following its sinking on October 1. The captains of a ferry and the Lamma IV pleasure boat that collided in Hong Kong on October 1, killing 38 people in the city’s worst maritime disaster in decades, were arrested on October 2 with five other crew, officials said. (Philippe Lopez/GettyImages)
- Employees of Hong Kong Electric pay tribute to those died on their company boat during a ferry collision on Monday, in Hong Kong. Hong Kong authorities began inspecting the wreckage of a leisure boat on Wednesday amid questions over how a collision with a commuter ferry in relatively calm weather killed 38 people in one of the city’s worst accidents in recent decades. (Reuters)