April 29 Photo Brief: Explosion in Prague, hopes fade in Bangladesh, IceBridge
Explosion in Prague, hopes fade in Bangladesh in aftermath of building collapse, NASA photo of the IceBridge and more in today’s daily brief. | Warning: Visual coverage may depict injury and/or death.
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- A relative argues with a member of the police as he shows a picture of a garment worker, who has been missing, during a protest demanding capital punishment for those responsible for the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, outside Dhaka April 29, 2013. Rescue officials in Bangladesh said on Monday they were unlikely to find more survivors in the rubble of a factory building that collapsed last week burying hundreds of garment workers in the country’s worst industrial accident. (Khurshed Rinku/Reuters)
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- Cranes operated by Bangladeshi Army personnel are pictured at the scene following the April 24 collapse of an eight-storey building in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 29, 2013. Bangladeshi textile bosses pleaded April 29 with Western clothing giants to keep doing business with them after nearly 400 people died as hopes of finding more survivors faded. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A Free Syrian Army fighter lights up an improvised hand grenade during clashes with forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo’s neighbourhood of Salaheddine, April 29, 2013. (Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)
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- Backdropped by the Corcovado Hill, members of Rio de Janeiro’s feared military police battalion BOPE stand guard at Guararapes shantytown on April 29, 2013 before the specially-trained police force known as Police Pacification Units or UPP, can be deployed in. The operation is part of a government strategy designed to combat crime and reassert full control of the Rio de Janeiro metropolis ahead of the upcoming FIFA Confederations Cup, the football World Cup of 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later. (Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A general view of National Mane Garrincha Stadium undergoing construction in Brasilia April, 28, 2013. The stadium will be one of the venues for the 2013 Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)
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- This April 20, 2013 NASA handout image shows Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Fjord with Kap Atholl in the background seen during an IceBridge survey flight near Qaasuitsup, Greenland. Sea ice coverage in the Fjord ranges from thicker, white ice seen in the background, to thinner grease ice and leads showing open ocean water in the foreground. (NASA HO via Michael Studinger/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Injured people leave an area after an explosion in Prague April 29, 2013. The explosion in central Prague on Monday injured about a dozen people and others were trapped in a building damaged by the blast, a Reuters witness and emergency services officials said. (David W Cerny /Reuters)
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- Police officers push back women to prevent them from reaching Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house during a protest in Phnom Penh April 29, 2013. Boeung Kak lake residents and other communities embroiled in land disputes in the capital, gathered and appealed for Hun Sen’s help after they were threatened with eviction to pave way for private luxurious property developments. They also appealed for the release of another resident, Yorm Bopha, from prison. (Samrang Pring/Reuters)
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- A female member of the Palestinian Ghaith family stands with the rubble of her home to her back after it was demolished by Jerusalem municipality workers in al-Tur on April 29, 2013. Palestinian homes built without an Israeli construction permit are often demolished by order of the Jerusalem municipality. (Ahmad Gharabali/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Ivory Coast’s junior football national team players dubbed, “Elephanteaux” (Baby Elephants), pose in front of the 2013 CAN U17 tournament winners trophy upon their arrival at Abidjan’s airport on April 29, 2013. Their arrival comes two days after the Elephanteaux won, for the first time, the CAN U17 in Morocco. Ivory Coast defeated Nigeria 5-4 in a penalty shoot out. (Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)
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- French performance group Compagnie Off members gather before performing ‘Les Girafes’, a stilt-walking show, at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo on April 29, 2013. The performance was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Roppongi Hills, a large-complex that incorporates offices, shopping malls, theaters, a museum and a luxury hotel. (Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Workers set up dust screen on a demolition site in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, April 27, 2013. According to local media, along with the city’s recent environment protection acts, construction sites are required to take measures controlling dust in order to improve air quality. Picture taken April 27, 2013. (Stringer/Reuters)
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- A worker looks at photographs of the “Dennis Hopper. On the road” exhibition by artist Dennis Hopper during the inauguration at the Picasso Museum in Malaga, southern Spain April 29, 2013. The exhibition shows a total of 141 photographs from Dennis Hopper’s photography legacy, most of them produced during the 1960s. (Jon Nazca/Reuters)
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- Hla Hla May, a Rohingya Muslim woman displaced by violence, holds her one year old daughter Roshan at a former rubber factory that now serves as their shelter, near Sittwe April 29, 2013. Myanmar must urgently address the plight of Muslims displaced by sectarian bloodshed in western Rakhine State and double the number of security forces to control the still-volatile region, an independent commission said on Monday. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
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- A Hindu devotee gets her tongue pierced with a trident as she takes part in an annual religious procession called Shitla Mata in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad April 29, 2013. Hindu devotees subject themselves to painful rituals during the religious procession to demonstrate their faith and as a penance to the deity at a temple dedicated to the goddess Shitla. (Amit Dave/Reuters)
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- A man wearing shades displays a t-shirt depicting Dutch Queen Beatrix in a souvenirs shop in Amsterdam April 29, 2013. The Netherlands is preparing for Queen’s Day on April 30, which will also mark the abdication of Queen Beatrix and the investiture of her eldest son Willem-Alexander. (Cris Toala Olivares /Reuters)
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- Concert-goers dance and gesture during a performance at the 2013 Strawberry Music Festival at Tongzhou Canal Park in Beijing, April 29, 2013. The festival will be held from April 29 to May 1. (Barry Huang/Reuters)
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- A bee is covered with pollen as it sits on a blade of grass on a lawn in Klosterneuburg April 29, 2013. The European Commission said on Monday it would go ahead and impose a temporary ban on three of the world’s most widely used pesticides because of fears they harm bees, despite EU governments failing to agree on the issue. In a vote on Monday, EU officials could not decide whether to impose a two-year ban – with some exceptions – on a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, produced mainly by Germany’s Bayer and Switzerland’s Syngenta. (Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)
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- Dhiraj Chepang, a first student, carries his bag while returning home from school at Khokana, in Lalitpur April 29, 2013. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)
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- A blue-toned still photograph of U.S. inventor Alexander Graham Bell is seen in this undated Smithsonian Institute Archive image. Nine years after he placed the first telephone call, Alexander Graham Bell tried another experiment: he recorded his voice on a wax-covered cardboard disc on April 15, 1885, and gave it an audio signature: “Hear my voice — Alexander Graham Bell.” (Smithsonian Institution Archives/Handout via Reuters)
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- Photograph of a window washer dressed as Spiderman by Dulce Pinzon is part of the Latino/Gotidiano exhibit by from Spain Arts and Culture. (Dulce Pinzon/MCT)
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- Science fiction enthusiasts Alice Di Trolio (L), Martin Comber (C) and John Gumley-Mason, dressed as characters from Star Wars, pose for a photograph outside the 12th annual Sci-Fi London festival in east London April 28, 2013. The international festival of science fiction and fantasy film runs from April 30-May 6. (Suzanne Plunkett /Reuters)
Israel evicts Palestinian villagers for army exercise
Noah Browning | Reuters
3:11 p.m. EDT, April 29, 2013
HAMRA CHECKPOINT, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers evicted several hundred Bedouins from a village in the occupied West Bank on Monday after the army declared the area a live-fire training zone.
The residents of Wadi al-Maleh, a village mostly inhabited by shepherds in the arid area bordering Jordan, had almost all left their homes by an evening curfew and retreated to neighboring villages, Aref Daraghmeh, a local leader, told Reuters.
The displacement coincided with several demolitions of Arab properties in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which come as the United States is trying to revive stalled peace.
In January, villagers received a similar eviction order and left without resisting, only to return after 48 hours. Almost all of their 90 buildings, including shelters for their animals, were demolished in 2010, local rights groups said.
Israeli soldiers prevented outsiders, including journalists, from entering the area, saying it was a “closed military zone”.
“It should be emphasized that these structures, located in closed military zones actively used by the IDF, are illegal in nature…the residents of these illegal structures have been requested in advance to vacate the premises voluntarily,” an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said.
“This drill is a part of the IDF’s pre-planned yearly exercise schedule,” the spokesperson said.
Wadi al-Maleh is located in “Area C,” a swath of land making up two-thirds of the West Bank under full Israeli control and where most Jewish settlements are located.
Half a million settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East War which Palestinians want for a future state.
Israeli army firing zones comprise 18 percent of the West Bank, roughly the same size of “Area A,” the land including major cities and towns which is under full Palestinian control.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 5,000 Palestinians in 38 herding communities live on army firing zones, along with several sprawling Jewish settlements and farms.
Besides al-Maleh, 12 Bedouin villages throughout the length of the Jordan Valley have received eviction orders since 1999, according to the Association for Human Rights in Israel.
The International Court of Justice and most governments deem Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal. Israel disputes this and cites Biblical and historical links to the land.
Israeli authorities razed two family homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Tur on Monday morning, displacing 18 Palestinians who failed to acquire elusive building permits, local officials said.
The army also demolished a well near a Palestinian refugee camp south of the city of Hebron and cleared an agricultural area of dozens of olive trees east of Bethlehem, according to Palestinian government media.
Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on those incidents.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by Michael Roddy)
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