April 8 Photo Brief: Margaret Thatcher remembered, world’s largest aquarium, Vladimir Putin in the news
Margaret Thatcher remembered, world’s largest aquarium in Singapore, Vladimir Putin in the news and more in today’s daily brief. | Warning: Visual content may depict death or injury.
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- Palestinian participants take part in a beauty show in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on April 8, 2013. (Jaafar Astiyeh/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Rebels of the Seleka coalition inspect shells at the Bossembele military camp, on April 7, 2013. Tortures, summary executions, detentions without a trial, unbearable living conditions: the military camp of Bossombele, 175km north of Bangui, reveal ousted Central African leader Francois Bozize’s regime atrocities. (Patrick Fort/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Protesters are blocked by Turkish soldiers as they try to march to a courthouse in Silivri, where a hearing on people charged with attempting to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted government is due to take place April 8, 2013. Turkish police fired water cannon, teargas and pepper spray on Monday as they clashed with thousands of activists protesting outside a court in support of 275 people accused of plotting to topple the government, forcing a delay in the hearing. Defendants in the trial of the “Ergenekon” group, an alleged underground network of secular arch-nationalists, were expected to begin their final defences on Monday after prosecutors last month demanded life sentences for 64 of them. (Osman Orsal/Reuters)
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- Freed Palestinian prisoner Ibrahim Baroud holds a gun as he carried on the shoulders of Islamic Jihad militants through crowds of people, as he arrives at his home in the northern Gaza Strip April 8, 2013. Baroud, who was convicted of his affiliation with the armed group of Islamic Jihad and for carrying out armed attacks against Israel, was released on Monday after serving 27 years in an Israeli jail, according to media reports. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
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- Wild game of deer is arranged in a line at a demonstration place called ‘Streckenplatz’ after a driven hunt event at a U.S. military training area in Hohenfels near Regensburg December 14, 2012. The hunt takes place during the closed season for hunting game at one of Germany’s biggest military training ground on about 16,000 hectares. Picture taken December 14, 2012. (Michaela Rehle/Reuters)
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- Residents look on during an anti-gang operation by riot police in the Habitat neighborhood of Tamara April 7, 2013. The operation was held in an effort to stop clashes between gang members and police, in which earlier on Sunday two criminals were killed, according to the police. (Jorge Cabrera/Reuters)
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- A worker unloads waste plastic bottles at the Xiejiacun waste collection market in the Changping district of Beijing April 8, 2013. China will spend 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) over three years to deal with Beijing’s pollution, according to an official newspaper, China Daily, on March 29. Beijing’s government has pledged improve sewage disposal, garbage treatment and air quality, as well as crack down on illegal construction, said China Daily, citing a three-year plan released in March. (China Daily via Reuters)
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- Two men push their children in a stroller during the race walking competition in Brno, Czech Republic on April 7, 2013, the World Health Day. The Stroller Racing World Health Day event was celebrated nationwide on 25 different locations in the Czech Republic, with competitions for mothers, fathers and the entire family. (Radek Mic/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A topless demonstrator with a message on her back walks towards Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) during their visit of the Hanover industrial Fair in Hanover, central Germany, on April 8, 213. (Jochen Lübke/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A demonstrator holds up a picture depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin with make-up, during a protest by the gay community in Amsterdam April 8, 2013. Russia does not discriminate against homosexuals, Putin told reporters in Amsterdam on Monday where he was greeted by gay rights and other activists critical of Russia’s track record. Putin is on one-day visit in the Netherlands for the start of the Netherlands-Russia Year. (Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters)
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- VIPs enter the ground breaking ceremony for an assembly line for the Airbus A320 at Brookley Aeroplex as ladies with the Mobile Azalea Trail Maids courtesy as they enter in Mobile, Alabama on April 8, 2013. (Matthew Hinton/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A girl runs to take pictures of fishes in the Resorts World Sentosa’s S.E.A. Aquarium in Singapore April 8, 2013. The aquarium, which houses more than 80,000 animals of over 800 species in 42.8 million liters of water, is on Monday the official record holder of two Guinness World Records – for the world’s largest aquarium and for the world’s largest acrylic panel in its Ocean Gallery, according to local media. (Edgar Su/Reuters)
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- A handout picture released by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows a girl being treated in hospital following a car bomb explosion in the capital, Damascus, on April 8, 2013. A massive suicide car bomb ripped through a central Damascus street, killing at least 15 people and injuring 53 others, Syrian state media reported. (SANA HO via AFP/Getty Images)
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- Crosses are seen in front of the School of Law of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in homage to the inmates dead at the Carandiru Penitentiary massacre in Sao Paulo, Brazil on April 8, 2013. Twenty-six military police officers were to go on trial here Monday for the alleged execution-style killing of inmates during Brazil’s deadliest prison uprising, which claimed the lives of 111 prisoners. (Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A portrait left by mourners is seen outside the home of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher after her death was announced in London April 8, 2013. Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” who transformed Britain and inspired conservatives around the world by radically rolling back the state during her 11 years in power, died on Monday following a stroke. She was 87. (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)
Russian reporter dies five years after savage beating
Reuters
2:20 p.m. EDT, April 8, 2013
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian reporter who was savagely beaten in 2008 in what press freedom campaigners said was symptomatic of a culture of fear and impunity under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, died on Monday.
Mikhail Beketov, 55, lost three fingers, part of his lower leg and sustained so much brain damage he could no longer speak, died in hospital after food clogged his breathing tube, a foundation set up to help with his medical costs said.
“The culprits have not been found and now we can honestly say these people were murderers,” said Yevgenia Chirikova, an activist who campaigned with Beketov against plans to build a highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg through a forest.
Beketov, editor of a local newspaper in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, made enemies by writing exposes on corruption, shady land deals and crooked loans.
No one has been convicted of his beating.
Journalists in Russia risk beatings and even death if they delve into the murky world where politics and business overlap. President Putin’s critics say such crimes are carried out with impunity.
Russia has the ninth worst record for solving murders against journalists on a global index compiled by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which says 54 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992.
Beketov, who said he had received threats to stop writing and had been the victim of previous attacks, was given an award for bravery by Putin last year.
(Reporting By Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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