Aug 14, 2013

August 14 Photo Brief: Kissing koi, underwater mahjong, Jesse Jackson Jr. sentenced, India Independence Day

Kissing koi, underwater mahjong, Jesse Jackson Jr. sentenced, India Independence Day and more in today’s daily brief.

: Taiwan’s Evelyn Chu kisses a koi before it is placed in the water of a pond of Kasteeltuinen, an estate in Arcen, The Netherlands. The gift of the Taiwanese government marks the start of the Holland Koi Show, the largest koi and pond event in the world, held from August 16 to 18. (Vincent Jannink/Getty Images)

: A youth practices his soccer skills as the sun sets at Gorky Park in Moscow. (Phil Noble/Reuters)

: Young seals swim at the Seehundstation Norddeich in Germany. The Seehundstation Norddeich is a facility for raising young seals who were separated from their mothers due to storms, disease or human disturbance and who would otherwise have little chance of survival. Volunteers collect about 90 young seals a year from the North Sea German coast and care for the pups until they weigh about 25 kg before releasing them back into the wild. Sponsors pay for the costs of caring for the seals and get to name them. (David Hecker/Getty Images)

: Robert Heffernan of Ireland (C) comes out of the cooling mist in the men’s 50 km race walk final during the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

: Athletes are reflected in a puddle as they compete in the men’s 50 kilometres walk final at the 2013 IAAF World Championships at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/Getty Images)

: Family members play in the river at Shimanto city in Kochi prefecture . Japan’s record high temperature of 41 degree Celsius was registered at Shimanto, a Pacific coast city on the southern island of Shikoku on August 12. (Jiji Press/Getty Images)

: Acrobats perform during a general rehearsal of the Cirque du Soleil’s of Varekai show in Guadalajara, Jalisco State, Mexico. (Hector Guerrero/Getty Images)

: Indian students, their faces painted with the colors of their national flag, pose on the eve of Independence day in Allahabad on August 14, 2013. India celebrates its 66th independence anniversary from British rule on August 15. (Sanjay Kanojia/Getty Images)

: A US Army Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV) fires the linear demolition charge system during a demonstration at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, 65 kms northeast of Seoul. A total of six ABVs, a highly mobile and heavily armored minefield and complex obstacle clearing system, were dispatched to South Korea in this year. (Jung Yeon-Je/Getty Images)

: Couples compete in a kissing competition at a shopping mall on the Qixi Festival in Quanzhou, Fujian province. Qixi, also known as the Double Seventh Festival and the Chinese version of Valentine’s Day, falls on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar. Over a hundred couples attended this competition on Tuesday evening which required them to kiss in different postures for as long as possible, local media reported. (Reuters)

: Diving instructors play mahjong in a swimming pool in Xiangtan, Hunan province. According to local media, the trainers re-invented the game of mahjong by playing it under water in a 5.5-metre-deep pool to escape from the summer heat, and since then more than 10 divers have been playing the game. China’s top meteorological authority on Tuesday continued to warn of prolonged heat that has afflicted central and eastern China since July, Xinhua News Agency reported. (Reuters)

: Flames rise from a UPS Airbus A300 cargo plane which crashed near the airport in Birmingham, Alabama in this still image from video courtesy of TV station Alabama’s 13. A large UPS cargo plane crashed early Wednesday morning near the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, killing the pilot and co-pilot, in the latest in a series of aviation accidents in the United States this year. (Alabama’s 13/Handout via Reuters)

: Ultra-Orthodox protesters pray during clashes in the town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem. Ultra-Orthodox protesters clashed on Wednesday with police and other security forces in the town of Beit Shemesh after a group of them broke into a construction site to prevent work from taking place at the site they believe contains ancient graves. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

: South Koreans take part in a candle-light demonstration demanding resignation of South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and calling for reform of national spy agency in central Seoul. According to local media reports, the spy agency’s former chief Won Sei-hoon, who served under the regime of former President Lee Myung-Bak, was indicted on charges of ordering an online smear campaign to sway public opinion in favor of the ruling Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye before last December’s presidential election, in violation of the country’s election law. Park said on July 8, 2013 that the spy agency needs to set up measures to reform itself, local media reported. (Lee Jae-Won/Reuters)

: A motorcyclist wades through a flooded street after a heavy downpour in Lahore. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters)

: A man tries to dodge a bull during the “Barrete Verde e das Salinas” festival in Alcochete, near Lisbon. This festival began in 1941, and its main attraction is the release of bulls on the streets of the city. It runs from August 9 to 15. (Rafael Marchante/Reuters)

: A Scotland soccer fan stands in a fountain in Trafalgar Square in central London. Fans gathered in the city centre ahead of the international friendly soccer match between England and Scotland at Wembley Stadium, on Wednesday. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

: Former Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. leaves his sentencing hearing in Washington. Jackson, the son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and once one of the most promising black politicians in the United States, was sentenced on Wednesday to 2-1/2 years in prison for misuse of campaign funds. (Jason Reed/Reuters)