August 5 Photo Brief: Remembering A-bomb victims, Hindu goddesses and pandas in Berlin
Remembering A-bomb victims, Hindu goddesses and pandas in Berlin and more in today’s daily brief.
- Children carry lanterns to pray for atomic bombing victims in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on August 5, 2013. Tens of thousands of people were expected to gather at a peace memorial park in Hiroshima on August 6 to mark the 68th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the Japanese city. (Toru Yamanaka/AFP)
- Visitors walk among 1,600 styrofoam panda bear sculptures displayed in front of Hauptbahnhof main railway station by the World Wildlife Fund on August 5, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. The WWF is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is drawing attention to the fact that only 1,600 panda bears remain in the wild. The display will soon travel to 25 other cities in Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
- An Indian artist dressed as Hindu Goddess MahaKali performs while in a trance during the final procession of the eleven-day traditional festival of ‘Bonalu’, a ritual offering to the goddess MahaKali, at Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali Temple in Hyderabad on August 5, 2013. The Goddess is honoured mostly by women during Bonalu festival with offerings of food and dancing. (Noah Seelam/AFP)
- An Indian artist dressed as Hindu Goddess MahaKali performs while in a trance during the final procession of the eleven-day traditional festival of ‘Bonalu’, a ritual offering to the goddess MahaKali, at Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali Temple in Hyderabad on August 5, 2013. The Goddess is honoured mostly by women during Bonalu festival with offerings of food and dancing. (Noah Seelam/AFP)
- A fire breather performs during the final procession of the eleven-day traditional festival of ‘Bonalu’, a ritual offering to the goddess MahaKali, at Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali Temple in Hyderabad on August 5, 2013. The Goddess is honoured mostly by women during Bonalu festival with offerings of food and dancing. (Noah Seelam/AFP)
- The Atomic Bomb Dome is seen in silhouette during sunset over the Peace Memoral Park in Hiroshima on August 5, 2013. Tens of thousands of people were expected to gather at a peace memorial park in Hiroshima on August 6 to mark the 68th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the Japanese city. (Toru Yamanak/AFP)
- A supporter of Sri Lanka’s Marxist JVP or People’s Liberation Front demonstrates in the capital Colombo on August 5, 2013 to denounce a deadly army crackdown on villagers who were demonstrated against contaminated water supplies. At least three people were killed and another 50 wounded in an army shooting on protesters at a village just outside the capital August 1, 2013 sparking wide-spread condemnation of the government action. (Ishara S. Kodikar/AFP)
- Police disperse demonstrators with water cannon during clashes near a courthouse in Silivri, near Istanbul, on August 5, 2013, after a court decision to sentence a former army chief and other top brass to life in prison in a high-profile trial of 275 people accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government. Ex-military chief Ilker Basbug, along with several other army officers, were sentenced to life in prison, while 21 people were acquitted, according to the verdicts issued so far. The trial has been seen as as a key test in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s showdown with secularist and military opponents during his decade-long rule. (Bulent Kilic/AFP)
- Riva Lemanski, 6, poses for photographers next to a giant rocking horse known as ‘Bigger Bertie’ in central London on August 5, 2013. Thought to be the biggest hand-carved rocking horse in the world, it has a trap door in the belly and another in the saddle. Originally made for the World Skills Show 2011, the horse forms part of the ‘Out of the Ordinary’ sale at Christies showroom on September 5, 2013 and is expected to fetch GBP 25,000 – 40,000 ( USD 38,344 – 61,351 Euros 28,950 – 46,322) . (Carl Court/AFP)
- A member of staff poses with a robot called ‘Cygan’ at Christies auction house in central London on August 5, 2013. Made in 1957, it was one of the most sophisticated robots of its time with an ability to accept spoken commands and respond to light rays. Forming part of the ‘Out of the Ordinary’ sale on September 5, 2013 it is expected to fetch between GBP 8,000 – 12,000 ( USD 12,259 – 18,389, Euros 9,261 – 13,890GBP. (Carl Court/AFP)
- Afghan men walk amidst sandals, mostly from victims of a bomb blast, strewn at the roadside on the outskirts of Kandahar on August 5, 2013. An improvised bomb went off in a weekly bazaar outside Kandahar city, killing four civilians and wounding 22 others. The bombing happened in a flea bazaar that opens every Monday on the outskirts of Kandahar city. (Jangir/AFP)
- Residents look on as clothes are hung out to dry in the aftermath of floods in Karachi on August 5, 2013. Pakistani disaster relief officials issued fresh flood warnings after the death toll from heavy monsoon rains rose to 45 and waters paralysed parts of the largest city Karachi. Flash floods caused by monsoon downpours have inundated some main roads in the sprawling port city and swept away homes in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP)
- Riva Lemanski, 6 poses with a Triceratops skull at Christie’s in London August 5, 2013. The dinosaur skull is expected to sell for £150,000-250,000 (US $230,000-383,000) when it is auctioned at the Christie’s Out of the Ordinary sale September 5, 2013.(Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)
- A Palestinian family prepare traditional biscuits popular on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr at their house in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on August 5, 2013. Muslims around the world are preparing to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Preparations include buying new clothes, toys and special sweets. (Abbas Momani/AFP)
- Indian Hindu devotees pay their respects to the eleven Shivlinga of Lord Shiva at the historical Shivala Veer Ban for Sawan Somvar in Amritsar on August 5, 2013. Sawan is the fifth month of the Hindu calendar and is considered the holiest month of the year. Sawan Somvar or Shravan Somvar (July – August) is an observance dedicated to Lord Shiva. (Nanu Narinder/AFP)
RELATED
Tabassum Zakaria Reuters
12:30 a.m. EDT, August 5, 2013
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States extended embassy closures by a week in the Middle East and Africa as a precaution on Sunday after an al Qaeda threat that U.S. lawmakers said was the most serious in years.
The State Department said 19 U.S. embassies and consulates would be closed through Saturday “out of an abundance of caution” and that a number of them would have been closed anyway for most of the week due to the Eid celebration at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The United States initially closed 21 U.S. diplomatic posts for the day on Sunday. Some of those will reopen on Monday, including Kabul, Baghdad and Algiers.
Four new diplomatic posts – in Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius – were added to the closure list for the week.
Last week, the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert warning Americans that al Qaeda may be planning attacks in August, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.
“There is an awful lot of chatter out there,” U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He said the “chatter” – communications among terrorism suspects about the planning of a possible attack – was “very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”
A National Security Agency surveillance program that electronically collects communications on cellphones and emails – known as intercepts – had helped gather intelligence about this threat, Chambliss said.
It was one of the NSA surveillance programs revealed by former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to media outlets.
Those programs “allow us to have the ability to gather this chatter,” Chambliss said. “If we did not have these programs then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys.”
‘SERIOUS THREAT’
“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” Chambliss said.
U.S. military forces in the Middle East region have been on a higher state of alert for the past several days because of the threat, a U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The threat also has prompted some European countries to close their embassies in Yemen, home to an al Qaeda affiliate that is considered one of the most dangerous: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Yemeni soldiers blocked roads around the U.S. and British embassies in Sanaa, while troops with automatic rifles stood outside the French Embassy.
Interpol, the France-based international police agency, on Saturday issued a global security alert advising member states to increase vigilance against attacks after a series of prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.
“Al Qaeda is in many ways stronger than it was before 9/11, because it’s mutated and it spread and it can come at us from different directions,” U.S. Representative Peter King, a Republican, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“And al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is probably the most deadly of all the al Qaeda affiliates,” he said.
Republicans and Democrats alike on Sunday television talk shows said the threat was serious and sought to defuse the controversy over the NSA surveillance programs, which critics say are an invasion of privacy and civil rights.
“The good news is that we picked up intelligence. And that’s what we do. That’s what NSA does,” U.S. Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We’ve received information that high-level people from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are talking about a major attack,” he said.
The threat information came just before the Eid celebration at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan later this week and just over a month before the anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
A September 11 attack last year killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the actions taken to close the embassies and issue the global travel alert showed the Obama administration had learned lessons from Benghazi.
“Benghazi was a complete failure. The threats were real there. The reporting was real. And we basically dropped the ball. We’ve learned from Benghazi, thank God, and the administration is doing this right,” he said.
(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Additional reporting by Paul Simao and Phil Stewart; Editing by Eric Beech and Doina Chiacu)