Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
A child walks past damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor April 4, 2013.
Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
A child walks past damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor April 4, 2013.
Relatives of Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh, a Palestinian prisoner who died of cancer while in Israeli detention, comfort each other at Al-Ahli hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron ahead of his funeral on April 4, 2013. The Palestinian leadership has accused Israel of medical negligence, despite moves by the prison service to secure his early release on compassionate grounds, with news of his death sparking angry clashes with the army, notably in Hebron. (Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)
Palestinian police escort the body of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh during his funeral in Hebron on Thursday. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)
Nigeria reopened its train line to the north in December of 2012, marking the end of a $166 million project to rebuild portions of the abandoned line that had been washed out years earlier. The state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. rebuilt the southern portion of the line, while a Nigerian company handled the rest.
The rebirth of the line that goes north, called the Ooni of Ife, constitutes a major economic relief to the poor seeking to travel in a country where most earn less than $1 a day. Airline tickets remain out of the reach of many and journeys over the nation's crumbling road network can be dangerous. The cheapest train ticket available costs only $13.
The Ooni of Ife is a gruelling trip that travels 835 kilometres from Lagos, Nigeria's massive southwestern city, on the long trip north to Kano. The route offers a glimpse of the nation's history and landscapes, while also allowing travelers to see its ethnic and religious diversity firsthand. While Nigeria is predominantly divided into a Christian south and a Muslim north, the two faiths live together largely peacefully and intermarry in sprawling Lagos. All of Nigeria's more than 250 ethnic groups can be found on the city's busy streets, hustling out a living otherwise not possible in their home regions.
Photos taken in March 2013 by Sunday Alamba of The Associated Press.
Passengers lineup to purchase train tickets to Kano, in a terminal in Lagos, Nigeria.
A passenger peers through the ticket window in Lagos.
A man displays train tickets to Kano.
Continue reading "All aboard: train trip through reborn Nigeria tells nation's history" »
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Members of the media are reflected in the windows of the 100th floor observation deck in the One World Trade Center in New York, April 2, 2013. Port Authority officials unveiled Tuesday the stunning view from the top of One World Trade Center, a 360-degree eagle’s eye panorama that will instantly become one of the city’s premiere tourist attractions when it is completed in 2015.
A Laiki Bank manager tries to calm depositors waiting for the opening of the bank's branch in Nicosia March 28, 2013. Banks in Cyprus opened their doors on Thursday for the first time in almost two weeks, with tight controls on transactions to prevent a run on deposits after the island was forced to accept a stringent EU rescue package to avert bankruptcy. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)
It was a decade ago today that U.S. bombs first rained down on Baghdad, Iraq, while in Washington, then-President George W. Bush announced the start of hostilities — a U.S.-led coalition with the U.K. and other forces — on March 19, 2003. It was already the early hours of March 20, 2003, in Iraq when the airstrikes began.
The military action quickly ousted Saddam Hussein, but led to years of bloodshed as Sunni and Shiite militants battled U.S. forces and each other, leaving nearly 4,500 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis dead.
At the end of 2011, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta officially declared the Iraq War over with the last U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraqi soon after. Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the coalition, prompting the invasion in 2003, were never found in these 10 years following the start of the invasion.
A decade later, Iraq’s long-term stability and the strength of its democracy are uncertain. While the country is freer than it was during Saddam’s murderous rule, its Shiite-led government is arguably closer to Tehran than to Washington. It faces an outpouring of anger by the Sunni minority that was dominant under Saddam and at the heart of the insurgency that followed his ouster.
With files from the New York Times and Associated Press.
Smoke rises from the Trade Ministry in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, after it was hit by a missile during U.S.-led forces attacks. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)
A U.S. Marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003. (Jerome Delay/AP Photo)
Piles of torn and burned Iraqi currency bearing the portrait of Saddam Hussein lie in ashes on the floor of the burned Baghdad Central Bank on April 18, 2003. (David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading "Ten years after U.S. bombs rained down on Baghdad, Iraq..." »
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Firefighters put out a Falla during the last day of the Las Fallas Festival on March 20, 2013 in Valencia, Spain. The Fallas festival, which runs from March 15 until March 19, celebrates the arrival of spring with fireworks, fiestas and bonfires made by large puppets named Ninots.
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Cypriots show their palms reading "No" during a protest against an EU bailout deal outside the parliament in Nicosia on March 18, 2013. Cyprus's parliament has postponed until March 19 a session to vote on the bailout deal that slaps a levy on all Cypriot bank savings, as negotiators scrambled to soften the blow for small deposit holders. AFP PHOTO/PATRICK BAZ
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© NAOMI HARRIS
The Sikh Motorcycle Club of Vancouver, B.C. The club formed during the fight to win the right to wear turbans while motorcycling in B.C.
See more of Naomi's photos here.
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Former Olympic swimmer Casey Legler is taking the modelling world by storm as the first female to sign a contract with a major agency for only male modelling work.
© Ryan McGinley/Ford Modelling
Casey Legler on the front of her first her model card.
© Photo Cass Bird
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AFP PHOTO TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA
Casey Legler from France reacts after finishing last in heat 4 of the women's 50m freestyle qualifying round of the Olympic swimming event at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 26, 1996.
