Sunday, June 19, 2011

New video of the the tsunami in Japan

We've seen a lot of footage of the tragic Japan tsunami, but this clip is the most horrifying yet. Entitled "South Sanriku — Tsunami seen from Shizugawa High School," it's shot from high ground, but toward the end of the video you can see panicked residents running for their lives.

Almost as dramatic as the video is its audio track, where even if you don't speak Japanese, you can tell the people are expressing concern at the beginning, but by the end, their voices have reached a high level of panic and horror as they watch their homes washing away.

Shortly after the tsunami, one survivor called the oncoming deluge "a gigantic pile of garbage coming down the street." That's an apt description, as you can see an entire town reduced to a huge pile of watery debris in a matter of minutes. Shocking.





Volcano erupts in Chile

The eruption of the Puyehue volcano in the Andes mountains of southern Chile last weekend provided some spectacular images of the force of nature. Ash covers the landscape and thousands of people were evacuated from the surrounding rural communities. The volcano, which hasn't been active since 1960 when it erupted after an earthquake, sent its plume of ash 6 miles high across Argentina and toward the Atlantic Ocean. -- Lloyd Young


A plume of ash, estimated six miles (10km) high and three mile wide is seen after a volcano erupted in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 575 miles (920 km) south of the capital, Santiago June 4. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters) 
 
 A car is completely covered in volcanic ash in San Carlos de Bariloche, southern Argentina, Sunday June 5. (Alfredo Leiva/Associated Press)

 A helicopter flies over smoke and ash rising from the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain near Osorno city in south-central Chile June 5. A volcano dormant for decades erupted in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain in south-central Chile on Saturday, belching an ash cloud more than 6 miles (10 km) high that blew over the Andes and carpeted a popular ski resort in neighboring Argentina. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters) 

 Lightning flashes around the ash plume at above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos June 5. The volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain, dormant for decades, erupted in south-central Chile on Saturday, belching ash over 6 miles (10 km) into the sky, as winds fanned it toward neighboring Argentina, and prompted the government to evacuate several thousand residents. (Carlos Gutierrez/Reuters) 


 A cloud of ash billowing from Puyehue volcano near Osorno in southern Chile, 870 km south of Santiago, on June 5. (Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images)

 Volcanic lightning is seen over the Puyehue volcano, over 500 miles south of Santiago, Chile, Sunday June 5, 2011. Authorities have evacuated about 600 people in the nearby area. The volcano was calm on Sunday, one day after raining down ash and forcing thousands to flee, although the cloud of soot it had belched out still darkened skies as far away as Argentina. (Francisco Negroni/AgenciaUno/Associated Press)

 An aerial picture showing the cloud of ash billowing from Puyehue volcano near Osorno in southern Chile, 870 km south of Santiago, taken on June 5. (Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images)

 Lightning strikes over the Puyehue volcano, over 500 miles south of Santiago, Chile, Monday June 6. Authorities have evacuated about 3,500 people in the nearby area. The volcano was calm on Monday, two days after raining down ash and forcing thousands to flee, although the cloud of soot it had belched out still darkened skies as far away as Argentina. (Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images)

Monday, June 6, 2011

Bosnian Serb war fugitive Ratko Mladic captured

On May 26, 2011, notorious war fugitive Ratko Mladic was arrested in a village in northern Serbia. The former Bosnian Serb general is accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II. He was indicted 16 years ago for his role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebenica and for war crimes in the four-year siege of Sarajevo that killed 10,000, including 1,500 children. He will face genocide charges in The Hague. The arrest is a reminder of the atrocities that occurred during the Balkan conflict. --Leanne Burden Seide

Two pictures show Ratko Mladic: Left, in uniform as Bosnian Serb Army chief on Feb. 15, 1994, and, right, during a court appearance in Belgrade on May 27, 2011, hours after his arrest ended a 16-year manhunt for the general accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. (AFP/Getty Images)
In a Feb. 4, 1996, file photo, skeletal remains of victims of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica lie on a hilltop just west of Srebrenica, Bosnia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)
In this July 14, 1995, photo, refugee Ferida Osmanovic from Srebrenica is found hanged in a forest outside the UN base at Tuzla airport. The woman, who looked to be in her early 20s, had hanged herself with a torn blanket. More than 10,000 refugees from the UN safe haven of Srebrenica, captured by the Bosian Serbs, arrived in Tuzla. Bosnia Serb commander General Ratko Mladic announced that approximately 40,000 residents had been cleared from their homes in Srebrenica. (Darko Bandic/Associated Press)
In this Feb. 15, 1994, file photo General Ratko Mladic (center) speaks to a Serbian soldier at the Lukavica barracks on the ouskirts of Sarajevo six days before the NATO ultimatum. (Pascala Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)
In this Aug. 5, 2003, file photo, forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons in Bosnia, inspect remains found at a mass grave near the eastern Bosnian village of Memici, 50 miles northeast of Sarajevo. (Amel Emric/Associated Press)
A Bosnian member of the International Commission for Missing Persons inspects bags with body remains, exhumed from mass graves, which he prepares for the process of DNA identification of the victims from the Bosnian war, in Tuzla, Bosnia, on May 27, 2011. The commission keeps finding Mladic's victims in numerous mass graves, spread around Srebrenica. The bodies are then exhumed, identified through DNA analysis, and returned to the families. Almost all Srebrenica victims get buried then in a memorial center near Srebrenica. This year, another 500 will be laid to rest there. (Darko Zabus/Associated Press)
A forensic expert of the International Commission for Missing Persons works on trying to identify the remains of a victim of the Srebrenica massacre, at the commission's center near Tuzla on June 1, 2011. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
Ratko Mladic salutes as he makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011, in The Hague, Netherlands, after the former Bosnian Serb Army chief was declared fit to stand trial by a court in Belgrade. Mladic was arrested May 26 after hiding from the law for 16 years. He is charged with atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. (Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images )

Pictures from the Naksa Day.

Syrian protesters clashes with Israeli soldiers during a demonstration marking "Naksa"




Israeli soldiers stand guard on the Israeli-Syrian border near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights June 5, 2011, during a protest by Syrians and Palestinians on the Syrian side of the border marking the 44th anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East War.

An Israeli soldier sets a new barbed wire on the border wire fence at the Israeli side, near the Lebanese-Israeli border village of Kfar Kila, south Lebanon, on Sunday, June 5, 2011.




Thursday, May 19, 2011

Deadly clashes on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon

Syrian protesters climb the border fence between Syria and Israel during a demonstration marking "Nakba" near Majdal Shams
























Sunday, May 8, 2011

Dailylife photos part 1

It's time to look back on the previous years. In the second third of 2010, a nearly unpronounceable Icelandic volcano wreaked havoc on European travel, South Africa hosted the World Cup, and while Russia endured disastrous fires, Pakistan struggled with its own terrible flooding, and so much more. Each photo tells its own tale.


Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from an Icelandic volcano in Eyjafjallajokul April 17, 2010. The volcano spewed ash into the air for weeks, wreaking havoc on flights across Europe. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
South African Lucas Mahuca, 3, kicks a ball as he plays soccer in a field next to his house in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, South Africa. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man takes a picture inside the British pavilion, a structure bristling with long acrylic rods with seeds embedded inside, at the World Expo 2010 site in Shanghai, China on April 14, 2010. (PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Two-year-old Dhoal, a child suffering from severe malnutrition, is swarmed with flies as he cries on a bed at a local hospital in the southeast Sudanese town of Akobo on April 10, 2010. The population in Akobo and the surrounding counties in the Jonglei state in southern Sudan are suffering from the effects of a devastating drought and tribal conflict. Aid officials have called Akobo the "hungriest place on earth," after a survey showed that 46 percent of children under five are malnourished. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
A farmer works in a field southwest of WaKeeney, Kansas with ominous clouds looming overhead on Sunday, June 20, 2010. Severe weather battered parts of northwest Kansas with heavy rain, wind, hail and isolated tornadoes. (AP Photo/The Hays Daily News, Steven Hausler)
Pilot Capt. Brian Bews parachutes to safety just as his CF-18 fighter jet plummets to the ground during a practice flight at the Lethbridge County Airport for the weekend airshow in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada on July 23, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Lethbridge Herald, Ian Martens)
After months of heavy rainfall caused some of the worst floods Europe has seen in decades, farmers help a horse to jump into an amphibious vehicle in flooded Juliszew village in central Poland at Wisla river on May 24, 2010. (JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images) 
Sokreun Mean, 36, a badly scarred victim of an acid attack, poses at the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) facility on August 1st, 2010 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She was attacked outside her home with a large quantity of acid causing blindness and severe disfiguration to her face. She has been operated on over 20 times. Sokreun was divorced, but the estranged wife of her husband became jealous and attacked her. She is one of 270 patients receiving treatment by the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC), an organization dedicated to the welfare of acid survivors in Cambodia, since 2006. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
In seawater covered by a thick layer of spilled oil, two Chinese firefighters, Zheng Zhanhong (center) and Han Xiaoxiong (top right) attempt to rescue their fellow firefighter Zhang Liang (only his hand visible) from drowning beneath the oil slick during clean-up operations at the port of Dalian, China on July 20, 2010. Zhang Liang was unable to resurface, and drowned. (REUTERS/Jiang He/Greenpeace)
The pack of riders including HTC Columbia's team rider Mark Cavendish (3rd from right) crash during their sprint next to the finish line in the fourth stage of the Tour de Suisse from Schwarzenburg to Wettingen June 15, 2010. (REUTERS/Christian Hartmann)
As central Russia suffered through its hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago, hundreds of wildfires swept the countryside, causing billions in damage. Russians here try to stop a fire from spreading near the village Golovanovo, Ryazan region, on August 5, 2010. (NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images)
The first of the 140,000 music fans due at this year's Glastonbury Festival enjoy the sunset at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 23, 2010 in Glastonbury, England as the festival celebrated its 40th anniversary. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images) 
Spanish matador Julio Aparicio is gored by a bull, its horn piercing his throat, during a bullfight at the San Isidro Feria in the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid on May 21, 2010. Aparicio underwent surgery and is out of critical danger. (AP Photo/Domingo Botan)
A tremendous sinkhole caused by the heavy rains of Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City was estimated to be 30 meters wide and over 60 meters deep. As the sinkhole formed, it swallowed a clothing factory about three miles from the site of a similar sinkhole three years earlier. The clothing factory had closed only an hour before it plunged into the Earth. (REUTERS/Casa Presidencial)
A rioter uses a door as a shield as he is fired on by a metro police officer during a protest at the Phomolong informal settlement, outside Pretoria, South Africa on March 23, 2010. South African police fired buckshot on Tuesday to disperse township rioters who threw stones and looted shops to protest over poor housing and lack of rail services. (Reuters/Stringer)
In this Feb. 13, 2010 file photo, Ion Banner loses control on a giant wave during the first heat of the Mavericks surfing contest in Half Moon Bay, California. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
A child poses for her mother in front of the China Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo site April 25, 2010. (REUTERS/Aly Song)