Picture This

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Gaggle Crossing

Typically, crossing guards are something you would see at an elementary school. But this man in Duisburg, Germany is tending to a flock of 150 geese as they cross a street in the city. The geese enjoy an outdoor enclosure during the day and move back to their night accomodation during the evening. These frolicking fowl are surely enjoying warm temperatures outdoors this week. But the young geese, hatched in May, will lead short lives. They are to be slaughtered for the traditional Christmas dinner.

 

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Escaping the Violence

The sprawling Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan provides temporary shelter to 115,000 people who have fled the violence in neighboring Syria. On Thursday, the camp received a distinguished visitor: US Secretary of State John Kerry. Far from being welcomed with open arms, though, a small number of representatives from the camp demanded that the US and its Western allies set up no-fly zones and safe zones inside of Syria to stop the violence. According to the United Nations, the death toll in the civil war has reached more than 93,000 and has become the worst humanitarian crisis the world has seen since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

You don't realize how bad it is until you see a photo like this. And this is just a small camp! There are bigger ones in Turkey.

 

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Smoke and Laser

A demonstrator in the Bahraini village of Diraz, west of Manama, shines a laser at police after clashes early on July 19. The unrest followed a car bomb that went off outside a mosque near the royal residences the day before, which prompted officials to ban a planned opposition rally. Protests have troubled the tiny Gulf kingdom since February 2011, when the country's majority Shiites began demanding a greater say in how the Sunni-led nation is ruled.

 

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Decadent Drapes

The Dresden-based Semperoper, one of Germany's most eminent -- and most ostentatious -- opera houses, is getting a serious facelift. The eastern region of Saxony, home to the two-century-old building, has designated some €40,000 ($53,000) for just this purpose. The renovation includes the meticulous restoration of a 200-square-meter (660-square-foot) painted curtain. Here, craftsman have spead the drapery across the floor of the opera's adjacent workshop to clean and rework it. The artwork, which went missing during World War II and was later painstakingly reconstructed according to the original design by German painter Ferdinand Keller, will once again be available for public viewing at the end of August.

 

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Toy George

Denmark-based Lego Group has become the latest company to jump on the Royal Baby bandwagon, with the family-owned firm today unveiling a new attraction to commemorate the birth of the baby prince. The exhibit, which is based in the company's Californian Legoland resort, is made up of as many as 40,000 colorful interlocking bricks and features the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their newborn son, Prince George, in front of Buckingham Palace. Model maker Katrina James used a total of 55 bricks to create the tiny pram and baby prince, while the palace required some 36,000 pieces. The exhibit was completed within three days of the birth, which was announced on Monday evening at London's Kensington Palace.

 

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Prague Downpour

With its raucous beer halls, picturesque courtyards and cobble-stoned lanes, Prague has long been one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. The city was not at its brightest and best yesterday, however, as Japanese tourists struggled across the Charles Bridge against an oncoming rain storm. The bridge, which crosses the Vltava river in the Czech capital, will no doubt hold up against the torrential weather conditions -- given it was first constructed some 800 years ago.

 

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Ominous Mammatus

A collection of so-called "mammatus" clouds made for a dramatic evening sky over the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair in the eastern US state of Virginia on Thursday. The stunning formation, which features a series of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, is a meteorological phenomenon that typically occurs after severe thunderstorms. It indicates high levels of atmospheric instability, which is why aviators are advised to steer clear -- no matter how beguiling the scene.

 

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Tokyo Squeeze

A record-setting heatwave across East Asia is straining power grids and raising concerns about farming and water supplies. Experts blame the temperatures on the overall warming of the planet, as well as increasing urbanization in Japanese cities. Visitors to the Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo witnessed the overcrowding firsthand on Friday. About 13,000 holiday makers visited the venue during the heatwave, which coincided with the start of Japan's traditional Obon (Festival of the Dead) summer vacation.

No way in the world could you catch me in a mess like this!

 

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http://cdn2.spiegel.de/images/image-537609-galleryV9-mvex.jpg
The Spanish town of Bunol played host to a gigantic food fight on Wednesday, when thousands of visitors crammed onto its streets to join the annual tomato-throwing festivities. The festival ranks as one of the country's most popular, and has spawned a raft of similarly squishy events in the United States, China and Colombia. This year, for the first time since its launch six decades ago, the town is charging a €10 ($13) entry fee for the one-hour bash. The move has been interpreted in the Spanish media as a potent symbol of the country's economic crisis -- Spain's daily El Pais newspaper drew a

 

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Deceptive Peace

Two Syrian youths made the best of a bad situation on Wednesday when they converted a shelling crater created by Assad loyalists into a swimming hole. The eastern city of Deir al-Zor, where the picture was taken, has been under partial rebel control for nearly a year. Two weeks ago, a rebel advance nearly brought the whole city under the control of anti-Assad forces.

 

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Art of Danger

Two shoppers pose on a 3-D pavement drawing at a mall in Medellin, Colombia on Thursday, Sept. 6. The artwork was devised by Julian Beever, a British artist who has been creating trompe-l'oeil chalk drawings on pavement surfaces for nearly two decades. He uses a special projection technique to create the illusion of three dimensions when his drawings are viewed from a particular angle.

 

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Rainbow Revellers

Lisbon was painted all the colors of the rainbow on Sunday as hundreds came together for a riotous paint-throwing party based loosely on Hindu traditions. The powder-throwing ritual, which is mainly observed in India and Nepal, has become popular in other countries -- especially those that accomodate large Hindu communities. The so-called "Holi" festival celebrates the beginning of a new season, as well as good harvests and fertile land.

 

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Yellow Haze

A haze of smoke hangs over a Ryobi Cup cricket match in Sydney, Australia on Oct. 17. The city has been shrouded in smoke as bushfires rage through the area in what has been called the most serious outbreak to hit the region in a decade. As of Thursday evening, authorities were struggling to contain some 90 fires. Australia began its annual "Bushfire Danger Period" on Oct. 1.

 

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I love the face of the cub.

Glee Cub

Karis, an 11-week-old lion cub, plays among fallen leaves at Blair Drummond Safari Park in central Scotland on Nov. 20. Keepers report she also loves playing with cardboard boxes. At 5 kilograms (11 pounds) she currently weighs one thirtieth of what she will when fully grown, and although she currently lives alone in an enclosure with her mother, Teekay, she will join the rest of her pride in December.

 

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Red, White and Blue

This comes from der Spiegel Online @ Picture This: Red, White and Blue - SPIEGEL ONLINE and, even after reading the explanation, it took me some time to actually see what it is. I then went to Namib Desert - Bing Images with other views and it still didn't quite sink in. As a kid, I spent endless hours wandering through the Mojave Desert and even that doesn't help me understand a place like this.

People live there?