Indian Ocean

In today’s pictures, a swimmer plays with snow in Russia, a dog celebrates Boxing Day in England, Indonesia remembers a deadly tsunami eight years later, and more.

The sharia police are made up of different kinds of people – some of them claiming to be on a mission, others just needing a job.

In today’s pictures, a man smokes in a room at a psychiatric institute in Syria, a man carries a swordfish to market in Somalia, a new ice-skating rink opens in North Korea, and more.

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[Video Link] Brendon Grimshaw lives alone (with some giant turtles) on the island of Moyenne in the Indian Ocean. The spry gent reminds me of Tom Neale, who wrote a book I love called an Island to Oneself.

Brendon Grimshaw purchased the island for £8,000 in 1962 and set about making the island habitable. He did this with the help of one other man, Rene Antoine Lafortune….

Grimshaw and his friend planted sixteen-thousand trees, built 4.8 kilometers of nature paths, and brought and bred giant land tortoises, creating an island of incredible beauty now worth 34 million Euros. Apart from a wide variety of plant and bird life, the island is home to over 100 land tortoises….

After 20 years of persistence, Grimshaw and his assistant achieved their goal of making Moyenne Island a National Park in its own right, separate to that of the St. Anne marine park. Now known as the Moyenne Island National Park, it is the smallest national park in the world, harbouring more species per square foot than any other part of the world.

86-year-old lives alone on his island reintroducing indigenous giant tortoises

World Water Day is observed on March 22 every year. The day to recognize the importance of earth's most precious natural resource was proposed 20 years ago at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. While we often take water for granted, many cannot. And water plays a role in almost everything we do. We drink it, wash in it, play in it, generate power with it, irrigate crops with it, travel and transport goods on it, fight fires with it, and worship with it. Gathered here are images of water from the last year in all its uses, in scarcity and in abundance. -- Lane Turner (48 photos total)
A child bathes from a public tap in his neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on March 6, 2012. A UNICEF report says unhygienic conditions cause an estimated 1. 2 million child deaths before the age of five from diarrhea worldwide every year. The report says in urban areas access to improved water and sanitation is not keeping pace with population growth. (Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press)

HANDS-ON PROTEST: A woman displayed her hands, painted red, symbolizing bloodshed, and blue, symbolizing peace, during a demonstration demanding the ouster of Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh in San’a Wednesday. (Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

LAST DAYS OF SUMMER: A man sunbathed on a beach in Westcliff-on-Sea Wednesday as much of the U.K. enjoyed a late spell of hot weather expected to last into next week. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

WAR GAMES: South Korean army soldiers re-enacted the Battle of the Naktong Bulge in Waegwan, South Korea, Thursday, as part of a series of events to mark the 61th anniversary of the Korean War. (Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press)

MASS BAPTISM: A baby was baptized with about 450 other children during a mass baptism ceremony by the Georgian Orthodox church in Tbilisi Thursday. (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)

OPEN WIDE: A whale shark was photographed in the Gulf of Tadjoura off the coast of Djibouti in the Indian Ocean. (Warren Baverstock/National News via Zuma Press)

ANCIENT STREET VIEW: A giant 360-degree panorama re-creation of the ancient city of Pergamon by Austrian-born artist Yadegar Asisi will be on display at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum for a year, starting Friday. (Soeren Stache/AFP/Getty Images)

SEEKING HELP: Displaced Pakistani villagers tried to hand over their identity cards to get permits for relief at an office near Hyderabad, Pakistan, Thursday. Recent flooding has killed over 220 people in Sindhi province, and destroyed some 665,000 homes, displacing 1.8 million people. (Pervez Masih/Associated Press)

WINDS OF NESAT: A man braved strong winds and rain on a street in Haikou as powerful Typhoon Nesat slammed into southern China Thursday. (Associated Press)

STUDENT UPRISING: Chilean students clashed with riot police during a demonstration in Santiago. The students are demanding far-reaching reforms of the education system. (Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images)

AFTER THE STORM: Residents salvaged housing materials from a community in an area of Manila that was destroyed by storm surges unleashed by Typhoon Nesat. (Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)

PARISIAN GLOW: French actress Lou Doillon, right, watched a show of French fashion designer Olivier Rousteing for Balmain’s spring-summer ready-to-wear collection Wednesday in Paris. (Thibault Camus/Associated Press)

GET THE LOOK: A model waited backstage before the Alternative Hair Show in Moscow. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters)

LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE: Alfred David, a 79-year-old Belgian man nicknamed ‘Mr. Penguin,’ walked dressed in his favorite hooded penguin suit at his home in Brussels. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

CELEBRATING DASAIN: A Nepalese youth played on a swing during the festival of Dasain, in Kathmandu. Government offices and many other businesses are closed during Dasain, one of the biggest festivals in the Hindu religion, depicting the victory of good over evil. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

HAPPY ENDING: The Tampa Bay Rays’ Evan Longoria celebrated his 12th inning home run to beat the New York Yankees in St. Petersburg, Fla., Thursday night. (Brian Blanco/EPA)

It was five months after they had been struck by a magnitude 9.0 quake and a huge tsunami on March 11. I could see that the Indonesian’s insight was correct.

The recent floods in eastern Sri Lanka disrupted the lives of more than 1 million people and forced up to 400,000 people to seek refuge in temporary shelters like huts, schools and mosques.

NASA attached a camera to one of the solid fuel boosters on the STS-124 Space Shuttle Discovery launch. The action starts at 1:50, when the boosters are ejected. Stick around to the end to see the parachutes deploy giant space jellyfish attack, and splashdown.