RUSSIA-SOLAR-ECLIPSE

A Chechen police officer uses a compact disc as a filter to watch the partial solar eclipse in war-torn Grozny, 29 March 2006. Countries lying directly under the path, thus able to see a total eclipse, were Brazil, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Libya, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, where it ended at 1148 GMT. Observers 2,500 km either side of that path saw a partial eclipse, with a fifth of the sun obscured in Britain, southern Sweden and the southern Gulf and up to 80 percent in parts of the Middle East. AFP PHOTO / KHASAN KAZIYEV