A planet in turmoil: as these award-winning photographs starkly illustrate, man's inhumanity to man continues to plague earth as it approaches the new millennium - 'Eyewitness 1996' exhibition of best news pictures of 1995

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1997

Founded in 1955 and based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, The World Press Photo Foundation annually sponsors the largest international press photography competition in the world. An independent jury of nine members judges the thousands of entries submitted by photojournalists, agencies, newspapers, and magazines from all corners of the globe.

"Eyewitness 1996," an exhibition honoring the best pictures of 1995, was culled from almost 30,000 entries representing 103 countries. From awe to anguish, from ecstasy to grief, the winners depict one of the most dynamic and tumultuous years the world has witnessed. Each compelling image is testimony to the courage and passion that drive photojournalists to document humanity.

Emblematic of 1995's legacy of civilians displaced and terrorized by civil war in Europe, Africa, and Asia, the World Press Photo of the Year was shot by Lucian Perkins of The Washington Post. His poignant image of one child's plight, face and fingers pressed against the rear window of a bus as he flees the combat between Russian army forces and Chechen independence fighters, can not help grip the hearts of viewers.

Although many of the categories of the competition present photos that are uplifting, amusing, and instructive - such as those in sports, the arts, nature and the environment, and science and technology - it is symbolic of life in the last decade of the millennium that those depicting tragedy, man's inhumanity to man, and the fate of often innocent victims command the most attention. Even an uplifting photo of Middle Eastern leaders meeting with Pres. Clinton in the White House must be tempered by the knowledge that Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a fanatic just a few