2013: The Year in Pictures
The best images from around the world that shaped the news of 2013.
- US Garrett McNamara (L) and US Mark Healey (R) compete during a free session of surf tow in, in the southern Pacific ocean island of Tahiti, French Polynesia, on June 1, 2013 in Teahupoo. (Gregory Boissy/Getty Images)
- A protester holding a shield attempts to block a jet of water from a police water cannon during clashes in Istanbul’s Taksim Square June 11, 2013. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters armed with rocks and fireworks as they tried to take back control of the central Istanbul Taksim Square at the heart of fierce anti-government demonstrations. (Osman Orsal/Reuters)
- Flashes of lightning strike above the “Baie des Anges”, on October 4, 2013, in Nice, southeastern France. (Valery Hache/Getty Images)
- Riders reach the crest of a dune during the opening lap of the main race of the 2013 RHL Weston beach race in Weston-Super-Mare, southwest England, on October 13, 2013. Beach racing is an offshoot of enduro and motocross racing. Riders on solo motorcycles and quad bikes compete on a course marked out on a beach, with man-made jumps and sand dunes being constructed to make the course tougher. Riders race along the beach and across a series of sand dunes in a three-hour endurance race. (Adrian Dennis/Getty Images)
- A farmer puts baskets of newly hatched ducklings in a hatch room at a poultry egg trading market in Wuzhen town, Tongxiang, Zhejiang province April 18, 2013. China’s poultry sector has recorded losses of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) since reports emerged of a new strain of bird flu, an official at the country’s National Poultry Industry Association told Reuters. An elderly man in eastern China died of bird flu on April 23, 2013, bringing the death toll from a strain that recently emerged in humans to 22, a provincial health agency reported. (Reuters)
- This picture taken on July 27, 2013 shows people trying to cool off at a water park in Suining, southwest China’s Sichuan province, as a heatwave hit several provinces in China. Much of China is in the grip of a summer heatwave, and the China Meteorological Association issued a high temperature warning for several eastern and central provinces, saying temperatures could reach 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) on July 31. (Getty Images)
- Liu Bolin, a Chinese artist, blends himself into the background in front of a shelf lined with comic books as part of a series of performances in Caracas, November 2, 2013. Liu, known as “the invisible man” for using painted-on camouflage to blend into the backdrops of his photographs, will be performing in Caracas till November 6. Picture taken November 2, 2013. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)
- A man runs up the “gostra”, a pole covered in grease, during the religious feast of St Julian, patron of the town of St Julian’s, outside Valletta August 25, 2013. In the traditional “gostra”, a game stretching back to the Middle Ages, young men, women and children have to make their way to the top and try to uproot one of the flags to win prizes. From May to September in Malta, there is hardly any weekend when a town or a village is not celebrating the feast of its patron saint or other saints revered in different churches. (Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)
- Czech Michal Navratil dives for a joke as superman after of the men’s high diving final competition at the FINA World Championships in Moll de la Fusta port in Barcelona on July 31, 2013. (Javier Soriano/Getty Images)
- A radio-controlled Superman plane, flown by designer Otto Dieffenbach, passes the moon during a test flight in San Diego, California June 27, 2013. Otto and business partner Ed Hanley are a small start-up company that creates flying radio-controlled planes, designed in the form of people, characters and objects, for commercial and promotional uses. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
- Dan McManus and his service dog Shadow hang glide together outside Salt Lake City, Utah, July 22, 2013. McManus suffers from anxiety and Shadow’s presence and companionship help him to manage the symptoms. The two have been flying together for about nine years with a specially made harness for Shadow. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
- Women sunbathe as Ferrari’s Brazilian driver Felipe Massa drives past during the third practice session at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo on May 25, 2013 ahead of the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix. (Alexander Klein/Getty Images)
- People sunbathe by the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg March 10, 2013. (Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters)
- A boy holds his mother’s leg as he cries in front of their damaged house after a strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake at Longmen village, Lushan county in Ya’an, Sichuan province April 21, 2013. Rescuers poured into a remote corner of southwestern China on Sunday as the death toll from the country’s worst earthquake in three years climbed to 164 with more than 6,700 injured, state media said. (Jason Lee/Reuters)
- An elderly woman grabs the leg of a police officer as residents of Boeung Kak Lake community are arrested in a police truck during a protest in Phnom Penh March 13, 2013. The residents of Boeung Kak Lake have been embroiled in a long-running land dispute with a real estate development firm in the capital, and are also appealing for the release of another resident, Yorm Bopha, from prison. (Samrang Pring/Reuters)
- Syrians walk down a destroyed street in the centre of Syria’s northeastern city of Deir Ezzor on June 27, 2013. More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria’s uprising, a watchdog said, as a proposed Geneva peace conference looked set to be delayed, dimming hopes for an end to the bloodshed. (Ahmad Aboud/Getty Images)
- People standing on balconies look at participants as they run in front of Alcurrucen’s bulls during the first bull run of the San Fermin Festival, on July 7, 2013, in Pamplona, northern Spain. The festival is a symbol of Spanish culture that attracts thousands of tourists to watch the bull runs despite heavy condemnation from animal rights groups. (Pedro Armestre/Getty Images)
- Hindu devotees perform Garba, a traditional folk dance, during the celebrations to mark the Navratri festival at Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat October 12, 2013. Devotees worship various forms of Hindu goddesses during the festival, whose name literally means nine nights. (Amit Dave/Reuters)
- Members of an international religious movement called the White Brotherhood perform ritual dances on the top of the Rila Mountain, near Babreka lake, on August 19, 2013. The teaching of the movement, whose founder is Bulgarian Peter Deunov, combines aspects of Christianity and Hinduism with a heavy emphasis on brotherly love, a healthy diet and living in harmony with nature. (Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images)
- Dust envelopes art installations during the Burning Man 2013 arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, September 1, 2013. The federal government issued a permit for 68,000 people from all over the world to gather at the sold out festival, which is celebrating its 27th year, to spend a week in the remote desert cut off from much of the outside world to experience art, music and the unique community that develops. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
- Mushers compete, on January 18 2013 in Megeve, during the departure of a stage of the Grande Odyssee sledding race. (Jeff Pachoud/Getty Images)
- An Indian street child plays in a dry river bed after flood waters receded in Allahabad on October 25, 2013. (Sanjay Kanojia/Getty Images)
- Belgian riot police are covered with foam sprayed by Belgian firefighters during a protest for better work conditions in central Brussels October 7, 2013. (Yves Herman/Reuters)
- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange waves from a window with Ecuador’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino (R) at Ecuador’s embassy in central London June 16, 2013. Assange sought asylum in the embassy on June 19, 2012, in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)
- Passengers watch a television screen broadcasting news on Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA) of the U.S., on a train in Hong Kong June 14, 2013. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller has said that the U.S. government is doing everything it can to hold confessed leaker Snowden accountable for splashing surveillance secrets across the pages of newspapers worldwide. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)
- U.S. President Barack Obama (L) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland June 17, 2013. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone featuring high security Secusite software, used for governmental communication, at the booth of Secusmart during her opening tour at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover March 5, 2013. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
- North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front L) and former NBA star Dennis Rodman (front R) speak at a basketball game in Pyongyang. Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman has become the most high-profile American to meet the new leader of North Korea, vowing eternal friendship with Kim Jong-Un at a basketball game in Pyongyang. (KCNA/Getty Images)
- Female North Korean soldiers patrol along the banks of Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, April 11, 2013. South Korea and the United States were on high alert for a North Korean missile launch as the hermit kingdom turned its attention to celebrating its ruling Kim dynasty and appeared to tone down rhetoric of impending war. (Jacky Chen/Reuters)
- A woman carries home a washing machine in Dali, Yunnan province July 30, 2013. (Reuters)
- A customs officer checks as a vehicle of a South Korean company carrying products made in inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, arrives at the customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) office, just south of the demilitarized zone separating the North from South Korea in Paju, north of Seoul April 27, 2013. Pyongyang rejected a call for formal talks to end a standoff that forced operations at the joint industrial complex to be halted. South Korea in turn said it would pull out all its remaining workers from Kaesong. Of the 175 remaining South Korean workers, 126 workers left the factory zone then. (Lee Jae-Won/Reuters)
- Saudi youths demonstrate a stunt known as “sidewall skiing” (driving on two wheels) in the northern city of Hail, in Saudi Arabia March 30, 2013. Performing stunts such as sidewall skiing and drifts is a popular hobby amongst Saudi youths. (Mohamed Al Hwaity/Reuters)
- A woman is rescued from floodwaters by a resident standing on top of her car during heavy rain in the Chalandri suburb, north of Athens February 22, 2013. (John Kolesidis/Reuters)
- Vincent Autin (R) and Bruno Boileau kiss on a balcony in front of the crowd after their marriage, France’s first official gay marriage, in the city hall in Montpellier on May 29, 2013. France is the 14th country to legalize same-sex marriage, an issue that has also divided opinion in many other nations. The definitive vote in the French parliament came on April 23 when the law was passed legalizing both homosexual marriages and adoptions by gay couples. (Gerard Julien/Getty Images)
- Donald Smitherman, 98, kisses his wife Marlene at the end of a dance in Sun City, Arizona, January 5, 2013. Sun City was built in 1959 by entrepreneur Del Webb as America’s first active retirement community for the over-55s. Webb predicted that retirees would flock to a community where they were given more than just a house with a rocking chair in which to sit and wait to die. Today’s residents keep their minds and bodies active by socializing at over 120 clubs with activities such as square dancing, ceramics, roller skating, computers, cheerleading, racquetball and yoga. There are 38,500 residents in the community with an average age of 72.4 years. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
- Russian conscripts, wearing military uniforms, are seen inside a train carriage at a local railway station before their departure in Stavropol, in southern Russia, May 15, 2013. The conscripts will serve in Moscow in the Kremlin regiment, also known as Presidential regiment, which is part of the Federal Guard Service. (Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)
- A commuter looks out of the window of a 60-year-old cable car in the town of Chiatura, some 220 km (136 miles) northwest of Tbilisi, September 12, 2013. Dating to the Soviet era, Chiatura’s public cable cars were built to facilitate the manganese mining industry, which formed the bedrock of the town’s economy. Sixty years later, 15 of Chiatura’s 21 cable car routes are still running, covering a total length of over 6000 meters (3.7 miles), and they are still the quickest and most convenient way of getting around, despite their advanced years. (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)
- Protesters run after a prison van as an unidentified defendant sticks his fist out as he is driven to a courthouse in Silivri, where a hearing for people charged with attempting to overthrow Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted government is due to take place, August 5, 2013. A Turkish court began sentencing nearly 300 defendants accused of plotting to overthrow the government, handing prison sentences of up to 20 years to some and acquitting 21 others. The court was announcing the verdicts individually. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)
- A woman takes pictures of art installation “Alice” by Spanish artist Cristina Lucas in the Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art in the Andalusian capital of Seville, southern Spain April 10, 2013. (Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters)
- A man checks an apartment on a damaged building at the site of a blast in the town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, near the Turkish-Syrian border, May 13, 2013. Syria’s information minister has blamed Turkey’s government for deadly car bombings near the Syrian border and branded Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a “murderer”, state-run Russian TV company RT reported. It said he repeated a denial of Syrian involvement in car bombings that killed 46 people on Saturday in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. Turkey has accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out the attacks. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)
- An aerial view shows the Costa Concordia as it lies on its side next to Giglio Island taken from an Italian navy helicopter August 26, 2013. The giant vessel, which has lain partly submerged in shallow waters off the Tuscan island of Giglio since the accident in January 2012, will be rolled off the seabed and onto underwater platforms. (Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)
- Farmer Donald O’Reilly searches for sheep or lambs trapped in a snow drift near weakened animals that had just been rescued, in the Aughafatten area of County Antrim, Northern Ireland March 26, 2013. At least 140,000 homes and businesses in Northern Ireland were left without power over the weekend following heavy snowfall, causing snowdrifts of up to 5 metres (18 feet). (Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)
- Wolf researcher Werner Freund bites into a deer cadaver next to a Mongolian wolf inside an enclosure at Wolfspark Werner Freund, in Merzig in the German province of Saarland, January 24, 2013. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)
- A student protester bites a riot policeman while being detained during a riot at a rally demanding Chile’s government reform the education system in Santiago, May 8, 2013. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)
- A dog urinates on a new work by British graffiti artist Banksy on West 24th street in New York City, October 3, 2013. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
- A man walks his dog past a vacant shop, with graphics pasted to the outside to make it look like a working butcher’s shop, in the village of Belcoo, Northern Ireland June 3, 2013. Local councils in Northern Ireland have painted fake shop fronts and covered derelict buildings with huge billboards to hide the economic hardship being felt in towns and villages near the golf resort where G8 leaders have met in June. (Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)
- Sixth grade students from the Park Maitland School in Maitland, Florida, watch as Marine One carrying U.S. President Barack Obama to Las Vegas takes off from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, January 29, 2013. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
- Sasha (L) and Malia Obama, daughters of US President Barack Obama, take a photo of themselves during the Presidential Inaugural Parade on January 21, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Joe Klamar/Getty Images)
- US President Barack Obama plays a learning game while visiting children at College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center February 14, 2013 in Decatur, Georgia. Obama is in Georgia to promote economic and educational initiatives he spoke about in this week’s State of the Union. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
- Vitor Belfort (R) of Brazil fights Michael Bisping of Britain during the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, in Sao Paulo January 20, 2013. (Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)
- Unknown anti-gay activist hits Russia’s gay and LGBT rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev (C) during unauthorized gay rights activists rally in central Moscow on May 25, 2013. Moscow city authorities on May 15 turned down demands for a gay rights rally, but Alexeyev said he would fight a ban in court. (Andrey Svitailo/Getty Images)
- The barrel of New York Yankees Brennan Boesch’s broken bat smacks his face during the first inning of a MLB spring training baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, Florida, March 17, 2013. (Steve Nesius/Reuters)
- Russia’s Saba Khubetzhty (L) and David Taylor of the U.S. flip over on their heads during the Rumble on the Rails wrestling event held inside the Grand Central Terminal in New York May 15, 2013. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
- San Diego Chargers wide receiver Eddie Royal (11) is hit hard by Houston Texans cornerback Brice McCain (21) and defensive back Shiloh Keo (31) to force an incomplete pass during their Monday Night NFL football game in San Diego, California September 9, 2013. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
- Jamaica’s Usain Bolt (L) wins the100 metres final at the 2013 IAAF World Championships at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on August 11, 2013 while a lightning strikes in the sky. Bolt timed a season’s best 9.77 seconds, with American Justin Gatlin claiming silver in 9.85sec and Nesta Carter, also of Jamaica, taking bronze in 9.95sec. (Olivier Morin/Getty Images)
- A lightning strikes St Peter’s dome at the Vatican on February 11, 2013. Pope Benedict XVI announced today he will resign as leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics on February 28 because his age prevented him from carrying out his duties — an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church. (Filippo Monteforte/Getty Images)
- This handout picture released by the Vatican press office on March 23, 2013 shows “pope emeritus” Benedict XVI (R) greeting Pope Francis upon his arrival at the heliport in Castel Gandolfo. Pope Francis prepared to go face to face with his predecessor Benedict XVI on Saturday in a historic meeting between two men with very different styles but important core similarities. (Getty Images)
- Pope Francis salutes the crowd as he arrives for his general audience in St Peter’s square at the Vatican on November 6, 2013. (Vincenzo Pinto/Getty Images)
- Visitors take pictures of tidal waves under the influence of Typhoon Usagi in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, September 22, 2013. According to official Xinhua news agency, China’s National Meteorological Center issued its highest alert, warning that Usagi would bring gales and downpours to southern coastal areas. (Chance Chan/Reuters)
- A rubber glove being used as a marker bobs in the water after flooding in Fox Lake, Illinois April 22, 2013. The Fox River is expected to crest after heavy rains brought flooding to the area the previous week. (Jim Young/Reuters)
- A garden with a swimming pool is inundated by the waters of the Elbe river during floods near Magdeburg in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt, June 10, 2013. Tens of thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuated from their homes as soldiers raced to pile up sandbags to hold back rising waters in the region’s worst floods in a decade. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
- Rescue workers pass on a boat the overflooded old city of Passau, southern Germany, on June 3, 2013. Due to heavy and ongoing rainfalls, parts of the southern state of Bavaria were flooded. (Christof Stache/Getty Images)
- The Team Emirates New Zealand sails before the third race of their Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series yacht race against Luna Rossa Challenge in this underwater picture in San Francisco, California August 18, 2013. (Peter Andrews/Reuters)
- Nick Vujicic, an Australian motivational speaker who was born without limbs, swims with sharks at the Marine Life Park in Singapore September 5, 2013. Vujicic dived with sharks in a customized acrylic enclosure that takes in a 360-degree view of the shark habitat at the aquarium. Vujicic is in Singapore to give a motivational talk to a 5,000 strong audience that Saturday. (Edgar Su/Reuters)
- A worker cleans an exterior of a newly built urban complex building accommodating offices and retail shops in Beijing October 14, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
- Numerous tents are seen during the 2013 International I Camping Festival in Mount Wugongshan of Pingxiang, Jiangxi province, September 14, 2013. The event which opened on September 14 attracted more than 15,000 campers all over the world, according to Xinhua News Agency. (Reuters)
- Troops hold colored cards during a military parade celebrating Independence Day at the Zocalo square in downtown Mexico City September 16, 2013. Mexico was celebrating the 203nd anniversary of its independence from Spain. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters)
- A woman looks on as Mount Sinabung spews ash, as pictured from Sibintun village in Karo district, Indonesia’s north Sumatra province November 18, 2013. Mount Sinabung continued to spew volcanic ash throwing a plume 8,000 meters into the atmosphere as thousands of residents remained in temporary shelters fearful of more eruptions, according to local media. (Roni Bintang/Reuters)
- This photo shows the approaching tornado on May 20, 2013 in Moore, Oklahoma. Families returned to a blasted moonscape that had been an American suburb May 21, 2013 after the monstrous tornado tore through the outskirts of Oklahoma City, killing at least 24 people. Nine children were among the dead and entire neighborhoods vanished, with often the foundations being the only thing left of what used to be houses and cars tossed like toys and heaped in big piles. (Vincent Deligny/Getty Images)
- Danielle Stephan holds boyfriend Thomas Layton as they pause between salvaging through the remains of a family member’s home one day after a tornado devastated the town Moore, Oklahoma, in the outskirts of Oklahoma City May 21, 2013. Rescuers went building to building in search of victims and thousands of survivors were homeless after a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, wiping out whole blocks of homes and killing at least 24 people. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)
- An aerial view shows the path of destruction caused by a tornado that touched down in Washington, Illinois, November 18, 2013. A fast-moving storm system triggered multiple tornadoes that killed at least six people and flattened large parts of a town in Illinois as it tore across the Midwest, authorities said. (Jim Young/Reuters)
- Survivors stand among debris and ruins of houses destroyed after Super Typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban city in central Philippines November 10, 2013. Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines province of Leyte, a senior police official said, with coastal towns and the regional capital devastated by huge waves. Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through the province on Friday, said chief superintendent Elmer Soria, a regional police director. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)
- Christine Cina poses for a portrait in what is left of her house after Superstorm Sandy in the Staten Island borough of New York, September 20, 2013. A year after Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc across the eastern United States, only a fraction of the aid money earmarked for recovery has been used, in what some claim is a painfully slow and opaque process. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
- The children of Roma woman Sasha Ruseva, 38, (not pictured) rest inside their home in Nikolaevo, southern Bulgaria October 24, 2013. Ruseva, believed to have given birth in a hospital in central Greece in January 2009 to the blonde girl named Maria, found during a police sweep in a Roma settlement in central Greece on October 16, was questioned by Bulgarian police, state television said on Thursday. “I do not know whether she is mine or not. We had a child. We left it in Greece as I had nothing to feed her,” Ruseva told reporters. “I did not take any money. My daughter left with a man, so there was no one to look after the other children.” (Reuters)
- A Roma family of turkish origin sits under an improvised shelter to protect from heavy rain in Eforie Sud, Romania, on September 30, 2013 before an announcement by the Mayor on their case. Romanian authorities evicted around 100 Roma from a town near the Black Sea coast without providing them with alternative housing, prompting criticism from Amnesty International. The Roma families spent three days in a nearby field despite the cold weather until the mayor decided on September 30, 2013 to host them in an old school. (Mugur Varzariu/Getty Images)
- Bratislav Stojanovic, a homeless man, holds candles as he sits in a tomb where he lives in the southern Serbian town of Nis February 9, 2013. Stojanovic, 43, a Nis-born construction worker never had a regular job. He first lived in abandoned houses, but about 15 years ago he settled in the old city cemetery. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)
- Ash spew from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, some 55 km from Mexico City, as seen from San Mateo Ozolco, in the Mexican central state of Puebla, on July 4, 2013. (Pablo Spencer/Getty Images)
- Sadhus or holy men walk in a procession towards the Sangham or the confluence of the the Yamuna and Ganges rivers to bathe before sunrise during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad on January 14, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims led by naked, ash-covered holy men streamed into the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world’s biggest religious festival. The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million worshippers gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy waters, believed to cleanse sins and bestow blessings. Before daybreak on Monday, a day chosen by astrologers as auspicious, hundreds of gurus, some brandishing swords and tridents, ran into the swirling and freezing waters for the first bath, signalling the start of events. (Sanjay Kanojia/Getty Images)
- Residents flee as winds whip flames from the Morgan fire along Morgan Territory Road near Clayton, California in unincorporated Contra Costa County September 9, 2013. The blaze, burning in dense, dry scrub, grass and timber in and around Mount Diablo State Park, had scorched some 3,700 acres (1,500 hectares) by Monday afternoon, forcing the evacuation of about 100 homes at the edge of the town of Clayton. (Noah Berger/Reuters)
- A Balinese man kicks up fire during the “Perang Api” (Fire War) ritual ahead of Nyepi day, which falls on Tuesday, in Gianyar on the Indonesian island of Bali March 11, 2013. Nyepi is a day of silence for self-reflection to celebrate the Balinese Hindu new year, where Hindus in Bali observe meditation and fasting, but are not allowed to work, cook, light lamps or conduct any other activities. (Reuters)
- A Palestinian sets fire to a tyre during clashes between hundreds of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers outside the Ofer prison after a march marking the 65th Nakba day or “Day of Catastrophe” on May 15, 2013 in Betunia near the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Abbas Momani/Getty Images)
- A masked protestor flashes a V-sign during the clashes near Taksim in Istanbul on June 3, 2013 during a demonstration against the demolition of the park. Turkish police on June 1 began pulling out of Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, after a second day of violent clashes between protesters and police over a controversial development project. Thousands of demonstrators flooded the site as police lifted the barricades around the park and began withdrawing from the square. What started as an outcry against a local development project has snowballed into widespread anger against what critics say is the government’s increasingly conservative and authoritarian agenda. (Ozan Kose/Getty Images)
- A Somali woman reacts on March 18, 2013 near the site of a car bomb in central Mogadishu. At least eight people were killed on March 18 by a car bomb in central Mogadishu in one of the bloodiest attacks in the war-ravaged capital in recent months, police said. (Mohamed Abdiwahab/Getty Images)
- A woman walks behind Belgian riot policemen during clashes with Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege steel plants demonstrating outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur January 29, 2013. Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel producer, plans to shut a coke plant and six finishing lines at its site in Liege, Belgium, which will affect 1,300 employees, the group said. (Yves Herman/Reuters)
- Protesters flee from tear gas fired by riot police during clashes after protesters removed a concrete barrier at Qasr al-Aini Street near Tahrir Square in Cairo January 24, 2013. (Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)
- A child runs to safety as armed police hunt gunmen who went on a shooting spree at Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi September 21, 2013. The gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi killing at least 20 people in what Kenya’s government said could be a terrorist attack, and sending scores fleeing into shops, a cinema and onto the streets in search of safety. Sporadic gun shots could be heard hours after the assault started as soldiers surrounded the mall and police and soldiers combed the building, hunting down the attackers shop by shop. Some local television stations reported hostages had been taken, but there was no official confirmation. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)
- Children run away after an explosion in Kabul May 24, 2013. Several large explosions rocked a busy area in the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul, with Reuters witnesses describing shooting in the area. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)
- Issa, 10 years old, carries a mortar shell in a weapons factory of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, September 7, 2013. Issa works with his father in the factory for ten hours every day except on Fridays. (Hamid Khatib/Reuters)
- Runners continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts near the finish line of the race in this photo exclusively licensed to Reuters by photographer Dan Lampariello after he took the photo in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013. Two simultaneous explosions ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing at least two people and injuring dozens on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch the world famous race. (Dan Lampariello/Reuters)
- A member of the SWAT team motions to a resident to come out of the house as they conduct a house to house search for Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the one remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013. Police killed one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, Tamerlan Tsarneav, in a shootout and mounted house-to-house searches for the second man, his brother Dzhokar Tsarnaev, in the Boston suburb of Watertown, officials said then, with much of the city under virtual lockdown after a bloody night of shooting and explosions in the streets. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)
- Nelba Marquez Greene (R), her husband Jimmy Greene and her mother Elba Marquez (L), grieve over the loss of the Greenes’ daughter Ana Grace Marquez Greene (in photo) at the launch of the Sandy Hook Promise in Newtown, Connecticut January 14, 2013. (Gary He/Insider Images/Reuters)
- Policemen detain Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny (C), after he visited the city’s election commission office to submit documents to be registered as a mayoral election candidate, in Moscow July 10, 2013. Protest leader Navalny said on July 5 he would destroy the political system under Russian President Vladimir Putin that was “sucking the blood out of Russia”, after state prosecutors demanded he be jailed for six years on theft charges. Other opposition figures say the trial is intended to prevent Navalny from fulfilling his dream of becoming president, and before that, running for Moscow mayor in September. Navalny was detained on the charge of organising an unsanctioned rally near the city’s election commission office and was then released in less than half an hour. (Grigory Dukor/Reuters)
- Ariel Castro (C), 53, breaks down while talking about the child that he fathered with Amada Berry as he addresses the court while seated between attorneys Craig Weintraub (L) and Jaye Schlachet in the courtroom in Cleveland, Ohio August 1, 2013. (Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters)
- T. J. Lane takes off his shirt to show a white T-shirt with the word “Killer” spelled out on it at his sentencing hearing before Geauga County Judge David Fuhry in Cleveland, Ohio, March 19, 2013. Lane was sentenced to life without parole for killing three students in a shooting rampage at a high school in a small town east of Cleveland. (Duncan Scott/The News-Herald/Reuters)
- A soldier of the French foreign legion wearing a skeleton mask stands next to an armored vehicule in a street in Niono, on January 20, 2013. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said today that the goal of France’s military action in Mali was to retake control of the entire country from Islamist militants who have seized the north. “The goal is the total reconquest of Mali. We will not leave any pockets” of resistance, Le Drian said on French television. (Issouf Sanogo/Getty Images)
- Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama poses for a photograph inside her Infinity Mirrored Room installation titled “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” during a media preview of her new exhibition at the David Zwirner gallery in New York November 7, 2013. The exhibition, titled “I Who Have Arrived in Heaven”, features two mirrored rooms, a video installation and over 30 new large-scale paintings highlighting her unique amalgamation of representational and non-representational subject matter. The exhibition ran from November 8 to December 21. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
- Song Xuxia, 19, receives treatment at a hospital after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Minxian county, Dingxi, Gansu province July 23, 2013. The death toll from two earthquakes in China’s western Gansu province has climbed to 95, with more than 1000 people injured, after around 51,800 buildings collapsed and tens of thousands more were badly damaged. Song’s leg, waist and face were injured during the earthquake when she was stuck in a collapsed house. Fortunately the villagers heard her cry and managed to pull her out from the debris in time, according to local media. (Reuters)
- A demonstrator is shot by rubber bullets as anti riot police officers charge after clashes erupted during a protest against corruption and price hikes, on June 20, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilians took to the streets again Thursday in several cities on a new day of mass nationwide protests, demanding better public services and bemoaning massive spending to stage the World Cup. (Christofe Simon/Getty Images)
- German riot police scuffle with protestors in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) head quarters during a anti-capitalism “Blockupy” demonstration in Frankfurt, May 31, 2013. Several thousand people take part in demonstrations against capitalism and austerity. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)
- Former British energy minister Chris Huhne (R) comes into contact with a photographers lens as he arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London, on March 11, 2013. Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce are due to be sentenced later Monday for perverting the course of justice over speeding points a decade ago. (Justin Tallis/Getty Images)
- The leader of ultra-right wing Golden Dawn party Nikos Michaloliakos is escorted by masked police officers to the prosecutor from the police headquarters in Athens on September 28, 2013. Greek police on Saturday swooped on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, arresting its leadership and hunting for dozens of members across the country in a crackdown sparked by the murder of a leftist musician. The arrests came a day after Golden Dawn threatened to pull its lawmakers out of parliament, a move that could spark a political crisis in the recession-hit country. (Angelos Tzortzinis/Getty Images)
- A Palestinian works inside a smuggling tunnel flooded by Egyptian forces, beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 19, 2013. Egypt will not tolerate a two-way flow of smuggled arms with the Gaza Strip that is destabilizing its Sinai peninsula, a senior aide to its Islamist president said, explaining why Egyptian forces flooded sub-border tunnels. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)
- A Bahraini girl is carried by her mother during the funeral of Sayed Omran Sayed Hameed, on May 28, 2013, in the village of Karzakkan, south of Manama. Hameed, 26, died at hospital after developing respiratory complications and his relatives claim that his death is due to the inhalation of poisonous tear gas that riot police used during a protest in May 2013. (Mohammed Al-Shaikh/Getty Images)
- Azra, 68, looks at her dead pet bird in a cage at her home, which was previously burnt by a mob, in Badami Bagh, Lahore March 11, 2013. Hundreds of Pakistani Christians took to the streets across the country demanding better protection after the Christian neighbourhood was torched in the city of Lahore in connection with the country’s controversial anti-blasphemy law. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters)
- A man stands in front of a mosque as it burns in Meikhtila March 21, 2013. The central Myanmar town declared a curfew after clashes killed 10 people, including a Buddhist monk, and injured at least 20, authorities said. Riots erupted in Meikhtila, 540 km (336 miles) north of Yangon, after an argument between a Buddhist couple and the Muslim owners of a gold shop escalated into a riot involving hundreds of people, police said. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)
- Investigators stand amid the aftermath of a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, near Waco, Texas April 18, 2013. Rescuers worked in cold rain to find survivors amid the rubble of houses destroyed in the fiery explosion at the plant filled with hazardous chemical tanks. The death toll in West, Texas ranged from five to 15 people and was likely to change as rescuers went from house to house along the burned-out streets after the West Fertilizer Co. blew up, said Sgt. William Patrick Swanton of the police department in nearby Waco. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)
- A firefighter stands near the wreckage of a train derailment and explosion, in Lac-Megantic July 8, 2013. The driverless, runaway fuel train that exploded in a deadly ball of flames in the centre of the small Quebec town started rumbling down an empty track just minutes after a fire crew had extinguished a blaze in one of its parked locomotives, an eyewitness said. (Mathieu Belanger/Reuters)
- A father reacts after the death of two of his children, whom activists said were killed during shelling by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, at the al-Ansari area in Aleppo January 3, 2013. (Muzaffar Salman/Reuters)
- Women embrace in grief after an attack at Kibusu village in the Tana Delta region of the Kenyan coast, January 10, 2013. Armed raiders torched more than a dozen houses in Kenya’s restive Tana River area, the Red Cross said, the latest tit-for-tat attack police say is linked to upcoming elections. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)
- A man falls from a high floor of a burning building in central Lahore May 9, 2013. Fire erupted on the seventh floor of the LDA plaza in Lahore and quickly spread to higher floors leaving many people trapped inside the building. At least three people fell from the high floors trying to avoid the fire that engulfed the building, local media reports. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
- People rescue garment workers trapped under rubble at the Rana Plaza building after it collapsed, in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka April 24, 2013. An eight-storey block housing garment factories and a shopping centre collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital, killing at least 25 people and injuring more than 500, the Ntv television news channel reported. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)
- The hand of a garment worker is seen among the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka April 30, 2013. Two Western retailers have promised to compensate families of garment workers killed while making their clothes in a Bangladesh factory building that collapsed the previous week in the country’s worst industrial accident. (Sajid Hossain/Reuters)
- Bangladeshi rescuers retrieve garment worker Reshma from the rubble of a collapsed building in Savar on May 10, 2013, seventeen days after the eight-story building collapsed. The death toll from last month’s collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh rose past 1,000 as piles of bodies were found in the ruins of a stairwell where victims had sought shelter. (Getty Images)
- People run away as Turkish riot policemen fire tear gas on Taksim square on June 11, 2013. Turkish police fired massive volleys of tear gas and jets of water to disperse thousands of anti-government demonstrators in Istanbul’s Taksim Square on June 11, after earlier apparently retreating, an AFP reporter saw. The gas sent the crowd scrambling, raising tensions on a 12th day of violence after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned he had “no more tolerance” for the mass demonstrations. (Bulent Kilic/Getty Images)
- Visitors participate in the annual water-splashing festival to mark the New Year of the Dai minority in Xishuang Banna, Yunnan province April 15, 2013. (Reuters)
- Supporters of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party hold torches during a gathering in Athens February 2, 2013. Thousands of supporters gathered to pay tribute to three Greek officers who were killed in 1996 when their helicopter crashed over the eastern Aegean isle of Imia during a crisis with Turkey. (Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters)
- A man shows a girl how to hold an airsoft gun during the NRA Youth Day at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston, Texas May 5, 2013. The National Rifle Association is showcasing women members and emphasizing that increasingly it’s not just men who own firearms and oppose gun-control efforts. Female membership is up, the nation’s leading advocate for gun ownership says, and its revamped website features profiles of “armed and fabulous” women and describes how women are bringing “new energy” to the NRA. (Adrees Latif/Reuters)
- This video grab broadcast by Bulgarian television channel BTV shows a man (R) pointing a pistol at leader of the Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) party Ahmed Dogan during his speech at a national party conference in Sofia on January 19, 2013. Dogan was addressing the delegates at the conference when the man rushed up to the podium and put a pistol to his head. The attacker however failed to produce a shot and was quickly disarmed by the delegates, witnesses told state BNR radio. (Getty Images)
- Men stand next to coffins during a funeral for six children who died in a landslide in La Chicharronera August 30, 2013. Six children, aged between one and nine, all either siblings or cousins, died when the house they were in collapsed in a landslide after heavy rains in northern Honduras, emergency services said on Thursday. (Jorge Cabrera/Reuters)
- Former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (L) delivers her opening remarks while seated next to her husband, former U.S. Navy Captain Mark Kelly, during a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary committee about guns and violence on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 30, 2013. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
- Young Palestinian groom Ahmed Soboh, 15 and his bride Tala, 14, stand inside Tala’s house which was damaged during an Israeli strike in 2009, during their wedding party in the town of Beit Lahiya, near the border between Israeli and northern Gaza Strip September 24, 2013. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
- Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, appear with their baby son Prince George outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, in central London July 23, 2013. Kate gave birth to the couple’s first child, who is third in line to the British throne, ending weeks of feverish anticipation about the arrival of the royal baby. (Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)
- A newlywed couple kisses as their baby sleeps during a mass wedding on Valentine’s Day in Ciudad Juarez February 14, 2013. About 3,400 couples tied the knot in the mass wedding ceremony organized by the Civil Registry and the state government to formalise their relationships by entering an alternative legal status and to commemorate Valentine’s Day, local media reported. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)
- Miss America contestant, Miss New York Nina Davuluri (L) reacts with 2013 Miss America Mallory Hagan after being chosen winner of the 2014 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, September 15, 2013. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
- U.S. President Barack Obama bows to first lady Michelle Obama, as singer Jennifer Hudson (R) performs behind them, at the Inaugural Ball in Washington, January 21, 2013. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
- A racegoer wearing a Union flag-inspired outfit arrives for Ladies’ Day at the Royal Ascot horse-racing festival at Ascot, southern England June 20, 2013. (Toby Melville/Reuters)
- A man relaxes in costume before a drag queen contest in Rome July 5, 2013. Following selections that began in January, drag queens from all over Italy have gathered in Rome to compete in the final of “Drag Factor: The Italian Race”, a contest inspired by the X-Factor format. (Max Rossi/Reuters)
- Employees and customers congregate at the bar of Satin Dolls, which stood in for the Bada Bing Club filmed in the television show “The Sopranos”, in Lodi, New Jersey, June 20, 2013. Doctors at a Rome hospital battled for 40 minutes to try to save the life of James Gandolfini, best known for his Emmy-winning role as a mob boss in “The Sopranos,” before pronouncing him dead, the emergency room chief said. Gandolfini, 51, whose performance as Tony Soprano made him a household name and help usher in a new era of American television drama, was vacationing in Rome and had been scheduled to attend the closing of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily on Saturday. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
- Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke perform “Blurred Lines” during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in New York August 25, 2013. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
- A model poses nude while a girl draws her during an art workshop on Valentine’s Day in Mexico City February 14, 2013. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters)
- Vanessa Moreno, 24, holds her two-month-old baby Makayla at Prototypes residential treatment program in Pomona, California, March 26, 2013. Prototypes is part of the Second Chance Women’s Re-entry Court program, one of the first in the U.S. to focus on women. It offers a cost-saving alternative to prison for women who plead guilty to non-violent crimes and volunteer for treatment. Of the 297 women who have been through the court since 2007, 100 have graduated, and only 35 have been returned to state prison. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
- A Hindu devotee looks on in a cloud of coloured powder inside a temple during “Lathmar Holi” at the village of Barsana in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 21, 2013. In a Holi tradition unique to Barsana and Nandgaon villages, men sing provocative songs to gain the attention of women, who then “beat” them with bamboo sticks called “lathis”. Holi, also known as the Festival of Colours, heralds the beginning of spring and is celebrated all over India. (Vivek Prakash/Reuters)
- A billboard with pictures of a lingerie model is seen in front of the Commune, northwest of Medellin city March 12, 2013. (Albeiro Lopera/Reuters)
- Fans watch Spain’s Rafael Nadal change his shirt after he defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany in their match at the China Open tennis tournament in Beijing October 2, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
- Woman throws bras on March 25, 2013 at the esplanade des droits de l’homme, in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris, during a happening called by “Pink Bra Bazzar, a French organization fighting against and sensitizing on breast cancer. (Pierre Verdy/Getty Images)
- Members of the Tokyo bid committee celebrate as Jacques Rogge President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announces Tokyo as the city to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Game during a ceremony in Buenos Aires September 7, 2013. (Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)
- Nuns sit at a fast food restaurant downtown of Guatemala City August 28, 2013. (Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)
- Demonstrators march on November 6, 2013 under the rain in Athens during a 24-hour general strike. A general strike hit Greece on November 6, paralyzing public services and disrupting transport as EU-IMF auditors worked to finalize the recession-hit country’s next budget, looking to eliminate a fiscal shortfall that could bring more unpopular cuts. (Aris Messinis/Getty Images)
- A woman carrying her baby and wrapped with a shawl walks through a sandstorm in Timbuktu July 29, 2013. (Joe Penney/Reuters)
- Bayern Munich’s defender Jerome Boateng (R) pours beer on Bayern Munich’s French midfielder Franck Ribery while celebrating their champion title, after winning 3:0 the German first division Bundesliga football match between Bayern Munich and FC Augsburg in Munich, southern Germany, on May 11, 2013. Munich were confirmed German league champions back on April 6, when they won the Bundesliga with a record six games left to play. (Christof Stache/Getty Images)
- France’s Mathieu Valbuena (R) is challenged by Belgium’s Marouane Fellaini (L) and Vincent Kompany (C) during their international friendly soccer match at the King Baudouin stadium in Brussels August 14, 2013. (Yves Herman/Reuters)
- Venezuela’s acting President Nicolas Maduro holds a picture of the late president Hugo Chavez during a campaign rally in Catia la mar, state of Vargas on April 9, 2013. Venezuelans will elect new president next April 14 and the final stretch of Venezuela’s race to replace Hugo Chavez coincides with a delicate anniversary for the opposition: 11 years since a brief coup against the late leftist leader. (Luis Acosta/Getty Images)
- A fighting cow leaps over revelers into the bull ring after the fourth running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona July 10, 2013. (Joseba Etxaburu/Reuters)
- A runner gets gored by a bull on Estafeta Street during the sixth running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona July 12, 2013. The runner, a 31-year-old man from Castellon, Spain, identified by local media as Diego Miralles, was gored three times. (Susana Vera/Reuters)
- An Indian forestry worker walks past the body of a tusker elephant after it was struck by a train at the Buxa Tiger Reserve, some 12 kms from Alipurduar on March 5, 2013. The adult tusker was killed by the speeding Guwahati-bound Somporkkranti Express inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal. (Getty Images)v
- Nick “The Quick” Nica of Montreal, Quebec, draws and fires his single action revolver while competing in the Canadian Open Fast Draw Championships in Aldergrove, British Columbia July 21, 2013. The present-day Fast Draw competition was born from the Hollywood myth of the Western gunfighter, and the idea is to draw a single action revolver from a holster, and cock, fire and hit a designated target in the shortest possible time. No live ammunition is ever used, only blank cartridges or wax bullets. The targets are either a metal silhouette used with wax bullets or balloons that burst from the muzzle blast from the blank cartridges. A light atop the timer signals the competitor when to fire and once the target is hit, it turns the timer off, measuring the speed to thousandths of a second. (Andy Clark/Reuters)
- A woman draped in the Brazilian national flag gives her confession at confessional booths set up at Quinta da Boa Vista park for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro July 24, 2013. (Sergio Moraes/Reuters)
- Fisherman Ompong Vargas, 39, wearing a facial mask made of fabric to protect his skin from getting darker, holds a fish in his mouth as he uses his hands to search for a net at Laguna de Bay in Taguig City, Metro Manila May 24, 2013. During the dry season, fishermen earn $2-$7 (70-300 pesos) per day. Men’s beauty treatments are popular in the Philippines, part of a thriving market for male cosmetics in the Asia Pacific region. Some Filipino men go to great lengths to preserve their faces, from those who visit clinics to receive skin treatments, to fishermen who wear fabric masks while working to protect their skin from the sun. (Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters)
- Binata Pinata stands on top of a rock holding a fish her husband Kaibakia (L) has just caught off Bikeman islet, located off South Tarawa in the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati May 25, 2013. Kiribati consists of a chain of 33 atolls and islands that stand just metres above sea level, spread over a huge expanse of otherwise empty ocean. With surrounding sea levels rising, Kiribati’s President Anote Tong has predicted his country will likely become uninhabitable in 30-60 years because of inundation and contamination of its freshwater supplies. (David Gray/Reuters)
- An Indian youth dangles from a power line before diving into the floodwaters of an overflowing Ganges river in Allahabad on August 6, 2013. The monsoon, which covers the subcontinent from June to September and usually brings flooding, accounts for about 80 percent of India’s annual rainfall. (Sanjay Kanojia/Getty Images)
- Aerial picture taken on June 19, 2013 in Villelongue shows the flooded Gave de Pau river one day after unseasonal storms caused havoc across huge swaths of the country. (Laurent Dard/Getty Images)
- A submerged statue of the Hindu Lord Shiva stands amid the floodwaters of the Ganges river at Rishikesh in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand June 17, 2013. Early monsoon rains have swollen the Ganges, India’s longest river, swept away houses, killed at least 60 people and left tens of thousands stranded, officials said on June 18, 2013. (Reuters)
- An excavator is used to move villagers away from a flooded area during heavy rainfall in Yingxiu, Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, July 10, 2013. More than 300 hundred people were evacuated in Yingxiu after roads connecting the township to the outside world were cut off by floods and landslides. (Reuters)
- Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng prepares himself before an interview with Reuters in Taipei June 24, 2013. (Pichi Chuang/Reuters)
- An Israeli policeman drags an ultra-Orthodox man during clashes in the town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem August 12, 2013. An Israeli police spokesperson said some 21 ultra-Orthodox protesters were detained in the town during clashes with police after a group of them broke into a construction site to prevent work from taking place at the site they believe contains ancient graves. (Nir Elias/Reuters)
- Laborers who work nearby nap on a road as cars drive past in Chongqing Municipality, July 23, 2013. (Reuters)
- Rescue personnel stand around a smashed U.S. Capitol Hill Police vehicle following a shooting near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 3, 2013. The Capitol was in lockdown after gunshots were fired outside the building, injuring several people including a law enforcement officer, a Senate aide and a Capitol police officer said. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
- A Free Syrian Army fighter holds the head of a mannequin up to a hole in a wall of a Syrian Army base to attract and locate a sniper during heavy fighting in the Arabeen neighborhood of Damascus February 3, 2013. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)
- A man holds the body of a dead child among bodies of people activists say were killed by nerve gas in the Ghouta region, in the Duma neighborhood of Damascus August 21, 2013. Syrian activists said at least 213 people, including women and children, were killed in a nerve gas attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces on rebel-held districts of the Ghouta region east of Damascus. (Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)
- Coffin of victims are seen in an hangar of Lampedusa airport on October 5, 2013 after a boat with migrants sank killing more than hundred people. Italy mourned today the 300 African asylum-seekers feared dead in the worst ever Mediterranean refugee disaster, as the government appealed for Europe to stem the influx of migrants. Italian emergency services hoped to resume the search for bodies on October 5, 2013 despite rough seas after the accident, in which 111 African asylum-seekers are confirmed dead and around 200 more are still missing. (Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images)
- Lesleigh Coyer, 25, of Saginaw, Michigan, lies down in front of the grave of her brother, Ryan Coyer, who served with the U.S. Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia March 11, 2013. Coyer died of complications from an injury sustained in Afghanistan. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
- A house sits undamaged in the aftermath of the Black Forest Fire in Black Forest, Colorado June 13, 2013. Hundreds of fire-fighters made a determined stand to stop the wildfire that has already destroyed some 360 homes from roaring into the outskirts of Colorado Springs after it billowed overnight into the most destructive blaze in state history. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
- Manuel Contreras, 11, kisses his niece Ainhoa, as his mother Carmen Acedo del Lago cries before learning that their eviction by the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS) was postponed in Madrid June 4, 2013. Acedo del Lago, her husband, their five children, two sons-in-law and their four-month-old granddaughter have shared a social rental flat in northern Madrid since 2005. None of the adults in the family hold a steady job. The family fell behind on their monthly rent payments and were sent an eviction notice. “How can they evict a family for owing 463 euros ($605)?” says Acedo del Lago. In the end, the eviction was postponed by the EMVS until June 25. (Susana Vera/Reuters)
- Rescue officials stand near an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 plane after it crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport in California July 6, 2013. Two people were killed and 130 were hospitalized after the plane crash-landed, San Francisco Fire Department Chief Joanna Hayes-White said. The figures cited by Hayes-White left 69 people still unaccounted for in the accident. The Boeing 777, which had flown from Seoul, South Korea, was carrying 307 people. (Jed Jacobsohn/Reuters)
- A picture taken on July 24, 2013 shows an injured man sitting next to the body of a victim covered with a blanket following a train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela. A train hurtled off the tracks on July 24 in northwest Spain killing at least 78 passengers and injuring more than 140, an official said today, the country’s deadliest rail disaster in more than 40 years. (Getty Images)
- People walk amongst debris next to a ship washed ashore in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan at Anibong in Tacloban, eastern island of Leyte on November 11, 2013. Hundreds of Philippine soldiers and police poured into a city devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan on November 11 to try to contain looting that threatens an emergency relief effort. (Noel Celis/Getty Images)
- A vending machine, brought inland by a tsunami, is seen in an abandoned rice field inside the exclusion zone at the coastal area near Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture September 21, 2013. In 2011 a massive earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant, resulting in a meltdown that became the world’s worst atomic crisis in 25 years. About 160,000 people living near the plant were ordered to move out and the government established a 20-km compulsory evacuation zone. The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, is struggling to contain contaminated water at the site 240 km (149 miles) north of Tokyo. There have been multiple leaks and glitches over the last two and a half years. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
- Residents walk past destroyed houses and dead bodies littered along a road in Tacloban, on the eastern island of Leyte on November 10, 2013 after Super Typhoon Haiyan swept over the Philippines. The typhoon that destroyed entire towns across the Philippines is believed to have killed more than 10,000 people, authorities said on November 10, which would make it the country’s deadliest recorded natural disaster. (Ted Aljibe/Getty Images)
- Displaced Congolese flee on July 15, 2013 the area of Kanyarucinya through Munigi on the outskirts of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At least 130 people were killed, including 10 soldiers, in the deadliest clashes in months between troops and rebels in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said on July 15. Fierce fighting broke out on July 14 outside the flashpoint city of Goma between the Congolese army and the M23 rebels, an armed group launched by Tutsi former soldiers who mutinied in April 2012. The clashes continued on July 15 between Congolese armed forces and M23 rebels, causing several thousands of people to flee. (Phil Moore/Getty Images)
- Bodies of migrants who drowned lie on the beach in the Sicilian village of Sampieri September 30, 2013. At least 13 people on a migrant boat arriving in Sicily drowned close to the coast near the eastern city of Ragusa, apparently after trying to disembark from their stranded vessel, Italian authorities said. Officials said the boat was carrying around 250 people but there was no immediate word on where they came from. (Gianni Mania/Reuters)
- A rebel fighter and a child cross a damaged bridge in Syria’s eastern town of Deir Ezzor, on September 2, 2013. US President Barack Obama launched an intense lobbying effort on September 1 to sway skeptical lawmakers weighing whether to support a military strike against Syria. (Abo Shurja/Getty Images)
- Soldiers of the Syrian government forces patrol on a tank in a devastated street on July 31, 2013 in the district of al-Khalidiyah in the central Syrian city of Homs. The Syrian government announced the capture of Khalidiyah, a key rebel district in Homs, Syria’s third city and a symbol of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. (Joseph Eid/Getty Images)
- Pakistani men carry an injured blast victim at the site of a bomb explosion in the busy Kissa Khwani market in Peshawar on September 29, 2013. A bomb explosion killed at least 31 people in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, officials said — the third deadly strike to hit the city in the last week. (Hasham Ahmed/Getty Images)
- An army officer tries to control the crowd as he escorts an Islamist man out of Cairo’s Al-Fath mosque where Islamist supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi held up on August 17, 2013. The standoff at al-Fath mosque in central Ramses Square began on August 16, with security forces surrounding the building where Islamists were sheltering and trying to convince them to leave. (Mohamed El-Shahed/Getty Images)
- Egyptian protesters calling for the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi gather in Cairo’s landmark Tahrir Square on July 2, 2013 as laser lights (L) directed at the government building spell “Game Over.” (Khaled Desouki/Getty Images)
- Riot police spray teargas on demonstrators during clashes on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, on March 24, 2013, as thousands of people demonstrated against France’s gay marriage law in an attempt to block legislation that will allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children. (Thomas Samson/Getty Images)
- An injured woman cries for help after gunmen stormed the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi September 21, 2013. Gunmen stormed the shopping mall in the Kenyan capital killing at least 15 people, according to the Kenyan Red Cross, and sending scores fleeing into shops, a cinema and onto the streets seeking safety. (Noor Khamis/Reuters)
- This frame grab taken from AFPTV footage received on May 28, 2013 shows rescue workers breaking away bits of a pipe to remove a newborn baby boy stuck inside in the city of Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang. The newborn baby boy was rescued from a sewage pipe in a Chinese apartment building after being flushed down a toilet, state media said, provoking online outrage on May 28. (Getty Images)
- Fatima Khatun 25, kisses the head of her eighteen month old daughter, Roona Begum, suffering from Hydrocephalus, in which cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the brain, at their hut in Jirania village on the outskirts of Agartala, the capital of northeastern state of Tripura on April 13, 2013. Her father, Abdul Rahman, 18, who lives in a mud hut with his family, told AFP he prays for “a miracle” that will save his only child. Doctors told him to go to a specialist hospital in a big city such as Kolkata in eastern India to get medical help but Rahman, who earns 150 rupees ($2.75) a day working in the brick plant, said he does not have the money to take her. (Arindam Dey/Getty Images)
- Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi waves to supporters as his girlfriend Francesca Pascale looks on during a rally to protest his tax fraud conviction, outside his palace in central Rome August 4, 2013. Tensions in Italy’s squabbling coalition heightened ahead of a rally by supporters of Berlusconi in Rome in protest at a tax fraud conviction that threatens his future in politics and the fragile government. (Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)
- New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin attend a news conference in New York, July 23, 2013. Weiner said that he will stay in the race despite admitting he sent newly revealed sexually explicit online chats and photos even after he resigned from Congress. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)
- Democratic mayor-elect of New York, Bill de Blasio, hugs his daughter Chiara and son Dante during his election victory party at the Park Slope Armory in New York, November 5, 2013. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
- New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez talks to reporters in the visitors dugout before the Yankees’ American League baseball game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts August 16, 2013. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
- Singer Lady Gaga attends the YouTube Music Awards in New York November 3, 2013. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
- Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai (2nd R) is greeted by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (2nd L), Vuk Jeremic (R), President of the UN General Assembly, and Gordon Brown (L, back to camera), United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education July 12, 2013 at UN headquarters in New York during the UN Youth Assembly. Yousafzai became a public figure when she was shot by the Taliban while traveling to school last year in Pakistan — targeted because of her committed campaigning for the right of all girls to an education. The UN has declared July 12 “Malala Day”, which is also Yousafzai’s birthday, and will host the UN Youth Assembly. (Stan Honda/Getty Images)
- Serbia’s Novak Djokovic celebrates winning a game on the way to winning the first set against Spain’s Rafael Nadal during the singles final on the eighth day of the ATP World Tour Finals tennis tournament in London on November 11, 2013. (Glyn Kirk/Getty Images)v
- Spain’s Rafael Nadal celebrates as he wins the 2013 French tennis Open final against Spain’s David Ferrer at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris on June 9, 2013. (Alexis Reau/Getty Images)
- Toronto Mayor Rob Ford laughs during council beside councillor Giorgio Mammoliti at City Hall in Toronto November 14, 2013. Embattled mayor Ford, under huge pressure to quit after he admitted smoking crack cocaine, said then that he was getting help for a drinking problem, but offered no indication that he might step down. Ford also expressed remorse for an obscene outburst he made earlier in the day when denying an allegation he had made sexual overtures to a female member of his staff. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)
- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responds forcefully to intense questioning on the September attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites in Benghazi, Libya, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington January 23, 2013. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A protester covers his mouth with a dollar bill as he joins others in a demonstration in front of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 1, 2013 urging congress to pass the budget bill. US President Obama slammed Republicans for shutting down the government as part of an “ideological crusade” designed to kill his signature health care law. The US government shut down on October 1, 2013 for the first time in 17 years after a gridlocked Congress failed to reach a federal budget deal amid bitter brinkmanship. Some 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed in a move reminiscent of two previous shutdowns — for six days in November 1995 and 21 days from December that year into early 1996. (Jewel Samad/Getty Images)
- People gather during a ‘party’ to celebrate the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London, on April 8, 2013. Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” who shaped a generation of British politics, died following a stroke on Monday at the age of 87, her spokesman said. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
- In a picture taken with an underwater camera Mexico’s Ivan Garcia and German Sanchez enter the water as they compete in the men’s 10-metre synchro platform preliminary diving event in the FINA World Championships at the Piscina Municipal de Montjuic in Barcelona on July 21, 2013. (Francois Xavier Marit/Getty Images)
- An Indian parrot hatchling is fed by hand in Dimapur on July 24, 2013, after being caught in a forest by a local hunter and offered for sale in the north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland. Wildlife of all types is frequently hunted either for consumption or for sale to residents. Despite a ban since 1990-91 on trade in all India bird species, hundreds of parrots are collected and traded annually in India. They are taken from the wild and smuggled within India and to other countries. The bulk of the trade is in three to four week old chicks. (Getty Images)
- A captured wild male black rhino named Sero at Lewa Wildlife looks out from its crate at Lewa conservancy on August 26, 2013. Eleven of Lewa’s total 73 endangered black rhinos are being relocated to neighboring Borana conservancy to afford them more space. Borana currently has no rhino population and is hoping to help increase their numbers. The horn of each relocated rhino is cut and a tracking device is fitted to monitor its movements and to help combat poaching. Lewa has suffered severe poaching in the past. Illegally poached rhino horn is sold for large sums as an ingredient in some traditional Chinese medicine. (Carl de Souza/Getty Images)
- Hans van ‘t Woud, a mapping researcher and the health and safety officer of Crew 125 EuroMoonMars B mission, collects geologic samples for study at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) outside Hanksville in the Utah desert March 2, 2013. The MDRS aims to investigate the feasibility of a human exploration of Mars and uses the Utah desert’s Mars-like terrain to simulate working conditions on the red planet. Scientists, students and enthusiasts work together, developing field tactics and studying the terrain. All outdoor exploration is done wearing simulated spacesuits and carrying air supply packs, and crews live together in a small communication base with limited amounts of electricity, food, oxygen and water. Everything needed to survive must be produced, fixed and replaced on-site. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
- A flotilla of bancas (locally made boats) carrying evacuees displaced from their homes due to fighting between government soldiers and Muslim rebels from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), is seen during sunset at a wharf in Zamboanga city, southern Philippines September 14, 2013. Fighting intensified in the southern Philippines between government troops and rogue Muslim separatists, shattering a ceasefire almost immediately as it was to go into effect and leaving many residents running low on supplies. Dozens have been wounded and more than 62,000 people displaced, with hundreds of homes razed and a hospital still in flames. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)
- The Aurora Borealis bright up the sky at twilight on March 17, 2013 between the towns of Are and Ostersund, Sweden. (Jonathan Nackstrand/Getty Images)
- A passenger aircraft, with the full “Harvest Moon” seen behind, makes its final approach to landing at Heathrow Airport in west London, September 19, 2013. The Harvest Moon is a traditional name for the full moon that is closest to the autumn equinox, and at a traditional period where farmers would be harvesting crops. The moon’s rise time and angle of path give the illusion that the Harvest Moon is both closer, larger and brighter; though actually it is not. (Toby Melville/Reuters)
- A man walks through the 9/11 Empty Sky memorial at sunrise across from New York’s Lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, September 11, 2013. Americans will commemorate the 12th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with solemn ceremonies and pledges to not forget the nearly 3,000 killed when hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. (Gary Hershorn/Reuters)
- A US Capitol Police Officer walks past a statue of Gerald Ford, who was US president during the 1976 shutdown of the federal government, in the Rotunda while the building was closed to tours on Capitol Hill October 1, 2013 in Washington, DC. The group of healthcare reform supporters and politicians gathered to celebrate the implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s online insurance markets which opened today. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)