Dec. 18 Daily Brief: Whirling dervishes, silly Santas, waxen Brangelina, monkey in a Christmas tree and plenty of protests

Whirling dervishes perform at the Galata Mevlevihane (The Lodge of the Dervishes) in Istanbul. The dervishes are adepts of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that preaches tolerance and a search for understanding. Those who whirl, like planets around the sun, turn dance into a form of prayer. (Gurcan Ozturk/Getty Images)

Visitors look at penguins wearing Santa Claus (in red) and Christmas tree (in green) costumes during a promotional event for Christmas at an amusement park in Yongin, south of Seou. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

An Afghan family walks during sunset in Herat. Over a third of Afghans are living in abject poverty, as those in power are more concerned about addressing their vested interests rather than the basic needs of the population, a UN report said. (Aref Karimi/Getty Images)

A sculpture is silhouetted against the full moon in Hanover, central Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/Getty Images)

Bode Miller of the USA competes during the FIS Alpine World Cup Men’s Downhill training in Val Gardena. (Oliver Morin/Getty Images)

Madame Tussauds unveil new wax figures for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ahead of Brad’s 50th birthday on December 18th at Madame Tussauds in London, England. (Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

A member of China’s national pole dance team performs at a park after the city’s first snow this winter in Tianjin. (China Daily/Reuters)

A member of the special police force dressed in a Santa suit descends from the roof of a pediatric clinic in Ljubljana, as part of a Christmas performance for patients of the clinic(Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters)

A member of the “Skipper” yacht club dressed as Santa Claus, sails his trimaran to mark the ending of the sailboat season during heavy snowfall at an air temperature of above minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit) on the Yenisei River, outside Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

An Indian Sikh devotee cleans the sarover (water pool) at a fog-shrouded Golden Temple in Amritsar. Seasonal heavy fog and cold weather disturbed train, bus and air schedules in northern India as temperatures dipped towards freezing. (Narinder Nanu/Getty Images)

A squirrel monkey eats from christmas tree baubles filled with silkworms and crickets during a photocall at London Zoo in central London. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

A volunteer carries a baby red howler monkey (Alouatta seniculus), during its recovery at the Santa fe zoo, in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia. Eight monkeys who had been under the care of the Santa Fe zoo as part of a wildlife conservation program after they were are torn away from their families in the forests and sold by traffickers to travelers within the country, were released into the wild. The red howler monkeys are an endangered species, which makes them attractive to wildlife traders. (Raul Arboleda/Getty Images)

About 100 camels carrying boxes of tea walk on a highway during an event re-enacting the ancient tea trade journey from China to Europe in Changsha, Hunan province. According to local media, the tea caravan that set out from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region this April would likely change their mode of transport into cars later to travel through Siberia and complete their journey in Paris next December. (China Daily/Reuters)

A Palestinian family sits in a tent after their house was flooded following a huge storms across the Levant that left the Gaza Strip under flood waters in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. (Mohammed Abed/Getty Images)

Malaysia’s Abdullah Muhammad Nazreer competes during the men’s 10m platform diving event at the 27th SEA Games in Naypyidaw. (Ye Aung Thu/Getty Images)

The mother of a 27-year-old Pakistani man stabbed to death reacts as she leaves an Athens court where two suspected members of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn accused of her son’s murder are being judged on December 18, 2013. The case is coming to trial three months after the fatal stabbing of a leftist rapper by a Golden Dawn supporter, which paved the way for a crackdown on the neo-Nazi group with six of its members charged with belonging to a criminal group. Dionyssis Liakopoulos, 25, and Christos Steriopoulos, 29, risk a life sentence if found guilty of the drive-by killing of Shehzad Luqman in Athens last January. (Aris Messinis/Getty Images)

Oranges are distributed to Iraqi Shiite Muslim pilgrims as they walk along the main highway from Najaf to the central shrine city of Karbala, to take part in the Arbaeen religious festival which marks the 40th day after Ashura commemorating the seventh century killing of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Imam Hussein. (Mohammed Sawaf/Getty Images)

People arrive to seek refuge in the UNMISS compound in Juba. The mission is stepping up provision of basic health facilities.South Sudan’s fugitive former vice president denied on December 18 accusations he led a coup bid against his archrival President Salva Kiir after days of fierce fighting that has killed hundreds of people and sent thousands fleeing to UN bases. (Getty Images)

A right-wing Indian Hindu activist wearing a mask depicting US President Barack Obama takes part in a protest near the US Embassy in New Delhi. India vowed Wednesday to bring one of its diplomats home at any price after her arrest in New York, as she told how she broke down in tears after being stripped and cavity-searched. (Manan Vatsyayana/Getty Images)

Opposition activists guard a barricade in front of a fresco of Mykhaylo Gold Dome cathedral in Kiev. Ukraine’s prime minister on Wednesday defended a deal with the Kremlin that the opposition decried as a sellout to Russia, saying that Kiev had avoided bankruptcy and social collapse thanks to the “historic” bailout. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the agreement clinched between President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday was the only way to rescue the economy after five consecutive quarters of negative growth. (Sergei Supinsky/Getty Images)

An Afghan policeman walks near burning NATO supply trucks after what police officials say was an attack by militants in the Torkham area near the Pakistani-Afghan border in Jalalabad Province December 18, 2013. The attack killed one police officer and wounded three others, according to the police. (Parwiz/Reuters)

Members of Casapound far-right organization wear masks in the colors of the Italian flag before a demonstration organized by “People from pitchfork movement” to protest against economic insecurity and the government in downtown Rome December 18, 2013. Italy’s “pitchfork” protests spread to Rome on Thursday when hundreds of students clashed with police and threw firecrackers outside a university where government ministers were attending a conference. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)

Police try to stop a rally as protesters try to surround and block access to the High Commission of Pakistan in Dhaka. Police used batons as hundreds of protesters try to surround and block access to the high commission, in protest of a resolution adopted by the National Assembly of Pakistan. The statement by the National Assembly of Pakistan expressed concern over the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah on December 12, 2013, the first war crimes execution in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Dhaka for a meeting to discuss the resolution, local media reported. (Andrew Biraj/Reuters)

Visitors walk through the holiday lights display “ZooLights” at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. (Jim Young/Reuters)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reflected in a glass barrier as she addresses the German lower house of parliament, Bundestag in Berlin. (Tobias Schwarz/Reuters)

Dec. 18 Daily Brief: Whirling dervishes, silly Santas, waxen Brangelina, monkey in a Christmas tree and plenty of protests

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