2014: The year in pictures
The best images from around the world that shaped the news of 2014. Warning: This gallery contains some graphic images.
- Local women watch armed men, believed to be Russian soldiers, assemble near a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe in this March 5, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
- German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and British model Cara Delevingne appear at the end of his Fall/Winter 2014-2015 women’s ready-to-wear collection show for French fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais transformed into a “Chanel Shopping Center” during Paris Fashion Week, in this March 4, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/Files
- Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius sits in the dock ahead of the second day of his trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, in this March 4, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Kim Ludbrook
- A woman looks through a damaged door as pro-Russian demonstrators hold a rally outside the regional government building in Donetsk, in this March 3, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Stringer/Files
- Jennifer Lawrence, best supporting actress nominee for her role in the film “American Hustle”, peeks around an Oscar statue on the red carpet as actor Brad Pitt (L) looks on at the 86th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, in this March 2, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
- A Mexican marine lifts a bathtub that leads to a tunnel and exits in the city’s drainage system at one of the houses of Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman in Culiacan, in this February 27, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
- A Palestinian man reacts as he carries the body of a girl from the Abu Nejim family, whom medics said was killed along with other eight family members by an Israeli air strike, before her burial at a cemetery in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, in this August 4, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
- A supporter of the English Defence League with a tattoo on his head stands by a replica hangman’s noose and gallows during a protest outside the Old Bailey courthouse in London, in this February 26, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Toby Melville
- A family member of a passenger missing after the South Korean Sewol ferry capsized is blocked by police during a protest in Jindo calling for a meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and demanding the search and rescue operation be speeded up, in this April 20, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
- Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, talks to junior surf lifesavers during a visit to Sydney’s Manly beach in this April 18, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/David Gray/Files
- The South Korean Sewol ferry (L) is seen sinking in the sea off Jindo, as lighting flares are released for a night search, in this April 16, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
- A fighter jet flies above as Ukrainian soldiers sit on an armoured personnel carrier in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, in this April 16, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
- A penitent takes part in the procession of the “Silencio y la Santa Cruz” brotherhood during Holy Week in Oviedo, northern Spain, in this April 15, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso
- The door through which model Reeva Steenkamp was shot is displayed during Olympic and Paralympic track athlete Oscar Pistorius’s murder trial in Pretoria, in this April 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Antoine de Ras
- Eric Parker from central Idaho aims his weapon from a bridge as protesters gather by the Bureau of Land Management’s base camp, where cattle which were seized from rancher Cliven Bundy are being held, near Bunkerville, Nevada, in this April 12, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
- AA suspected illegal construction is seen covered by green plants atop a 19-storey residential building in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in this April 11, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/China Daily
- The passenger departure area is seen at the abandoned Nicosia International Airport near Nicosia, in this March 10, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Neil Hall
- A Seleka fighter wears a hat that reads “Bocou Harame”, in a reference to the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, in the town of Bria, in this April 9, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
- A masked female member of the anti-balaka, a Christian militia, holds a machete as she sits in a village of Zawa, in this April 8, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
- Female members of the Palestinian presidential guard watch a training session in the West Bank city of Jericho, in this April 6, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
- Men rest after salvaging metal on the 30th floor of the “Tower of David” skyscraper in Caracas, in this February 3, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
- General Motors CEO Mary Barra arrives to testify at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this April 1, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
- The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion maritime search aircraft is seen on low-level clouds as it flies over the southern Indian Ocean looking for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, in this March 31, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Rob Griffith/Pool/Files
- Germany’s Nelli Zhiganshina and Alexander Gazsi compete in the ice dance short dance program at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, north of Tokyo, in this March 28, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/Files
- A donkey transports ballot boxes and other election material on to polling stations which are not accessible by road in Shutul, Panjshir province, in this June 13, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/Files
- People sit on sofas as they watch the opening game of the 2014 World Cup between Brazil and Croatia, during a public viewing event at the Alte Foersterei stadium in Berlin, in this June 12, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/Files
- Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, actress Angelina Jolie (R), and her partner actor Brad Pitt, look at photographs of victims of violence at the End Sexual Violence in Conflict summit in London, in this June 12, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Lefteris Pitarakis/Pool/Files
- A supporter of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah holds an Afghan flag after an election campaign rally in the Paghman district of Kabul, in this June 9, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
- A makeshift soccer goalpost stands near Molweni, west of Durban, in this June 5, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
- A man sleeps in front of ATM machines on Paulista Avenue in central Sao Paulo, in this June 8, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
- Artist Pyotr Pavlensky sits on the wall enclosing the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry after he cut off a part of his earlobe during his protest action titled “Segregation” in Moscow, in this October 19, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/Files
- Children sit in a pool among makeshift homes, part of the Nova Tuffy slum, in an abandoned factory compound in Rio de Janeiro, in this October 17, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
- A visitor to the MIPIM property fair reacts as he is detained by police officers following scuffles with housing campaigners outside Olympia exhibition and conference centre in London, in this October 15, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth
- A protestor throws a molotov cocktail at riot police in the centre of Kiev on January 22, 2014. Ukrainian police today stormed protesters’ barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. Total of two activists shot dead during clashing. The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych’s failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU. Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images
- Riot police officers gather as they clash with protestors in the center of Kiev on January 22, 2014. Ukrainian police today stormed protesters’ barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. Total of two activists shot dead during clashing. The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych’s failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU. Antoli Boiko/AFP/Getty Images
- Ukrainian riot policemen stand guard in central Kiev following clashes with pro-EU protesters on January 23, 2014. Ukraine’s opposition agreed to observe an eight-hour truce in clashes with security forces after five days of deadly fighting but threatened to go on the attack if the government failed to agree concessions. Opposition leader and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko brokered the truce after talks with radical protesters and armoured security forces on the frontline of the clashes, saying the ceasefire should hold while he conducts talks with President Viktor Yanukovych. Volodymyr Shuvayev/AFP/Getty Images
- Members of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) lynch a man suspected of being a former Seleka rebel on February 5, 2014, in Bangui. The impoverished former French colony descended into chaos last March when rebel forces overthrew the president, but an interim government lost control of the country. Rival Muslim and Christian militias are now battling each other and rogue checkpoints have been set up on nearly all main roads.Despite the presence of French and African peacekeeping troops, violence continues to rock the country, and has already forced about a fifth of the population of 4.6 million from their homes. Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
- A patient being treated for multiple gunshot wounds to the face, chest and throat sits in a wheelchair in the Malakal teaching hospital on February 5, 2014. Recent fighting in the country has seen waves of brutal revenge attacks, as fighters and ethnic militia use the violence to loot and settle old scores, with the United Nations and rights workers reporting that horrific atrocities have been committed by both sides. Many fear the conflict has slid out of the control of political leaders, with ethnic violence and revenge attacks between the Dinka people of Kiir and the Nuer of Machar, the country’s two largest groups. Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
- A man holds a knife to his throat claiming that he is looking for Muslims to cut off their heads in the 5th district of Bangui on February 9, 2014. According to witnesses, at least ten people have been killed since the night before in central Bangui, and many buildings burned, after violence broke out near the district hall of Bangui’s 5th district. Large-scale looting was also taking place in the same neighbourhood in the morning of February 9 despite the deployment of French troops and Central African gendarmes. The International Criminal Court in the Hague said on February 7 it had opened an initial probe into war crimes in the Central African Republic. Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
- A Ukrainian artist plays the piano set on the anti-government opposition barricade in Kiev during a concert organized for the activists and for the policemen on February 10, 2014. Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
- A flock of migrating starlings is seen as they perform their traditional dance fly before landing to sleep during the sunset near the southern Israeli village of Tidhar, in the northern Israeli Negev desert, on February 12, 2014. Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
- South Sudanese children from the Dinka ethnic group pose at cattle camp in the town of Yirol, in central South Sudan on February 12, 2014. UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned on February 12 what he said was the use of cluster bombs in the war in South Sudan, a day after the opening of peace talks between South Sudan’s government and rebels. Troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and renegade soldiers who support his former vice president Riek Machar have been battling since mid-December. Fabio Bucciarelli/AFP/Getty Images
- A protester holds an Ukranian national flag from a burned building during a face-off against police on February 20, 2014 in Kiev. Ukraine’s embattled leader announced a “truce” with the opposition as he prepared to get grilled by visiting EU diplomats over clashes that killed 26 and left the government facing diplomatic isolation. The shocking scale of the violence three months into the crisis brought expressions of grave concern from the West and condemnation of an “attempted coup” by the Kremlin. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
- Protesters advance towards new positions in Kiev on February 20, 2014. Armed protesters stormed police barricades in Kiev on Thursday in renewed violence that killed at least 26 people and shattered an hours-old truce as EU envoys held crisis talks with Ukraine’s embattled president. Bodies of anti-government demonstrators lay amid smouldering debris after masked protesters hurling Molotov cocktails and stones forced police from Kiev’s iconic Independence Square — the epicentre of the ex-Soviet country’s three-month-old crisis. Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images
- Protesters catch fire as they stand behind burning barricades during clashes with police on February 20, 2014 in Kiev. Ukraine’s embattled leader announced a “truce” with the opposition as he prepared to get grilled by visiting EU diplomats over clashes that killed 26 and left the government facing diplomatic isolation. The shocking scale of the violence three months into the crisis brought expressions of grave concern from the West and condemnation of an “attempted coup” by the Kremlin. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
- A boy stands on an airplane in the Christian Mpoko refugee camp on February 20, 2014 during sunset, in Bangui, Central African Republic. Interim President Samba Panza has vowed to “go to war” on the anti-balaka, who claim to seek vengeance for atrocities committed by a mainly Muslim rebel alliance, the Seleka, which temporarily seized power in March last year. The Seleka coup plunged the country into chaos, unleashing a wave of Muslim-Christian violence that has left thousands dead. Hundreds of thousands of people have also been displaced by the brutal surge of killings, mutilations, rapes and looting. Fred DuFour/AFP/Getty Images
- An alleged sniper (C) and member of the pro-government forces is beaten by anti-government protestors in Kiev on February 22, 2014. The regime of Ukraine’s president appeared close to collapse on February 22 as the emboldened opposition took control of central Kiev and key government and parliament positions and voted to immediately free its jailed leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
- People carry a coffin of a man who was killed during recent clashes, as they gather at Independence Square on February 22, 2014. Newly freed Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko received a rapturous welcome on Independence Square on February 22, 2014, declaring “You are heroes, you are the best of Ukraine” to the 50,000-strong crowd before breaking down in tears. The latest developments in the ex-Soviet nation’s three-month political crisis came after protesters took control of Kiev’s charred city centre and seized Yanukovych’s lavish residence on a day of dramatic twists and turns. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
- A man walks next to full trash cans on Ipanema beach during a strike by some garbage collectors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on March 6, 2014. Rio de Janeiro’s cleaners got a police escort as they pursued their post-Carnival sweep up after some striking colleagues reportedly threatened them, in some cases with guns, authorities said. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
- A man sharpens his machete as young people, who created a self-defence committee for their district Benz-vi, meet before leaving for a patrol in their district, on March 12, 2014 in Bangui. UN investigators left for the Central African Republic on March 10 to launch a probe into human right violations in the conflict-ravaged country amid fears of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images
- An anti-government activist is arrested by national police during a protest against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro government in Caracas on March 13, 2014. A total of 28 people have been killed and 365 injured in anti-government protests rocking Venezuela, the country’s top prosecutor said Thursday, lamenting an atmosphere of “violence and chaos”. Leo Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images
- An X-ray film shows a bullet lodged on 18-month-old boy Satrin Osinya (R), as he receives treatment at the Kenyatta National hospital Nairobi March 26, 2014 , three days after gunmen spraying bullets on the congregation killed six worshipers and injured 17 others during a worship service in the Coastal city of Mombasa. The fate of one-and-a-half-year-old Satrin Osinya, whose mother died trying to protect him when the attackers sprayed the church service with bullets, has gripped the east African nation. Doctors will likely wait for two weeks until swelling in the brain reduces to allow the tricky surgery to go ahead. Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images
- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (R) poses with workers during a visit to the construction site of the metro station Sao Conrado (Line 4) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on April 2, 2014. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
- General view during a fire in Valparaiso, 110 km west of Santiago, Chile, on April 12, 2014. Authorities decreed a red alert for the area after the fire consumed more than 100 houses. ALBERTO MIRANDA/AFP/Getty Images
- The mother (R) of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh, who was murdered in 2007, slaps Balal who killed her son during the execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014 just before she removed the noose around his neck with the help of her husband, sparing the life of her son’s convicted murderer. The dramatic events followed a rare public campaign to save the life of Balal, who at 19 killed another young man, Abdollah Hosseinzadeh, in a street fight with a knife back in 2007. ISNAARASH KHAMOOSHI/AFP/Getty Images
- In this photograph taken on April 16, 2014, a veterinary staff member of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme center conducts medical examinations on a 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun metal pellets embedded in his body in Sibolangit district in northern Sumatra island. The orangutan was rescued by Indonesia’s ministry of forestry personnel and Orangutan Information Center on April 15, 2014 in nearby Langkat district in a small patch of forest and agricultural plantation. The center has cared for over 280 orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations, poachers and pet owners and over 200 have been reintroduced in the wilds. The critically-endangered primates population are dwindling rapidly due to poaching and rapid destruction of their forest habital that is being converted into palm oil plantation. SUTANTA ADITYA/AFP/Getty Images
- US Secretary of State John Kerry kicks around a soccer ball while talking on his cellphone during an airplane refueling stop at Sal Island, Cape Verde, enroute to Washington, DC, May 5, 2014. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
- A man kisses his son, rescued of the mine, on May 13, 2014 after an explosion in a coal mine in Manisa. At least 157 miners were killed in collapsed coal mine in the western Turkish city of Manisa. “At least 200-300 workers were working in the mine when an electric fault caused an explosion,” the mayor of Soma, a district of Manisa, told private NTV television. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- World Champion Christian Sprenger of Australia swims during a swimming clinic session for children with special needs on the rooftop pool of the Marina Bay Sands resort hotel in Singapore on May 20, 2014. Sprenger is in Singapore to promote the Singapore Swim Stars held in September, a three-day swim festival that includes an unprecedented competition format involving some of the world’s best swimmers which will showcase a syncronised swimming as well as swimming clinics. ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images
- Real Madrid’s Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo (L) celebrates after scoring during the UEFA Champions League Final Real Madrid vs Atletico de Madrid at Luz stadium in Lisbon, on May 24, 2014. FRANCISCO LEONG/AFP/Getty Images
- A handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis praying at Israel’s separation barrier on May 25, 2014 after he made an unscheduled stop at the security wall drawing attention to the towering eight-metre (26-foot) high concrete wall topped by a guard tower. Pope Francis arrived in Bethlehem to begin the most sensitive part of his three-day Middle East tour aimed at forging regional peace and easing an age-old rift within Handout/AFP/Getty Images
- Pro-Russian militants take position on the roof of the international airport of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on May 26, 2014. The main airport in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk was rocked by an explosion and heavy shooting after armed rebels seized the facility, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Thick black smoke was seen rising from the airport complex and the sound of fighter jets could be heard overhead. All flights have been cancelled in and out of the regional transport hub. ALEXANDER KHUDOTEPLY/AFP/Getty Images
- Perople react as a man attempts to revive another, wounded as a result of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian troops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on May 26, 2014. A fierce battle erupted on May 26 for control of the main airport in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, just hours after president-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed he would not let the country become another Somalia. VIKTOR DRACHEV/AFP/Getty Images
- A picture taken on October 7, 2014 in Grabels near Montpellier shows a car in an upright position following the overnight flash floods due to heavy showers. Floodwater streamed down roads and highways, engulfing cars as the Lez river burst its banks in the seaside capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region after it was lashed by record-breaking downpours. SYLVAIN THOMAS/AFP/Getty Images
- Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai gestures after addressing the media in Birmingham, central England on October 10, 2014. The Nobel Peace Prize went Friday to 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi for their work promoting children’s rights. Seventeen-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was “honoured” to be the first Pakistani and the youngest person to be given the award and dedicated the award to the “voiceless”. “This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard,” she said. OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images
- A pro-democracy protester (2L) shakes his fist at police officers as they advance in Hong Kong on October 15, 2014. Hong Kong has been plunged into the worst political crisis since its 1997 handover as pro-democracy activists take over the streets following China’s refusal to grant citizens full universal suffrage. ALEX OGLE/AFP/Getty Images
- Senior soloist of the Joburg Ballet Kitty Phetla performs in a classroom at the Nka-Thuto Primary School in Soweto on October 16, 2014. Using ballet and dance to promote healthy and positive choices, Joburg Ballet will provide lecture demonstrations to twenty schools in Soweto, raising awareness and informing students of the available free classes they provide together with the provincial department of education. MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images
- A Kurdish man sits at the border area close to the southeastern village of Mursitpinar, in the Sanliurfa province, opposite the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, where heavy fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters is taking place, on October 16, 2014. Turkey’s ruling party said it was optimistic about the prospects for the peace process with Kurdish rebels after a spate of violence raised concern about its viability. ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images
- A Syrian Kurdish woman walks in a refugee camp in the town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on October 17, 2014. Kurdish rebels have been infuriated by the lack of action by Turkey against Islamic State (IS) jihadists trying to take the mainly Kurdish town of Kobane just across the Syrian border. ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images
- A local Hong Kong journalist collapses in agony after being hit in the face with pepper spray by police in the Mongkok district of Hong Kong on October 17, 2014. Fresh clashes broke out in Hong Kong on October 17 as pro-democracy demonstrators attempted to take back a protest camp in a densely populated suburb that had been partially cleared by police earlier in the day. ALEX OGLE/AFP/Getty Images
- Militants of Islamic State (IS) stand just before explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill near Turkish border on October 23, 2014, at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that 200 Iraqi Kurd peshmerga fighters would travel through Turkey to the flashpoint Syrian border town of Kobane under assault by the Islamic State group. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- A man protects a woman as they face a police officer dispersing protesters who gathered on the central Istoklal avenue near Taksim square in Istanbul, on May 31, 2014, as the police blocked access to the square during the one year anniversary of the Gezi park and Taksim square demonstrations. Turkey’s combative prime minister warned protesters that police would do “whatever is necessary” to clamp down on demonstrations today in Istanbul’s Taksim Square to mark the anniversary of last year’s turmoil. Last year, what started as a small campaign to save the nearby Gezi Park from the bulldozers eventually drew an estimated three million protesters in an outpouring of anger at the perceived authoritarian tendencies of Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government. Eight people died and thousands were injured in the ensuing violence as police launched a brutal crackdown, frequently employing tear gas and water cannons. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- A man carries a young girl who was injured in a reported barrel-bomb attack by government forces on June 3, 2014 in Kallaseh district in the northern city of Aleppo. Some 2,000 civilians, including more than 500 children, have been killed in regime air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo since January, many of them in barrel bomb attacks. BARAA AL-HALABI/AFP/Getty Images
- British World War II veteran Frederick Glover poses for a photograph as soldiers parachute down during a D-Day commemoration paratroopers launch event in Ranville, northern France, on June 5, 2014, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the World War II Allied landings in Normandy. D-Day ceremonies on June 6 this year mark the 70th anniversary of the launch of ‘Operation Overlord’, a vast military operation by Allied forces in Normandy, which turned the tide of World War II, eventually leading to the liberation of occupied France and the end of the war against Nazi Germany. THOMAS BREGARDIS/AFP/Getty Images
- A picture taken on May 3, 2014, shows people visiting “The Gateway to Hell,” a huge burning gas crater in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum desert. The fiery pit was the result of a simple miscalculation by Soviet scientists in 1971 after their boring equipment suddenly drilled through into an underground cavern and a deep sinkhole formed. Fearing that the crater would emit poisonous gases, the scientists took the decision to set it alight, thinking that the gas would burn out quickly and this would cause the flames to go out. But the flames have not gone out in more than 40 years, in a potent symbol of the vast gas reserves of Turkmenistan, which are believed to be the fourth largest in the world. IGOR SASIN/AFP/Getty Images
- Torchlights are placed next to soldiers’ tombs at the Douaumont’s boneyard, eastern France, during the annual event known as The Four Days of Verdun, a night parade of veterans, as they commemorate the Verdun battle 98th anniversary. FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images
- Uruguay’s forward Luis Suarez (L) reacts past Italy’s defender Giorgio Chiellini during a Group D football match between Italy and Uruguay at the Dunas Arena in Natal during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 24, 2014. JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images
- A tourist jokes in front of an advertisement with the portrait of Uruguay’s forward Luis Suarez at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 26, 2014. Sportswear giant Adidas said Thursday it would stop using Luis Suarez, one of its key promotional stars, for World Cup adverts after his four-month ban from football activities for biting Italian Giorgio Chiellini. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images
- Brazilian football fans cheer as the opposite stand is reflected in a glass fence during a Group A football match between Brazil and Croatia at the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 12, 2014. ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images
- Kosovar Bosnian woman Arleta Sahiti poses after her face was painted by a woman during a presentation of the traditional wedding ceremony of Bosnian women from Zhupa region at the Ethnological Museum in Pristina on July 2, 2014. As part of the tradition, old ladies prepare young brides, painting their faces in many layers of colors. The golden circles symbolize the cycles of life. ARMEND NIMANI/AFP/Getty Images
- Brazil’s defender David Luiz celebrates scoring during the quarter-final football match between Brazil and Colombia at the Castelao Stadium in Fortaleza during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on July 4, 2014. VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images
- Belarus’ Catholics attend the annual celebration of Icon of the Mother of God in Budslav some 150 km north of Minsk early on July 5, 2014. Thousands of Catholics come to Budslav as pilgrims to participate in prayer, confession and take part in a procession with candles, dedicated to the celebration of the anniversary Budslav Mother of God. SERGEY BALAY/AFP/Getty Images
- “Aloitadores” (fighters) struggle with a wild horse during the “Rapa Das Bestas” (Shearing of the Beasts) traditional event in the Spanish northwestern village of Sabucedo, some 40 kms from Santiago de Compostela, on July 5, 2014. During the 400-year-old horse festival, hundreds of wild horses are rounded up from the mountains, trimmed and groomed. MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images
- A Syrian man carries two girls covered with dust following a reported air strike by government forces on July 9, 2014 in the northern city of Aleppo. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, by May some 2,000 civilians including 500 children had been killed in the daily air strikes, which rights groups have condemned as a “war crime” for failing to discriminate between military and civilian targets. ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/Getty Images
- An Israeli artillery fires a 155mm shell towards targets in the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel’s border with the Strip on July 12, 2014. Israel pounded Gaza for a fifth day today, vowing no let-up in its air campaign to halt rocket attacks by militants which has killed more than 120 Palestinians. MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
- Germany’s midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger (R) and Germany’s forward Lukas Podolski (C) take a ‘selfie’ after their victory in extra-time in the final football match between Germany and Argentina for the FIFA World Cup at The Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on July 13, 2014. ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images
- A member of the Afghan intelligence force points his pistol towards the body of an insurgent following an attack by the Taliban at Kabul’s airport on July 17, 2014. Explosions and gunfire rang out as the Taliban attacked Kabul airport in the militants’ latest attempt to steal the initiative with the country in the grip of a presidential power struggle. SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images
- An Afghan election commission worker waits prior to the opening of the seals to a box containing ballot papers for an audit of the presidential run-off votes at a counting centre in Kabul on July 17, 2014. Afghanistan on July 17 began a massive audit of 8.1 million ballots cast in the run-off round of its controversial presidential vote, hours after a brazen Taliban raid on Kabul’s airport. The audit is aimed at reversing a destabilising political crisis that has threatened to widen the country’s ethnic fissures as NATO winds down its deployment after more than a decade of war. WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
- A picture taken on July 17, 2014 shows wreckages of the malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels fighting central Kiev authorities claimed on Thursday that the Malaysian airline that crashed in Ukraine had been shot down by a Ukrainian jet. DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images
- Self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the pro-Russian separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic” Alexander Borodai (C) stands as he arrives on the site of the crash of a malaysian airliner carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine, on July 17, 2014. The plane was shot down over Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile Thursday but it was unclear who fired the weapon, US officials said. DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images
- Bodies of crew members lie next to a destroyed Ukrainian tank in the northern outskirts of city of Donetsk, on July 22, 2014. Terrified civilians fled as intense clashes yesterday between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels left at least four people dead on the outskirts of the insurgent bastion of Donetsk. A military spokesman said yesterday government troops were battling back control of the districts around the airport and had broken through the rebel cordon to reach their comrades inside. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- German pianist Stefan Aaron hovers about the Munich airport Franz-Josef-Strauss, southern Germany, on July 23, 2014. Stefan Aaron is seated in front of his piano on an aluminum structure that is reminiscent of a flying carpet and attached to a helicopter. The appearance is the fourth stop on his “Orange Piano Tour” that will take him and his orange piano at exceptional locations around the world for the musician. On the 4206 meter high Alphubel in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Stefan Aaron has played on the Great Wall and the Pulpit Rock in Norway, a natural rock platform 604 meters above the Lysefjord near Stavanger. CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images
- An Israeli army officer walks on July 25, 2014 during an army-organised tour in a tunnel said to be used by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip for cross-border attacks. Israel launched its military offensive aiming at destroying tunnels used by Gaza militants. JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images
- This picture taken on July 25, 2014 shows people cooling off in a waterpark in Suining, southwest China’s Sichuan province. Meteorological departments issued an orange alert for high temperature as a heat wave embraces Sichuan province, with temperature of most area topped 37 , local media reported. CHINA OUT/AFP/Getty Images
- A Palestinian woman pauses amid destroyed buildings in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014. The bodies of at least another 35 Palestinians were recovered from rubble across Gaza during a truce, raising to over 900 the overall death toll of Israel’s onslaught on the territory since July 8, medics said. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images
- Palestinian mourners cry at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital after an explosion killed at least seven children in a public playground in the beachfront Shati refugee camp on July 28, 2014. Palestinian medical sources blamed the killings on air strikes launched by the Israeli military, which in turn said Hamas had misfired its own rockets at the camp and at the Shifa hospital. MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images
- A Palestinian girl sits and eats in the rubble of her destroyed home, on August 2, 2014 following an overnight Israeli strike on Gaza City. A fresh wave of violence killed dozens in Gaza after the collapse of a UN and US backed ceasefire, officials said, as Hamas denied it kidnapped an Israeli soldier. MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images
- An Ukrainian girl cries as she stands on the road with her luggage after she left her home near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), some 80km east of Donetsk on August 2, 2014. The insurgent stronghold of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine is on the verge a humanitarian catastrophe, the mayor warned Saturday, as a siege by government troops has seen water, electricity and food supplies cut off. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- An Israeli soldier gestures in relief as he walks with comrades near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip after returning from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian coastal enclave, on August 4, 2014. The Israeli army said today it was resuming its strikes on the Gaza Strip, after the end of a seven-hour humanitarian lull. An army spokesman said troops were redeploying within Gaza while other forces were pulling out in a process which began on August 2. GIL COHEN MAGEN/AFP/Getty Images
- Demonstrators protest against the August 9 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by holding their hands up while gathered on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri late on August 16, 2014. A crowd of some 200 demonstrators defied a curfew that came into effect in Ferguson early on August 17, days after police shot dead the unarmed black teen, triggering a wave of rioting. JOSHUA LOTT/AFP/Getty Images
- Palestinians flee their destroyed neighbourhood on a horse and cart in the northern Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanun, on August 18, 2014. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel will hit back hard if Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza resume, speaking just hours before the midnight expiry of a five-day ceasefire. THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
- Lukas Michul, a member of the ‘dream walker’ group jumps from atop the rugged rocks overlooking the azure waters of Navagio beach, one of the Greece’s most renowned leisure spots on the popular tourist island of Zakynthos on June 23, 2014. This is rope jumping — part diving, part rock climbing, with a touch of engineering. The aim of the project is to dream jump in 80 places with most ravishing nature and architecture all over the world .They plan to stage their next leaps at a cave complex in Croatia, a French viaduct, skyscrapers in Las Vegas and Johannesburg, and the Grand Canyon. LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images
- A man looks out towards the US from the Mexican side of the border fence that divides the two countries in San Diego on August 20, 2014. At least 57,000 unaccompanied children, most from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, have crossed the border into the United States illegally since October, triggering a migration crisis that has sent US border and immigration authorities into a frenzy. MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
- Tarek al-Rifi (C), the father of one of the three children from the Al-Rifi family killed in an Israeli military strike, reacts at Gaza city’s Al-Shifa hospital on August 21, 2014. Israeli air strikes killed at least six Palestinians, four of them children, in the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for the emergency services said. According to the UN 2065 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke between Israel and Hamas on July 8 and of those 467 are children. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images
- Palestinian men look on as a bomb from an Israeli air strike hits a house in Gaza City on August 23, 2014. Israel kept up the pressure on Hamas in Gaza, carrying out multiple air strikes that killed six Palestinians, five of them from the same family, as Egypt prepared to convene new truce talks. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images
- This photo taken on September 3, 2014 shows Leng Yuting, 26, posing underwater for her wedding pictures at a photo studio in Shanghai, ahead of her wedding next year. Her fiance Riyang said they had their wedding photographs taken underwater because ‘its romantic and beautiful’. Mr Wedding studio owner, Tina Lui, started providing underwater pictures four years ago. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images
- A man infected with the Ebola virus lies unconscious in his house on September 4, 2014 at the small city of Banjor, 30 kilometers of Monrovia. he Ebola virus has killed over 1,500 people in four west African countries since the start of the year, spreading through contact with infected bodily fluids. DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images
- A South African albino maiden poses with other maidens, bare breasted as the tradition requires, as they prepare themselves for the Reed Dance ceremony on September 5, 2014 at the eNyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma in the KwaZulu-Natal region, ahead of the 13th anniversary of the Reed Dance (uMkhosi woMhlanga) celebrated by the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithin. As part of the ceremony, the young women dance bare-breasted for the king, each carrying a long reed, deposited later as they approach the King and is a cultural celebration that promotes respect for young women, and preserves the custom of keeping girls as virgins until marriage. MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images
- Israeli children hold toy guns as they pretend to play war games next to newly built protection cement walls around a kindergarten in the center of Kibbutz Nahal Oz located near the border with Gaza Strip on September 8, 2014. Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants, following fifty days of fighting, most Israeli residents living near the border with the Palestinian enclave returned to their homes with the army on high alert and new security measures to protect them. MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
- An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighter fires at Islamic-State (IS) militant positions, from his position on the top of Mount Zardak, a strategic point taken 3 days ago, about 25 kilometres east of Mosul on September 9,2014. Kurdish forces in the north have been bolstered by US strikes and took control of Mount Zardak, a strategic site that provides a commanding view of the surrounding area, a senior US officer said. JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images
- Residents, affected by flooding, wait to board an army helicopter with injured people in the Peer Kot area of Jhang, in central Punjab province on September 11, 2014. Pakistani troops on September 11 rushed to protect two major cities from raging floodwaters, using explosives to divert swollen rivers in a crisis which has hit more than a million people and inundated swathes of farmland. The floods and landslides from days of heavy monsoon rains have now claimed more than 450 lives in Pakistan and India, with hospitals struggling to cope with the disaster. ARIF ALI/AFP/Getty Images
- South African Paralympian athlete Oscar Pistorius (C) leaves the High Court after the verdict hearing of his trial over the killing of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on September 11, 2014 in Pretoria. Oscar Pistorius was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a shock decision that left the South African celebrity athlete sobbing with emotion in the dock. The high-profile trial was adjourned until Friday when the 27-year-old Paralympian will hear whether he has been found guilty of culpable homicide, a lesser charge roughly equivalent to manslaughter. MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images
- Catalan hold Catalan independentist flags (Estelada) during celebrations of Catalonia National Day (Diada) in Barcelona on September 11, 2014. Red and yellow flags filled the streets of Barcelona today as Catalan nationalists fired up by Scotland’s independence referendum rallied to demand a vote on breaking away from Spain. Demonstrators planned to mass in the late afternoon along two central Barcelona avenues in the shape of a giant letter “V” for vote. LUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images
- A competitor competes in the Mud Madness race, at Foymore Lodge in Portadown, County Armagh on September 14, 2014. Some 800 Competitors ran, crawled and belly-flop their way across four and half miles of bogs and ponds, under cargo nets and through water sprays and muddy trenches in aid of Charity. PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images
- Iraqi Christians, who fled the violence in the city of Mosul, decorate a cross with lights in commemoration of the Elevation of the Holy Cross festival on September 14, 2014, in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. The annual Christian feast marks the recovery of the Cross on which Jesus Christ is believed to have been crucified by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 627 AD after defeating the Sassanid Persians. SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images
- The horizon is seen through a telescopic rifle belonging to a Kurdish Peshmerga sniper on the front line in the Gwer district, 40 kilometres south of Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, on September 15, 2014. Participants at an international conference in Paris pledged to support Iraq by all possible means to fight jihadists, including providing military support. JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images
- An Iranian Kurdish female member of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) keeps a position in Dibis, some 50 kms northwest of Kirkuk, on September 15, 2014. The world’s top diplomats pledged today to support Iraq in its fight against Islamic State militants by “any means necessary”, including “appropriate military assistance”, as leaders stressed the urgency of the crisis. SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images
- An aerial picture taken on September 14, 2014 shows a plane flying over the Bardarbunga volcano spewing lava and smoke in southeast Iceland. The Bardarbunga volcano system has been rocked by hundreds of tremors daily since mid-August, prompting fears the volcano could explode. Bardarbunga, at 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), is Iceland’s second-highest peak and is located under Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajoekull. BERNARD MERIC/AFP/Getty Images
- A woman looks at the damages in her house after a flood, on September 18, 2014, in Lamalou-les-Bains, southern France. Five people died when storms turned a peaceful river that bordered their camping site in southern France into a raging torrent that swept them away, rescue workers said on September 18. The site in Lamalou-les-Bains was devastated by the flood overnight as storms that had already killed an elderly lady in the nearby region of Aveyron also left a person missing in another neighbouring department. PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images
- A rebel fighter holds a position in a rebel-held area of the Syrian northern city of Aleppo on September 18, 2014. The conflict in Syria began as a popular revolt demanding Assad’s ouster but quickly escalated into a brutal civil war that brought jihadists streaming into the country. ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/Getty Images
- Pro-union supporters celebrate as Scottish independence referendum results are announced at a ‘Better Together’ event in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 19, 2014. Scotland appeared set to reject independence on Friday with 23 out of 32 voting areas declared and the crucial Glasgow region having given its result. ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/Getty Images
- Pro-independence supporters push each other in a shopping trolley in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 19, 2014, following a defeat in the referendum on Scottish independence. Scotland rejected independence on Friday in a referendum that left the centuries-old United Kingdom intact but paved the way for a major transfer of powers away from London. ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/Getty Images
- A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Turkey at the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province on September 23, 2014. The UN refugee agency warned Tuesday that as many as 400,000 people may flee to Turkey from Syria’s Kurdish region to escape attacks by the Islamic State group. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
- A nurse walks with a little girl suffering from Ebola, at the international medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Monrovia on September 27, 2014. Liberia welcomed global pledges of action on the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa, admitting on September 26 that the government was losing the trust of its people with the outbreak still out of control. PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images
- US actor George Clooney and British lawyer Amal Alamuddin leave the palazzo Ca Farsetti on a taxi boat on September 29, 2014 in Venice, after a civil ceremony to officialise their wedding. PIERRE TEYSSOT/AFP/Getty Images
- Policemen rest following pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong on September 29, 2014. Police fired tear gas as tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators brought parts of central Hong Kong to a standstill in a dramatic escalation of protests that have gripped the semi-autonomous Chinese city for days. XAUME OLLEROS/AFP/Getty Images
- US actor George Clooney and British lawyer Amal Alamuddin arrive on September 29, 2014 at the palazzo Ca Farsetti in Venice, for a civil ceremony to officialise their wedding. PIERRE TEYSSOT/AFP/Getty Images
- A protester holds her hands up in front of a police car in Ferguson, Missouri, on November 25, 2014 during demonstrations a day after violent protests and looting following the grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of a 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown. Protest marches sprang up in cities across the US on November 25, amid a tense security operation in Ferguson, the Missouri town at the center of the country’s latest racially-charged stand-off. Clashes erupted in the St Louis suburb for a second night, after grand jury’s decision not to prosecute a white police officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager. EWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
- Michael Brown’s mother Leslie McSpadden (C) and other protesters react after hearing the grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of her son in Ferguson, Missouri, on November 24, 2014. Violent protests and looting erupted in the US town of Ferguson after a grand jury chose not to press charges against a white officer who shot dead the black teen. US President Barack Obama and the family of late 18-year-old Michael Brown separately appealed for calm after a prosecutor said a grand jury had found the policeman acted in self-defense. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
- A medic stitches the head of a wounded Syrian boy at a makeshift clinic after a mortar reportedly fired by Syrian government forces fell in the besieged rebel town of Douma, 13 kilometres (eight miles) northeast of Damascus, on November 11, 2014. Closing in on Douma, a town of 200,000 residents under siege since last year, the army has seized control of Mleiha and Adra and has set its sights on Jobar and Ain Tarma, all towns to the east of the capital. ABD DOUMANY/AFP/Getty Images
- Children living inside the cemetery play near human bones on top of stacked graves at the Navotas Public Cemetery in Manila on October 31, 2014, days ahead of the traditional All Souls’ day. Millions across the Philippines will visit cemeteries to pay their respects to their dead, in an annual tradition that combines catholic religious rites with the country’s penchant for festivity. NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images
- Protesters pose with a police shield outside the parliament in Ouagadougou on October 30, 2014 as cars and documents burn outside. Hundreds of angry demonstrators in Burkina Faso stormed parliament on October 30 before setting it on fire in protest at plans to change the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaore to extend his 27-year rule. Police had fired tear gas on protesters to try to prevent them from moving in on the National Assembly building ahead of a vote on the controversial legislation. But about 1,500 people managed to break through the security cordon and were ransacking parliament. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images
- Protestors and student demonstrators hold up their cellphones in a display of solidarity during a protest outside the headquarters of Legislative Council in Hong Kong on September 29, 2014. Hong Kong has been plunged into the worst political crisis since its 1997 handover as pro-democracy activists take over the streets following China’s refusal to grant citizens full universal suffrage. XAUME OLLEROS/AFP/Getty Images
- Medical staff members of the Croix Rouge NGO put on protective suits before collecting the corpse of a victim of Ebola, in Monrovia, on September 29, 2014. Of the four west African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak, Liberia has been hit the hardest, with 3,458 people infected — more than half of the total number of cases. Of those, 1,830 have died, according to a WHO count released on September 27. PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images
- A pro-Russian man looks through a wall after breaking into the territory of the naval headquarters in Sevastopol, in this March 19, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
- Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy (R) sits on a bench with his wife, singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, after voting at a polling station in the first round in the French mayoral elections in Paris, in this March 23, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
- Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (C) arrives in a wheelchair at the Royal Police Cadet Academy in Nakorn Pathom province, in this March 18, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/Files
- Anti-government protesters kiss during a protest against the government of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, in this March 22, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Christian Veron
- Cast members Ryan Hansen, Kristen Bell, and Jason Dohring (L-R) pose at the premiere of “Veronica Mars” in Hollywood, California in this March 12, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
- The picture of a young woman is seen at a memorial site for the victims of the March 11 train bombings at the same spot where a train was bombed ten years ago outside Madrid’s Atocha station, in this March 11, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Susana Vera
- Handwritten notes on how a crew member should report the sighting of debris in the southern Indian Ocean are pictured on a window aboard a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, in this March 22, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jason Reed
- A woman prays for the deceased of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as snow falls, at a place where she was employed at a photo studio at the time, in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, in this file photo taken by Kyodo March 11, 2014. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo
- Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea’s pro-Russian prime minister, stands as a member of a pro-Russian self defence unit swears an oath to the Crimean government in Simferopol, in this March 10, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/Files
- A doctor conducts a thyroid examination on a five-year-old girl as her older brother and a nurse take care of her at a clinic in a temporary housing complex in Nihonmatsu, west of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima prefecture, in this February 27, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
- Newly elected Geelong Mayor, Darryn Lyons poses for a photograph in his mayoral robes in the living room of his home in Geelong, in this February 27, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jason Reed
- Uttara Saud, 14, sits inside a Chaupadi shed in the hills of Legudsen village in Achham District in western Nepal, in this February 16, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/Files