World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

A vintage Ford fire engine with a doll's head on top at the Wickham Boxing Day classic car rally. A large number of classic and quirky car and bike owners gathered in Wickham Hampshire to celebrate the annual Boxing Day event



Protesters burn a Japanese military flag with a cut-out portrait of Hideki Tojo, a former general of the Imperial Japanese Army, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during a protest near the Japanese Consulate General in Hong Kong. Abe paid his respects at Yasukuni shrine honouring Japan's war dead in an unexpected visit on Thursday that drew sharp rebukes from China and South Korea, who warned that the move celebrates his country's militaristic past and could further sour relations

[Mr Lick]

More than 500,000 lights transform the Bellevue Botanical Garden into a blossoming winter wonderland of three dimensional flowers, shrubs, vines and animals at the annual Garden d'Lights in Bellevue, USA. Hundreds of volunteers worked year-round to bring the visual feast to light



Fog envelops the Tejo River in Lisbon, Portugal



Jakob Bergant performs during the international winter street arts festival Ana Mraz in Ljubljana, Slovenia



Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus walk hand in hand as they ask for directions from a worker inside the Hancock International Airport as they were flying out of the airport instead of using a sleigh and reindeer in Syracuse, USA



Israeli air force cadets toss their caps during an air force pilots' graduation ceremony at Hatzerim air base in southern Israel

[Mr Lick]

A driver had an "incredible escape" from serious injury after a car was "sliced" in two when it hit a sign on the M11, Essex Fire Service has said.

The vehicle left the road and collided with a large motorway sign at junction 9a near Great Chesterford at about 14:00 GMT on Tuesday.

No-one was trapped in the vehicle when fire crews from Cambridge, Newport and Saffron Walden arrived.

Firefighters gave first aid to two people at the scene.

Nigel Webb, Saffron Walden incident commander, said the impact had "effectively sliced the vehicle in half sending the front of the vehicle into the nearside bushes and the rear half onto the hard shoulder".

He added that it was "simply an incredible escape for the driver

[Mr Lick]

Spume is blown inland by gale force winds in Trearddur Bay, Anglesey



A Palestinian man wearing a Santa Claus costume runs away from a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers during a protest against the separation barrier near Bilin, West Bank



Displaced people bathe and wash their clothes at a United Nations compound which has become home to thousands of people fleeing the recent fighting, in Juba, South Sudan

[Mr Lick]

Residents who have been without electricity for almost two weeks protest by blocking a thoroughfare in Buenos Aires, Argentina



IT'S CHRISTMAS!!! Well Boxing Day and this Barmy Army fan is getting into the festive spirit

[Mr Lick]

A Russian guard of honour fires a gun salute during the funeral of Mikhail Kalashnikov. The 94-year-old designer of one of the world's most recognisable weapons died on Monday.



An anti-government protester takes part in a rally at Bangkok's Democracy Monument.

[Mr Lick]

An Afghan policeman stands guard at the wreckage of a vehicle which was used in a suicide attack that killed three Nato personnel on the Kabul-Jalalabad road.



Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot, stands outside the cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow days after being pardoned and released. Tolokonnikova and her fellow band member Maria Alekhina were sentenced to two years for protesting inside the cathedral.

[Mr Lick]

A large explosion in central Beirut killed the Sunni Lebanese ex-minister Mohamad Chatah, a staunch critic of Syria's government and its Hezbollah backers.



Bangladeshi police detain a man they suspect of being an activist of the banned Islamist organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir during clashes in Dhaka.



Heavy rains have killed many people in Espirito Santo state in Brazil. Here the Doce River in Vitoria has burst its banks. Tens of thousands have been left homeless.

[Mr Lick]

New demonstrations in Istanbul

A bribery and corruption investigation involving allies of the government has led to a new outpouring of anger against Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government



Supporters of Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, gather to welcome his arrival at Ataturk airport in Istanbul







Demonstrators use fireworks against riot police during the protest in central Istanbul



Customers and cooks inside a kebab shop watch as a riot police officer fires plastic paintball gun pellets to disperse demonstrators



People suffering from the effects of teargas recover in a cafe

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Flour fight festival in Spain

Each year the Els Enfarinats festival takes place in the town of Ibi in eastern Spain. One group of men take over the town pronouncing a whole host of ridiculous laws and fining the citizens that infringe them. Another group do battle with flour and eggs to regain control. All the fines raised go to charity

[Mr Lick]

Alexis Shapiro, 12, suffers a pre-teen moment while at Outback Steakhouse with her family for her birthday dinner. Alexis had a brain tumor removed three years ago, when she was a normal-sized 9-year-old. Ever since the surgery, the fourth-grader has gained an average of 2 pounds a week -- with no end in sight

[Mr Lick]

European Central Bank graffiti

A selection of the graffiti artworks that have made the ECB's construction site in Frankfurt a worldwide art sensation







Many of the artworks depict figures such as ECB president Mario Draghi in a derogatory way, but the bank has said it is fine with this



The bank not only agreed to let social worker Stefan Mohr use the fence for graffiti, it offered €10,000 to pay for wooden panels to be attached to the fence, and for supplies of spray paint

[Mr Lick]

'This image is intended as an affront to Goldman Sachs, the pride of the banking system and its non-transparent power play,' says artist Andreas von Chrzanowski, known as Case



















Once the building is finished, anyone will be able to bid for the artworks, with money going to the Under Art Construction project

[Mr Lick]

The cost of false eyelash glamour

The international hub of the false eyelash industry is the town of Purbalingga in Central Java, Indonesia, where young women work for as little as 20p a day making the must-have fashion accessory



A satellite workshop used by the PT Royal Korindah company about 5km outside the town of Purbalingga, Indonesia











Friti, 20, gave birth to her first child two months ago and juggles childcare with making false eyelashes in her home outside Purbalingga. She averages 32 pairs of lashes a day, for which she is paid 2p each



Kuswati, 20, was born with no arms. Working at home outside Purbalingga, she makes false eyelashes for another company supplying the US fashion market. She uses her toes to knit the individual hairs onto a piece of thread stretched across her small wooden loom. She makes 20 pairs of eyebrows a day, and is paid 1p [$0.02] for each one
















Katy Perry wearing her trademark false eyelashes. The singer endorses a line of fake lashes that are produced by Eylure using the PT Royal Korindah factories in Indonesia

[Mr Lick]

Volgograd station bombing

Russian authorities say female suicide bomber suspected after blast rips through building, leaving 15 people dead and another 50 injured in southern Russian city, six weeks before start of Winter Olympics



CCTV images show the flash from the explosion and then smoke pouring from the front of the station



Luggage and a trail of blood on the ground outside the station after the blast







The body of a victim outside the entrance to the station



Windows shattered by the blast

[Mr Lick]

Cairo, Egypt: A protester waves a flag during clashes between police and Muslim Brotherhood supporters



Saltcoats: A waves crashes against the side of a train as it leaves the station during the weekend's stormy weather



Dhaka, Bangladesh: Lawyers are hit by a police water cannon in front of the supreme court during a pro-democracy rally

[Mr Lick]

Istanbul, Turkey: A protestor takes cover as fireworks explode during clashes with police during an anti-government demonstration



Aleppo, Syria: A child is rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building following air strikes by government forces



Beirut, Lebanon: Rani and Omar Chatah embrace as they arrive for the funeral of their father, the former Lebanese finance minister Mohamad Chatah, who was killed by a car bomb



Madrid, Spain: Catholic priests give communion at an outdoor mass attended by tens of thousands of worshippers

[Mr Lick]

A whale shark feeds on hundreds of tiny fish while lurking below nearby fishing boats. With its mouth wide open, the 26ft long beast drifts past at about five miles an hour gobbling up all the small fish in one go.A total of six whale sharks emerged at the boat's side, keen to take advantage of the easy food on offer. Wildlife photograper Reinhard Dirscherl from Munich, and wife Daniela hopped off the boat to grab the snaps just off the West Papua coastline in Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia



For more on this story, please click here. Police, ambulance and fire crews on the scene of a bus crash in Kennington Road, south London in which several people have been injured



Wingsuit-flyer Matt Gerdes leaps off a mountain in the French Alps

[Mr Lick]

Spider-Man throws confetti in the air as the countdown begins for Times Square's New Year's Eve party in New York



A giant panda-shaped art installation is being installed on the facade of the Chengdu IFS shopping mall in Chengdu city, southwest Chinas Sichuan province



John Isner of the United States is congratulated by Daniel Munoz-De La Nava of Spain after winning the men's singles match during day three of the Hopman Cup at Perth Arena in Perth, Australia

[Mr Lick]

Models pose with a Samsung 110-inch UHD TV. Samsung have said that the 110-inch UHD TV has four times the resolution of standard high-definition TVs and will retail for about $150,000 in South Korea



Members of the Krepysh family winter swimming club pour icy water onto each other on the banks of the Yenisei River, in air temperatures of minus 5 degrees Celcius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk



The MV Akademik Shokalskiy stranded in ice off the coast of Antarctica. An Antarctic blizzard has halted an Australian icebreaker's bid to reach the Russian ship which has been trapped for a week with 74 people onboard

[Mr Lick]

Craftsmen build a snow castle at a park in Changchun, Jilin province, China



Lava spews from the south east crater of Mt. Etna during an eruption, in Sicily. Mt. Etna, Europe's most active volcano at 3,350 meters (10,990 feet) erupts quite frequently, the last eruption occurred a couple of weeks ago, causing no damage



A man watches as the Chaparrastique volcano shoots a cloud of gas and ash about three miles (five kilometers) into the air near the town of San Miguel, El Salvador. The spokesman for El Salvador's Red Cross says evacuations have been ordered for inhabitants living within about two miles (three kilometers) of the peak. The volcano last erupted in 1976

[Mr Lick]

Supporters of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League beat a lawyer and supporter of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) during a protest by opposition activists in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Security forces and opposition activists clashed in Bangladesh's capital, leaving at least one person dead, as thousands of police took to the streets to foil a mass rally calling on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to cancel elections



Female security guards hold up their firearms with taped barrels prior to New Year's Eve celebrations in Manila. The taping is supposed to ensure that any gun owners who fire their gun into the air on New Year's eve will be discovered, the national police chief said



A Thai police officer takes pictures during a peaceful protest at the Royal Plaza in Bangkok

[Mr Lick]

Students stand to form Happy 2014 to welcome the new year at a school in Ma'anshan, Anhui province



Penguins swim at the Times City Aquarium in Hanoi, Vietnam. The aquarium, which is considered the largest aquarium in Vietnam so far, was officially opened on 24 December 2013



Members of the emergency services work at the site of a bomb blast on a trolleybus in Volgograd

[Mr Lick]

Jake Dowd was preparing to light the log burner at his home in Temple Newsam, West Yorks, when he noticed the face of movie character E.T was staring back at him. The grain of wood, which the 17-year-old is reluctant to burn, bears striking similarities to Steven Spielberg's classic alien