World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

[Rainfall]

The great fireworks of this night will all be on youtube next week, but if you want to see the very best, you got to travel to Japan. The huge 1,000 lbs bombs they use are almost never shown elsewhere. One of them would bathe the whole length of the bridge in Sydney in light, one cubic kilometre of volume. Most impressive are the continuous bombardments of the sky.

[Mr Lick]

Up Helly Aa Vikings take part in a torchlight procession on the first night of the new year celebrations in Edinburgh, Scotland



Children show posters with the Chinese character, Ma, meaning 'horse' in English, to celebrate the forthcoming year of the horse, at a primary school in Jiujiang, China



People leave the Nevado de Colima national park in Mexico after it was temporarily closed to visitors following three days of snowfall



Muslim residents stand behind the remains of burning furniture as they shout threats at gathered Christians in Bangui, Central African Republic



A rocky area on the Saulire mountain in Meribel, France, where Michael Schumacher had a skiing accident. Schumacher is still in a critical condition after undergoing emergency surgery

[Mr Lick]

New Year 2014 in pictures: Fireworks and celebrations around the world

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Rio

[Mr Lick]

A man jumps from an ice brick during a winter triathlon in Shenyang, China



People hold glasses of champagne as they celebrate in Lake Geneva, Switzerland



Marching musicians wear rain ponchos as they perform at the 28th annual New Year's Day parade in London

[Mr Lick]

Sabine Kehm, manager of Michael Schumacher, answers journalists' questions in front of the hospital in Grenoble, France, where he is being treated for a head injury



Crowds of people visit the beach on New Year's Day in Durban, South Africa

[Mr Lick]

Swimmers take part in the 'loony dook' New Year's Day dip in the Firth of Forth at South Queensferry, as part of Edinburgh's three-day-long Hogmanay celebrations



A man takes part in the annual New Year's Day swim in Oranke Lake in Berlin



A woman holds a champagne bottle during New Year's Eve celebrations in Bucharest, Romania. Tens of thousands of Romanians took to the streets of the Romanian capital to join parties and watch fireworks

[Mr Lick]

Revelers embrace while watching fireworks explode minutes after midnight along Copacabana Beach during New Year's celebrations on January 1, 2014 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil



Bill de Blasio is sworn in as the mayor of New York City while his wife Chirlane McCray holds the bible in New York. De Blasio took the oath of office moments after midnight at his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn. His inauguration will be celebrated at noon Wednesday, January 1, 2014 on the steps of City Hall when he takes the oath again, which will be administered by former US president Bill Clinton



People living in Montevideo's financial district throw water at people to celebrate the end of the year

[Mr Lick]

A man gets a sand bath from friends as thousands of people took to the beaches on New Year's Day in Durban



A participant rides a sledge with wheels during a winter triathlon competition in Shenyang, Liaoning province



People dressed up as giant pandas Yuan Yuan and Tuan Tuan from Taipei Zoo perform with their panda cub Yuan Zai (R) during a flag-raising ceremony at the Presidential Office Square in Taipei

[Mr Lick]

People watch the volcanic ash rising into the air above Mount Sinabung as it erupts in Karo, North Sumatra. More than 19,000 people have been displaced by the volcano in Indonesia that has been erupting for months

[Mr Lick]

Drunken New Year's Eve revellers bring chaos to city centres across UK

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

London's New Year's Day parade

[Mr Lick]

Kumbuka the silverback gorilla playing with the chalk board in his enclosure during the Compulsory Annual Count at ZSL London Zoo



Prime Minister David Cameron walks with Sharon Ray and her daughter Maisie, 2, during a visit to her home in Southampton



Jockeys compete in a race for purebred Arab horses during the Liwa 2014 Moreeb Dune Festival in the Liwa desert, 250 kilometres west of the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi. The festival, which attracts participants from around the Gulf region, includes a variety of races (cars, bikes, falcons, camels and horses) or other activities aimed at promoting the country's folklore

[Mr Lick]

Spectators, including a dog on a boogie board, are pictured on Lake Washington before the 12th annual Polar Bear Plunge in Seattle



A very muddy Sam Twiston-Davies riding Pigeon Island after pulling up at Cheltenham racecourse in Cheltenham, England



A woman wearing a wedding dress prepares to run into English Bay during the 94th annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim in Vancouver

[Mr Lick]

Javier de la Torre took this photograph at Iceland's Vatnajokull glacier which is Europe's largest glacier. The roof of the blue-coloured ice cave is more than 20 metres thick



This image taken by expedition doctor Andrew Peacock of ADVENTURE TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY shows passengers linking arms and stamping out a helicopter landing site on the ice near the MV Akademik Shokalskiy (back R), still stuck in the ice off eastern Antarctica, as the ship waits for a rescue helicopter



A helicopter from the nearby Chinese icebreaker Xue Long picks up the first batch of passengers from the stranded Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy as rescue operations take place after over a week of being trapped in the ice off Antarctica

[Mr Lick]

A float from The Grand Marshal's Trophy parade route is photographed during the 125th Rose Parade in Pasadena, California

[Mr Lick]

A man jumps into a hole cut in the ice on the Ottawa River during the annual Great Canadian Chill polar bear dip in Ottawa



An aerial view photographed by British photographer Steve Back shows the pink coloured Hutt Lagoon and the man-made divides in Kalbarri, Western Australia. The microorganisms present in the world's largest Algae farm produce beta-carotene - a pigment used in everything from ice-cream to nutritional supplements for pregnant women



Kamil Stoch of Poland during the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup Vierschanzentournee (Four Hills Tournament) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

[Mr Lick]

The sea batters the Brittany coastline near Plouhinec in Finistere as an Atlantic storm hits western France



Chelsea's Gary Cahill (L) is challenged by Southampton's Rickie Lambert during the Premier League football match at St Mary's stadium in Southampton