World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

Missing Malaysia plane

A search is under way for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which vanished on a flights from Kuala Lumpur to China's capital, Beijing



At the Beijing airport where the plane should have arrived - there was a tense wait for news.


















There have been tough questions for Malaysian Airlines boss Ahmad Jauhari Yahya



A sign in Beijing airport supplies what little information there is on the the missing plane

[Mr Lick]

Sochi 2014: 11th Winter Paralympic Games opens

A spectacular ceremony in the Fisht Stadium opened the games for the Paralympic athletes in Sochi

[Mr Lick]

An icebreaker is pulled into the stadium

[Mr Lick]

Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa’s highest mountain, looms large over a herd of elephants as they walk in the dawn light in Amboseli national park, southern Kenya. The United Nations Environmental Programme is marking the first ever World Wildlife Day on Monday, 3 March to raise awareness about illicit global trade in illegal timber, elephant ivory and rhino horns worth an estimated $19bn



A long-tailed tit sits in a bush in London, England. After one of the wettest winters on record nature is showing the signs of the arrival of spring with the first daffodils and crocuses showing their blooms and many birds beginning to build their nests



Three cheetah cubs play with their mother in Maasai Mara, Kenya. Patience paid off for a British photographer when she captured the rare sight of tiny cubs emerging from their den for the first time. Margot Raggett, from London, out-waited scores of other safari guests to capture these images

[Mr Lick]

Canada geese take flight from a farm field during a snow storm in Davidsonville, Maryland. Spring is in sight, but winter is keeping its icy hold on much of the country, with up to a foot of snow and plummeting temperatures across the mid-Atlantic states and up the East Coast



This is the now famous image of a python who swallowed a crocodile whole at Lake Moondarra in Queensland, Australia, after a dramatic five-hour long battle. The incident was captured on camera by Tiffany Corlis. The snake, measuring around 10ft, constricted the crocodile to death, before dragging it to shore and eating it whole in front of a shocked crowd of onlookers



A red squirrel on a stone wall in Kielder Forest, Northumberland, which is England's largest forest at 250 square miles and is home to the largest remaining red squirrel population in England

[Mr Lick]

A young Oriental small-clawed otter at the zoo in Neumuenster, Germany. The six young otters (one male, five female) were born on 7 December 2013.



Polar bear Gerda plays with her cub at the den at Novosibirsk Zoo. The first cub of polar bear couple Kai and Gerda was born at the Zoo in early December



Female baby orangutan Niu-fang, born 11 October 2013, suckles milk from its mother Xiang-niu at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan

[Mr Lick]

It's not only Miley Cyrus who likes to stick her tongue out...this baby anteater tastes the air in its enclosure at the zoo in Zlin, eastern Moravia, Czech Republic



Liliana, the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) also known as the Indian lion, growls at the camera in her enclosure in Kracow's Zoo in Poland

[Mr Lick]

Classic police cars in pictures



This week, spivs, wide boys and other Londoners of a shady past were treated to a Twilight Zone-style flashback as a 14-strong convoy of classic police vehicles, belonging to the London Historical Vehicle Collection, travelled through the capital



For the past few years, the collection had resided at the Hampton Court Traffic Garage but on this day they travelled to their new home at Hendon Driving School, meeting Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, en route



All of the historic fleet’s BMW motorcycle collection was present, together with most of its cars



According to James Selby-Weatherley, a Met officer and classic car enthusiast, the Triumph 2.5 Pi Mk2 “is still poorly”, while the 1948 Wolseley 18/85 had to receive a certain amount of “trailer assistance” on the last leg of the journey. No such problems with the Land Rover

[Mr Lick]

The Wolseley is the oldest vehicle in the collection and if it is wonderfully redolent of The Blue Lamp



The Morris Minor 1000 and the Austin 1100 are the archetypal panda cars used by beat bobbies for the visits to local primary schools to deliver a road safety talk



The collection comprises nothing but official Met vehicles and, according to Selby-Weatherley, this state of affairs will continue at Hendon: 'They will be available to the 32 boroughs of the London Metropolitan Police for attending shows and for publicity purposes,' he says



Some of the cars had played a part in major events or policing high-profile locations – the Wolseley was on duty at the Coronation in 1953 and the two tons of armour-plated and bulletproof Rover 3500 P6 could often be seen outside No 10 Downing Street



Throughout the journey the convoy’s drivers were approached by retired officers who recalled training and using the cars in earnest, while civilians of a certain age remembered when police cars emitted musical noises rather than transatlantic wailings. However, some of the most enthusiastic reactions came from schoolchildren and young people who were not old enough to recall even the Rover 827 during its heyday



In 2010 the Rover 3500 SD1 actually featured in an arrest in Ruislip, while the Wolseley still looks poised to speed through the smog to apprehend a bombsite trader suspected of dealing in tinned pilchards

[Mr Lick]

Licks ooh La La's Kelly Pearce and mum Josie Carter with Queenie a Chocolate tri Chihuahua on the third day of Crufts 2014 at the Birmingham NEC



As Vladimir Putin explains the Russian position in Ukraine on a TV in the background, a Frankfurt trader dressed as a nun goes about his daily work in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The trader was one of many in fancy dress to mark the traditional stock exchange carnival



Sicilian amateur scientists launched a model cannolo, a cream-stuffed pastry roll symbolic of the Italian island, into the stratosphere, capturing bizarre images of the dessert flying far above the earth. 'Sicily has always been a place of negative connotations, mafia and unemployment. We wanted to lift up Sicily in our own way,' said filmmaker Fabio Leone, 34, who recorded the project with Antonella Barbera, 38

[Mr Lick]

A little boy who invaded the pitch is carried by Brazil's players at the end of a friendly football match between South Africa and Brazil at the Soccer City stadium in Soweto, outside Johannesburg



Sir Patrick Stewart was one of a number of Twitter users who took to the world wide web to imitate David Cameron's official picture of him talking to US President Barack Obama

[Mr Lick]

Anguished Families Struggle After Jet Goes Missing

A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people lost contact with air traffic control and was missing hours after its expected arrival in Beijing











Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) with his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin (L) and acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussin (R) speak during a press conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia. According to media reports passengers on missing flight were from 14 different nationalities: China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, France, USA, New Zealand, Ukraine, Canada, Russia, Italy, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Austria






Filipino government troopers look at a map as they continue the search for the missing plane of Malaysian Airlines at Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan province

[Mr Lick]

Elfyn Evans of Great Britain drives his Ford Fiesta RS during the first leg of the World Rally Championship, near Guanajuato, Mexico on March 7

[Mr Lick]

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — After weeks of lingering on the margins, pro-Ukrainian Crimean protesters came out in force Saturday in their first sizable demonstration since the peninsula’s parliament passed a controversial request to be folded into the Russian Federation.

About a hundred protesters waving Ukrainian flags, chanting “Glory to Ukraine!” and occasionally breaking out into stilted versions of the Ukrainian national anthem marched through the Crimean capital, Simferopol, on an overcast afternoon

[Mr Lick]

Fireworks dot the sky on the Fourth weekend of the 5th Philippine International Pyromusical Competition at the seaside Mall of Asia at suburban Pasay city, south of Manila, Philippines, Saturday, March 8. The fireworks display, that will run for six consecutive weekends, features competitors from China, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, the United States and the host country Philippines

[Mr Lick]

Adelaide Fringe festival 2014

We meet some of the artists behind the Adelaide Fringe festival, the largest annual arts festival in the southern hemisphere. The festival takes over various Adelaide venues from 14 February to 16 March







Circus performers Cian Kinsella and Cormac Mohally, aka Lords of Strut



Musical comedy duo Bernadette Byrne and Victor Victoria of EastEnd Cabaret, outside the Idolize Spiegeltent where they perform their show Dirty Talk.

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Crufts 2014: the world's biggest dog show

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

Give a dog a loan? This pooch seemed more interested in the £2.50 charge for cash withdrawals at the venue than the competition

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]

[Mr Lick]