World News in Pictures

[Mr Lick]

A woman reacts as President Obama shakes hands after speaking about jobs and the economy at Shaker Heights High School during a trip to Cleveland, Ohio January 4, 2012.



DJ Wika Szmyt plays music at a club in Warsaw, January 4, 2012. Szmyt, 73, spends her retirement days behind a DJ console watching people dance to her rhythms.



Meryl Streep arrives at the European premiere of "The Iron Lady" at the British Film Institute in central London, January 4, 2012.

[Mr Lick]

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez kisses the hand of Miss World 2011 Ivian Sarcos of Venezuela after their meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas January 4, 2012.



Former residents of the Borei Keila complex rest in a makeshift tent a day after being evicted and their home demolished in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, January 4, 2012.

[Mr Lick]

A student walks past trees and bushes painted to beautify the campus, on the first day of the new semester at Rangsit University in Bangkok, Thailand, on Jan. 5, 2012. The university was affected last year by one of Thailand's worst floods in five decades.

[Mr Lick]

Mount Etna spews volcanic ash during an eruption on the southern Italian island of Sicily on Jan. 5, 2012. Mount Etna is Europe's tallest and most active volcano.

[Mr Lick]

Members of the Group for Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) demonstrate in front of boxes with some 107,280 signatures collected for a popular initiative to end military conscription, outside of the Swiss House of Parliament on Jan. 5, 2012 in Bern.

[Mr Lick]

A chef holds the head of a bluefin tuna after cutting its meat at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo on Jan. 5, 2012. The 269-kilogram (593 lbs) tuna caught off the coast of northern Japan, was sold at a record of 56.49 million yen ($736,234) in the country's first fish auction of the year.












The record-breaking fish on display at Tsukiji market.

[Mr Lick]

Damaged houses after a landslide hit a community of small-scale miners at Napnapan village in Pantukan town in Compostella Valley, Southern Mindanao, Philippines, on Jan. 05, 2012.







A landslide tore through a small-scale gold mining site in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing at least 25 people and burying dozens more, months after government officials warned miners that the mountain above them was guaranteed to crumble.

The mountainside in Napnapan village in Pantukan township collapsed around 3 a.m., when most residents were asleep, sweeping away about 50 houses, shanties and other buildings, officials said.

Aside from those confirmed dead, more than 100 people were believed buried in the rubble, Compostela Valley provincial Gov. Arturo Uy said.

[Mr Lick]

Contestants show off banners illustrating their calligraphy skills during the 48th annual New Year calligraphy contest in Tokyo on Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2012. Nearly 3,000 people participated in the calligraphy contest to celebrate the start of the New Year.

[Mr Lick]

A traffic policemans m/cycle was set on fire during clashes at a rally in Chile to commemorate the 4th anniversary of the death of 22 year old Matrias Catrileo who was shot by police during clashes over a land dispute

[Mr Lick]

Titanic artefacts up for auction, 100 years on



A scale model of the RMS Titanic on display at the Titanic Auction preview at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. More than 5,000 artefacts will be auctioned in April – sold together in one lot



A ship's telegraph, recovered from the wreckage



A 'one silver dollar' bank note






A chandelier from the RMS Titanic is on display

[Mr Lick]

One of the ship's cracked and smashed portholes



Titanic candy dish with etched White Star logo



A Gladstone-style handbag, named after Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister William Gladstone, who was said to frequently carry this type of leather bag. The bag's turn-of-the-century tanning process repels the microorganisms that eat organic matter on the ocean floor









A portion of the ship's hull, known as 'The Big Piece'

[Mr Lick]

A pocketwatch, stopped at 10:50

[Mr Lick]

An aerial photograph shows a break in highway BR 356 that was washed away after several days of heavy rains swelled the Muriae River in Campos, 142 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 5, 2012. Civil Defense officials said the 4,000 residents of the town are being evacuated, and they expect the flooding to continue for three to four months.






A girl stands on the top of the roof of her house, where her family has gathered belongings in Campos, Rio de Janeiro State, after floodwaters burst a nearby dike on Jan. 5, 2012.

[Mr Lick]

Jen Berthiaume, left, Natalia Martinez-Paz, center, and Brian Vogt are seen celebrating New Year's Eve, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011, while camping at Mount Rainier National Park, Wash. A helicopter crew searching for the gunman who killed a Mount Rainier National Park ranger on New Year's Day came across the small group of campers and used an unusual method to warn them the shooter was at large.



In these photos provided by Jen Berthiaume, a messages scrawled onto coffee cups that were dropped to a group of campers Jan. 2, 2011 while a search was going on for an armed suspect in Mount Rainier National Park, Wash., are seen. A helicopter crew searching for the gunman who killed a Mount Rainier National Park ranger on New Year's Day came across a small group of campers and used an unusual method to warn them the shooter was at large, writing messages on paper coffee cups and dropping them to the campers telling them of the danger.

[Mr Lick]

Matthew Badger, left, and Madonna Badger, the parents of the three children killed in the fire, grieve as one of the caskets is carried into St. Thomas Episcopal church on Thursday. Madonna Badger's friend, Michael Borcina, stands behind them as he comforts her. Borcina and Madonna Badger were the only two to survive the fire.



Madonna Badger, her husband Matthew, and their relatives watch the arrival of their daughters' caskets during their funeral service at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York on Jan. 5. The pallbearers were 18 firefighters from Stamford, Conn., who responded to the fire.



The girls' grandparents also died in the fire. The grandfather died trying to help one of the girls get out.

[Mr Lick]

A Dutch local resident watches floodwaters through his window, in Dordrecht on Jan. 5. Gale force winds and heavy rains are expected along the Dutch coast. About a quarter of the country sits below sea level.






A Dutch police officer watches the high water situation in Tolbert, in the north of the Netherlands, on Jan 5, where a dyke may fail and flood farmland, following heavy rains and storms hitting the coastal country.

[Mr Lick]

One of the 16 participants rides a five-metre high wave at the Punta Galea EVE Challenge in the Basque town of Getxo in northern Spain



Ricky Ponting dives across the crease and brings up his century during day two of the second Test match between Australia and India



Somewhere underneath that pile of Michigan Wolverines is kicker Brendan Gibbons, who slammed home a 37-yard game-winning field goal during overtime against the Virginia Tech Hokies to win the Allstate Sugar Bowl

[Mr Lick]

Firefighters and investigative police officers carry the bodies of firefighters who died battling wildfires in a mountain near Carahue, southern Chile, on Jan. 5, 2012. Nearly 50 wildfires have sprung up in southern Chile, destroying hundreds of houses, forcing the evacuations of thousands of people and causing millions of dollars in damage to the forestry and tourism industries that fuel the economy in the country's Patagonia region.

[Mr Lick]

Search and rescue team member Bill Whittle said he was "positive" that the Welsh corgi — named Ole — had been buried in Saturday's avalanche.

"The avalanche guys were up there on Monday investigating and they were looking for the dog too and never seen any signs," he said.

But on Wednesday, Ole showed up exhausted and hungry back at the motel, four miles from where the slide occurred, the Billings Gazette reported.

[Mr Lick]

A member of the Ava Guarani indigenous ethnic group is arrested by police during an eviction of squatters from Uruguay's Square in Asuncion, on Jan 5, 2012. A large group of Ava Guarani members have been occupying Uruguay Square in the last months demanding government's aid.

[Mr Lick]

Mexico prison fight kills 31 inmates in Tamaulipas

Soldiers stepped up security around the prison in Altamira
MEXICO'S DRUGS WAR



Thirty-one inmates have died in a fight between gang members in a prison in northern Mexico, officials say.

They say the prisoners were killed with knives and makeshift weapons at the prison in the city of Altamira. At least 13 others were injured.

Altamira is in Tamaulipas state, where the Zetas and Gulf cartels have been fighting a bloody war for control of smuggling routes into the US.

Gang rivalries frequently spread into Mexico's prison system.

Inmates used homemade weapons and knives in what the authorities described as a mass brawl inside the prison.

Order was only restored once troops entered the jail to help prison officers.

Many of Mexico's prisons are overcrowded and plagued by violence linked to drugs cartels.

Last October, 20 inmates died during clashes at a jail in Matamoros, also in Tamaulipas.

[Mr Lick]

US Catholic bishop with secret family, Gabino Zavala, quits

Bishop Zavala was known for his work with California's Hispanic community

A Catholic bishop who fathered two children has stepped down.

Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of Gabino Zavala, an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, the Vatican said.

The Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, wrote in a letter to worshippers that Bishop Zavala told him in December that he was the father of two teenage children.

The children, who are minors, live with their mother in another state.

[Mr Lick]

Utah shootout leaves one officer dead and five injured

The policemen were part of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, police say

A policeman has died and five others seriously injured after a shootout in the US state of Utah on Wednesday night, officials have said.

Gunfire broke out before 21:00 (04:00 GMT) as an anti-drug police team served a search warrant at a house in Ogden.

The suspect, under guard in hospital, suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Agent Jared Francom was fatally injured, police have said, and five other officers are in hospital with serious or critical injuries.

"During the service of the warrant, six police officers as well as one suspect were shot and have been taken to local hospitals," the Ogden Police Department said in a statement.

One resident, Mat Weinberger, said about 30 to 40 shots had been exchanged during the shootout, according to the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper.
No names have been released

[Mr Lick]

Eve Arnold, one of the world's outstanding photojournalists has died at the age of 99



She photographed some of the great move stars of her generation. Here, Marilyn Monroe with whom she had a close relationship with for 10 years


















Arnold moved to London in 1962. In 2003 she was awarded an OBE for her services to photography

[Mr Lick]

What is believed to be the world's tallest bridge opens in Mexico. The 403 metres (1,322ft) tall Baluarte Bridge spans a deep ravine in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains