RFE/RL looks back at the year 2011, from the Arab Spring to memorial services for Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel.
2011: The Year in Photos
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U.S. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and members of Obama's national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1. (Reute
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People react to news of the death of Osama bin Laden in Times Square in New York on May 2. The Al-Qaeda leader was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Reuters/Eric Thayer)
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Russian environmental activists clash with security forces in an effort to stop highway crews from clearing parts of the Khimki Forest near Moscow on May 5. (RFE/RL /Yuri Timofeyev)
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Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov jokes with soccer legend Diego Maradona during an exhibition soccer match at the opening of the new Akhmad-Hajji Kadyrov Stadium in Grozny, Chechnya. (Reuters/Eduard Korniyenko)
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A demonstrator runs from Greek riot police during a protest in Athens on May 11. Thousands took to the streets as a general strike shut down the country in protest against government austerity measures. (AFP/Aris Messinis)
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Azerbaijani pop singers Ell and Nikki celebrate after winning the Eurovision Song Contest final in Duesseldorf, Germany, on May 14. (Reuters)
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International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn appears at a Manhattan court on May 16 to face charges of sexual assault in a case involving a hotel maid. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
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CEO Arkady Volozh (center) celebrates as Yandex, Russia's largest Internet company, is listed on New York's Nasdaq stock exchange on May 24. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
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Demonstrators in Belgrade rally in support of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, pictured on the flag, upon hearing news of his arrest on May 26 in the Serbian village of Lazarevo after 16 years on the run. (AP/Vadim Ghirda)
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Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili welcomes U.S. actress Sharon Stone at the presidential palace in Tbilisi on June 6. Stone was visiting to promote the film "5 Days of War" about the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. (AP/Irakli Gede
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An Orthodox priest blesses the Russian Soyuz TMA-02M space ship at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan before its mission to the International Space Station. (AP/Dmitry Lovetsky)
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wears an ankle security tag while under house arrest in Bungay, England, on June 15. Assange was fighting against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. (AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
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A detained protester shows a victory sign from a police van as authorities cracked down on an antigovernment demonstration called "Revolution via Social Network" in Minsk on June 29. (AP/Sergei Grits)
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Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, accompanied by his son Nikolay, watches a military parade during Independence Day celebrations in Minsk on July 3. (Reuters/Nikolai Petrov)
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A Bosnian Muslim woman mourns beside a coffin at the Potocari memorial cemetery near Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. More than 600 victims were reburied there on July 11, the 16th anniversary of the wartime Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims. (AP
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The space shuttle Atlantis lands on July 21 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending the final mission of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program. (AFP/Stan Honda)
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Emergency workers escort youths from a camp site on the island of Utoya, Norway, after a lone gunman, Anders Behring Breivik, killed 69 people there on July 22. Breivik also bombed a government building in Oslo, killing eight. (AP/Morten Edvardsen)
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Smoke rises over the Serbia-Kosovo border on July 27. Serb extremists set fire to the border crossing in Jarinje after Kosovo's government said it had regained control of that station and one other. (Reuters)
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Looters raid a clothing store in Peckham, London, on August 8. Riots and looting spread throughout London and other British cities for several days in August, apparently set off by the fatal police shooting of a young man. (Reuters/Dylan Martinez)
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Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev speaks at a news conference ahead of the 20th anniversary of a hard-line communist coup on August 19, 1991, which ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. (AP/Aleksandr Zemlyanichenko)
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Libyan rebels celebrate in Benghazi on August 21 after the arrest of leader Muammar Qaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, and the partial fall of Tripoli to opposition fighters. (AFP/Gianluigi Guercia)
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai pardons a would-be child suicide bomber on August 24. The ceremony granting amnesty to some 20 youths was held during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. (RFE/RL /Sayeed Jan Sabawoon)
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Stormy weather descends on Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on August 28 as Hurricane Irene hit the east coast of the United States, causing at least nine deaths. (AFP/Emmanuel Dunand)
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The wreckage of a Yak-42 passenger plane is seen in the Volga River after it crashed in Russia's Yaroslavl region on September 7, killing 44 people, including all the members of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team. (ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Smirnov)
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The "Tribute in Lights" illuminates the sky over lower Manhattan on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. (Reuters/Jim Young)