From civil war and natural disasters to punk protests, space jumps, and Olympic triumphs, these photographs tell the stories that defined 2012. (113 PHOTOS)
2012: The Year In Photos
109
A man touches a picture of Ante Gotovina, next to a picture of Mladen Markac, as people celebrate in Zagreb after an appeals court overturned the convictions of the two men on November 16. Gotovina, a former Croatian army commander and Markac, a former Croatian police commander, had been convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes during the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. Judges ordered their immediate release. (Reuters/Antonio Bronic)
110
Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike on an alleged Hamas site in the southeast of Gaza City on November 17. (epa/Mohammed Saber)
111
Indian women walk past a 30-meter-long sand sculpture in the shape of a ribbon in Konark on November 30, created as part of an awareness campaign on the eve of World AIDS Day. (AFP)
112
An ash cloud rises from the Plosky Tolbachik volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula on December 3. (Itar-Tass/Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
113
Nobel laureates and guests attend the Nobel Banquet at City Hall in Stockholm on December 10. This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union. (Reuters/Jessica Gow/Scanpix)