2011: The Year in Photos
Birds fly past an Orthodox church during a partial solar eclipse in the town of Volozhin, Belarus, on January 4. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
Turkish police spray demonstrators with water cannon during a student rally against the Islamic-linked government in Ankara on January 5. (AFP/Adem Altan)
Afghan soldiers sit on the ground at a training center in Kabul on January 11 during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. (AFP/Shah Marai)
U.S. President Barack Obama hugs NASA shuttle commander Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, after Giffords was seriously wounded in a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that left six people dead. (Reuters/Jim Young)
A protester throws a tear-gas canister back at riot police during a demonstration in Tunis on January 18, shortly after protests forced out longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the first wave of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring. (Reuters/Zo
A woman cries while talking on the phone to an acquaintance at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport as news broke of a suicide bombing there that killed 31 people and injured more than 130 on January 24. (Reuters/Denis Sinyakov)
Opposition supporters wave roses during an antigovernment protest in Sanaa, Yemen, on January 26, as the Arab Spring protests spread. After waging a months-long crackdown on protesters, President Ali Abdullah Saleh eventually stepped down. (Reuters/Khaled
Grand Mufti of Bosnia Mustafa Ceric visits the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, where prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians on February 1 in a gesture of solidarity against Holocaust deniers. (Reuters/Michal Lepecki)
An antigovernment protester waves a bloodstained Egyptian flag in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on February 4. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)
Protesters celebrate in Tahrir Square after the announcement of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation on February 11. An estimated 2 million people took part in the demonstrations that forced Mubarak out after nearly three decades in power. (
Protesters throw stones at riot police during an antigovernment demonstration in Tehran on February 14, held in support of the Arab uprisings in neighboring countries. (AFP)
Protesters run for cover after police fire tear gas in the village of Diraz, Bahrain, on February 14. Demands for greater political freedoms in Bahrain were met with a violent crackdown. (AFP)
An ethnic Albanian man holding a U.S. flag jogs down a road lined with Albanian national flags in the town of Kacanik, Kosovo, on February 16, one day before Kosovo celebrated the third anniversary of its declaration of independence from Serbia. (Reuters/
People in Lviv, Ukraine, pay little attention to a live TV show marking President Viktor Yanukovych's first year in office on February 25. (AFP/Yuriy Dyachyshyn)
Riot police hold their ground during the "Day of Rage" protest in Baghdad on February 25 against corruption and a lack of basic services. (Reuters/Saad Shalash)
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden greets people in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, on March 11. Biden is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit Moldova, Europe's poorest country. (AFP/Vadin Denisov)
Burning houses are swept out to sea in Natori, northeastern Japan, after the strongest earthquake on record and a massive tsunami struck the coast on March 11. (Reuters/Yomiuri)
A woman cries in the destroyed city of Natori, Japan, two days after an earthquake and tsunami left some 23,000 dead or missing. (Reuters/Asahi Shimbun)
Opposition activists in Moscow hold pictures of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka with the text "Next In Line" on March 13. (AFP/Andrey Smirnov)
Female students wear head scarves during classes at the Grozny State Oil Institute in Chechnya. The Kremlin-backed Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued a decree establishing an Islamic dress code for female public servants. (AFP/Mikhail Mordasov)
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev kisses the national flag during his inauguration in Astana on April 8. (Reuters/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov)
A child's gas mask and a shoe are seen at a kindergarten in the abandoned city of Prypyat near Chornobyl, shortly before Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus marked the 25th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident on April 26. (Reuters/Gle
A French Muslim woman of North African descent wears a niqab at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris, defying France's new ban on wearing full face veils. (Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier )
Police apprehend a girl after she shouted "freedom" during an opposition rally in Baku on April 17. The girl and her mother were both taken away in a police car. (Reuters/Irada Humbatov)
Britain's Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, travel to Buckingham Palace after their wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London on April 29. (Reuters/Warren Allott)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
Azerbaijani pop singers Ell and Nikki celebrate after winning the Eurovision Song Contest final in Duesseldorf, Germany, on May 14. (Reuters)
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)
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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Robert Peraza, who lost his son Robert David Peraza on September 11, 2001, pauses at his son's name at the 9/11 Memorial at the site of the World Trade Center in New York on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. (Reuters)
Members of a presidential fan club sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to celebrate Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's 46th birthday on September 14. (ITAR-TASS/Maksim Shemetov)
A Chornobyl veteran passes by police in front of the parliament in Kyiv on September 20. Some 1,000 people protested against a draft law that would cancel benefits for veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Chornobyl emergency workers, and others. (AP
Afghans carry the coffin of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani during his funeral ceremony in Kabul on September 23. Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban envoy. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood)
Chinese exchange students in Cupertino, California, create a memorial to Apple co-founder and technology icon Steve Jobs, who died on October 5. (AFP)
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her daughter Yevhenia attend a session at a Kyiv district court on October 11. Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)
A still from a mobile-phone video shows wounded Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as he was seized by rebel fighters in Sirte on October 20. He was shot dead soon after being captured. (AFP)
Turkish rescue workers carry a baby from a collapsed building in Ercis, near the eastern city of Van, on October 25. The 14-day-old baby was rescued 46 hours after a devastating earthquake struck southeastern Turkey. (Reuters)
An activist confronts police on October 25 during the Occupy Oakland protest, part of the Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate power that began in New York and spread to other U.S. cities throughout the fall. (AFP)
A resident of the village of Arashan, near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, rides past a campaign poster for Almazbek Atambaev ahead of the October 30 election. Atambaev won the presidency with some 63 percent of the vote. (Reuters/Vladimir Pirogov)
Demonstrators protest against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Homs on November 13. The UN estimates that some 5,000 people have been killed in the Syrian uprising this year. (Reuters)
A man shows his ink-stained finger after voting in parliamentary elections in Cairo on November 28, the first ballot since President Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office in February. (Reuters)
A Pakistani child stands alongside tribesmen on top of a NATO flag during a demonstration in Islamabad on November 29 against a NATO strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. (AFP/Aamir Qureshi)
An Iranian student tears a picture of Queen Elizabeth II, taken as hundreds of students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on November 29. The raid on the embassy erupted in response to new U.K. sanctions against Iran. (epa/Abedin Taherkenareh)
Afghans run for shelter seconds after a suicide bombing struck a Shi'ite Muslim gathering in Kabul during the festival of Ashura on December 6. As many as 20 people died in the sectarian attack. (Reuters/Najibullah Musafer)
An activist (front) from a pro-Kremlin youth movement attacks opposition activists during a protest on December 6 against the results of Russia's parliamentary elections. (Reuters/Anton Golubev)
Trees are covered in spider webs in a flooded region of Pakistan's Sindh Province on December 7, apparently the result of spiders escaping the rising flood waters. (Reuters/Russell Watkins)
Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets on December 10 to protest against Kremlin policies and alleged election fraud in the largest-ever display of opposition to the rule of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (Reuters/
Opposition supporters hold a rally to protest against violations in the parliamentary elections and the policies of the current Russian authorities. (RFE/RL /Irina Chevtaeva)
People light candles and hold the national flag in tribute to late former Czech President Vaclav Havel on Wenceslas Square in Prague on December 18. (Reuters)
In honor of former Czech and Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, who died on December 18, RFE/RL projected an image of his face on the front of its headquarters in Prague. (RFE/RL)
The wife of late former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Dagmar (left), and her daughter Nina walk behind a hearse transporting Havel's body to Prague Castle on December 21. (Reuters/David W. Cerny)
Members of the Korean People's Army cry for late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on December 21. (AFP)
North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Un, salutes as he and his uncle Jang Song Thaek accompany the hearse carrying the coffin of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during his funeral procession in Pyongyang on December 28. (Reuters/Kyodo)