A hand of a labourer pushes bricks at a traditional brick factory in Arab Mesad district of Helwan, northeast of Cairo, May 14, 2015. About 45 labourers are employed at the brick factory and most work 10 hours a day. Adult workers earn a daily wage of 70 Egyptian pounds ($9) and child workers earn 40 Egyptian pounds ($5). The labourers, who are usually temporary or seasonally employed in Egypt's brick-making industry, experience unsafe work conditions, according to local media. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Larissa Neto, a muse of the Unidos da Tijuca Samba School, poses as she wears a carnival dress in Sao Goncalo near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 3, 2016. Rio de Janeiro's carnival parades are known the world over for the glitz and glamour, high-tech allegorical floats and shimmering bodies, which battle it out each year for the championship title. Each school is fronted by the Queen of the Drums, who dances alongside the raging percussion, and her court of sparkling, sculpted dancers known as “muses”. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

A porter stands at the bottom of the Illimani mountain, on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia, April 16, 2016. For years, Lydia Huayllas, 48, has worked as a cook at base camps and mountain-climbing refuges on the steep, glacial slopes of Huayna Potosi, a 19,974-foot (6,088-meter) Andean peak outside of La Paz, Bolivia. But two years ago, she and 10 other Aymara indigenous women, ages 42 to 50, who also worked as porters and cooks for mountaineers, put on crampons – spikes fixed to a boot for climbing – under their wide traditional skirts and started to do their own climbing. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A man holds a girl as she tries to escape when she realised she is to to be married, about 80 km (50 miles) from the town of Marigat in Baringo County, Kenya, December 7, 2014. As Pokot tradition dictates, the future husband arrived to her family home with a group of men to collect the girl. The men arrived with the last settled dowry of livestock for the girl's family. In this case it was 20 goats, three camels and 10 cows, given during a period of several weeks. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

Model, skydiver and wing-suit jumper Roberta Mancino, 33, swims with a whale shark on February 2014 in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. A female skydiver swims with whale sharks, manta rays and sailfish – the fastest fish in the sea. Model, skydiver and wing-suit jumper Roberta Mancino, 33, jumped from a boat into the ocean surrounding Isla Mujeres near the northern Peninsula of Mexico. The incredible project involved two trips to the stormy winter seas – one in February 2013 and one a year later in February 2014. (Photo by Shawn Heinrichs/Barcroft Media)

A woman poses for her husband alongside a giant camera Thursday, November 7, 2013 outside the Historic Green County Courthouse in Monroe, Wis. Chicago photographer Dennis Manarchy created what's being called the world's largest camera. It's 35-feet long and 12-feet tall it's a working replica of a vintage accordion-style camera that produces 16- by 24-foot prints, the equivalent of a two-story building. The giant camera is on display in Monroe through November 17 because a Monroe company manufactured the specially-built trailer. Manarchy plans to tow the camera around the country to shoot photos of indigenous cultures. (Photo by Mark Hoffman)

“Sixteen pilot whales died when they became stranded at Pittenweem, near St Andrews, on Sunday morning, Forth Coastguard said.

The mammals were part of a group of 26, of which 10 were refloated and returned to sea by vets and more than 50 volunteers from the emergency services and British Divers Marine Life Rescue. The whales were kept cool and hydrated with wet blankets and sheets on the shore”. – WalesOnline

Photo: Emergency service personnel walk near beached whales as they continue in their rescue attempt to save a large number of pilot whales who have beached on September 1, 2012 in Pittenweem, Scotland. A number of whales have died after being stranded on the east coast of Scotland between Anstruther and Pittenweem. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell)