A performer wearing costumes walk on stilts before a show during a lantern fair at the beginning of Chinese Lunar New Year, in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, February 11, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)
Indian Hindu devotees carry an idol of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha for immersion in a temporary pond near Sangam in Allahabad on September 4, 2017. The Ganesh Chaturthi festival is a popular 11-day religious festival which is annually celebrated across India. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)
The Borealis in the second decade of December 2023 gets ready to leave Liverpool for the Classic Christmas Markets cruise. It will call at Zeebrugge, Amsterdam and Hamburg to take in some of Europe’s best festive markets. (Photo by Bav Media)
Indonesian students go to school via a makeshift suspension bridge in Ngemplak, Boyolali regency, Indonesia on November 15, 2017. The lack of access to roads makes students every day to cross the dangerous waterways to go to school. (Photo by Arief Setiadi/Pacific Press/Barcroft Images)
Underwater photographer of the year – winner. Dancing Octopus by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Location: Island of Mayotte, off the coast of south-east Africa. “Balletic and malevolent”, one judge said of this octopus, hunting in a lagoon. Barathieu waited until spring tides when there was just 30cm of water on the flats and plenty of light in the shallows. (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/UPY2017)
A muddied family photograph sits on a hallway stairwell in an apartment block on March 17, 2011 in Kensennuma, Japan. Residents were allowed back to their homes today and began the massive cleanup operation caused by a 9.0 magnitude strong earthquake that struck on March 11 off the coast of north-eastern Japan. The quake triggered a tsunami wave of up to 10 metres which engulfed large parts of north-eastern Japan. The death toll has risen past 5000 with at least 8600 people still missing. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
Santa Claus poses with a Beluga Whale at SeaWorld San Diego on December 15, 2011 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Mike Aguilera/SeaWorld San Diego via Getty Images)