A pregnant woman poses on June 19, 2018 in Vertou, western France. France had an estimated population of 68.4 million by January 1, 2024, representing a further year-on-year increase of 0.3 percent, limited by a marked drop in the birth rate, the INSEE national statistics bureau of France reported on January 16, 2024. In 2023, 678,000 babies were born in France, 6.6 percent fewer than the previous year, the lowest number of births in any year since 1946. Over the same period, there were 631,000 deaths, down 6.5 percent on 2022, a year marked by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and episodes of extreme heat. (Photo by Loic Venance/AFP Photo)

A farmer competes in a traditional bull race at Swabi on February 18, 2024. (Photo by Abdul Majeed/AFP Photo)

Radin the Sunda pangolin hitches a ride on Nita as their keeper looks on. The elusive and nocturnal Sunda pangolin produces only one or two offspring a year and Radin is the third pangolin baby born in Night Safari since 2011. (Photo by Wildlife Reserves Singapore)

Two pins featuring former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung wearing different facial expressions are displayed in a glass case of Thomas Hui at his apartment in Hong Kong, China April 11, 2016. Collector Thomas Hui, 37, a former bank employee in Hong Kong, who is fascinated by North Korean pins and badges, has gathered over 100 featuring former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and has been buying and trading these Communist accessories since 2008. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Reuters South Africa-based photographer Juda Ngwenya who documented Nelson Mandela's historic rise to power died on Wednesday. Here: Prostitutes wait at a bar in a plush northern suburb of Johannesburg August 22, 2002. (Photo by Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)

Boeing 747-400 of KLM in approach for the “Princess Juliana” airport, Netherlands Antilles Sint Maarten on July 2, 2002. (Photo by LUPOO/Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)

The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen over the sky near the village of Pallas (Muonio region) of Lapland, Finland September 8, 2017. (Photo by Alexander Kuznetsov/Reuters)

Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)