Serbian police officers of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit pose for a picture in their base outside Belgrade October 8, 2014. When the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, in August sparked sometimes violent protests, the response of police in camouflage gear and armoured vehicles wielding stun grenades and assault rifles seemed more like a combat operation than a public order measure. Some U.S. police departments have recently acquired U.S. military-surplus hardware from wars abroad, but there are many law enforcers around the world whose rules of engagement also allow the use of lethal force with relatively few restrictions. But for every regulation that gives police wide scope to use firearms, there is another code that sharply limits their use. In Serbia, police may use measures ranging from batons to special vehicles, water cannon and tear gas on groups of people who have gathered illegally and are behaving in a way that is violent or could cause violence, but they may use firearms only when life is endangered. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

The Longsheng Rice Terraces are located in Longsheng County, about 100 km (2 hours drive) from Guilin, Guangxi, China. The most popular are Ping An Rice Terrace and Jinkeng Rice Terrace. The terraced fields are built along the slope winding from the riverside up to the mountain top, the highest part being 880 m in elevation while the lowest part is 380 m[citation needed]. The coiling line that starts from the mountain foot up to the mountain top divides the mountain into layers of water glittering in the sun in spring, layers of green rice shoots in summer, layers of golden rice in fall, and layers of silvery frost in winter. The terraced fields were mostly built during the Ming Dynasty, about 500 years ago.

The main feature of the Mitsuyama Taisai Festival, three 18 meters tall “mountains”. are displayed at the Itate Hyozu Shrine on March 31, 2013 in Himeji, Japan. The festival is held once in 20 years since 1593, Priests of Itate Hyozu Shrine welcome to all the gods across the country for top of the three mountains and treat with food seven days from today as to pray for peace and prosperity. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe)

Touching and dramatic portraits and landscape shots have won prizes at Australia's prestigious photography prize. Photo: Winner of the NSW (New South Wales) prize: Peter Solness said: “I wanted to re-imagine the lost waterways, so I got my light-painting tools to work. In this image, water is being released from the top of the historic Centennial Park No. 2 Reservoir, which was built in 1925 and holds 90 megalitres of water. After 89 years of incarceration these waters now run free!”. (Photo by Peter Solness/Head On)

A combination picture shows Will Adam, 14, snowboarding down a street on Beacon Hill during a large winter blizzard in Boston, Massachusetts, United States January 27, 2015 (top), and a woman looking at her phone as she walks down the same street June 13, 2015. Outdoor scenes in Boston show local residents enjoying balmy weather amid lush greenery as the summer solstice approaches on 21 June. The very same locations suffered heavy snowstorms last winter, with snow ploughs, skiers and snowboarders battling the drifts. Boston got 275.8 cm of snow over the winter, the most since 1872, when records began. A few months after the snowstorms, Brian Snyder revisited the same places and shot pictures at exactly the same locations. (Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters)

A mother prays for success for her child in the college entrance examinations at a Buddhist temple in Seoul, South Korea, November 12, 2015. About 630,000 students on Thursday sat for the annual exams that could lead them to one of the country's top universities. In South Korea, there is no higher achievement than to be accepted by a prestigious university. As a result, many students prepare for these entrance exams from an early age, often studying up to 16 hours a day for years to take this test. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A member of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or the National Volunteers Association keeps watch from the top of a tree as others sit on the ground during their daylong camp on the outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra state, India, Sunday, January 3, 2016. Hindus, make up more than 80 percent of India's population of 1.25 billion. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

Members of the Edo Firemanship Preservation Association balance on top of bamboo ladders during a demonstration at the New Year's fire review held by the Tokyo Fire Department in Tokyo, Japan, 06 January 2016. Some 2,800 firefighters perform various emergency rescue and firefighting demonstrations in an effort to promote the prevention of fire and disaster in the annual event. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/EPA)