Suspension artist and LUSH Cosmetics employee Alice Newstead inspects shark hooks that she had pierced into her skin during a demonstration against the shark fin trade at a LUSH Cosmetic store on August 24, 2011 in San Francisco, California.

Football transfers are not cheap. To have a player strengthen their ranks, teams are willing to pay big money. The football transfer considered to be the most expensive in the sport's history was that of Gareth Bale leaving Tottenham to play at Real Madrid. The Spanish club paid not less than £86 million (about $133 million at today's exchange rates) to have the player among its own. But recent news suggest that this record might be broken this year. According to reports in the media, UK Premier League team Manchester United is willing to almost double that amount.

REUTLINGEN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 17: Students hang out finished parchment leather at the LGR (Lederinstitut Gerberschule Reutlingen) tannery school on November 17, 2010 in Reutlingen, Germany. Even in early antiquity and up their hair or dried goat and sheep skins were used as material for documents. In the small Asian city Pergamon these skins were processed in large quantities for this purpose, so they formed the main trading arm of the city, of which the name is parchment is derived. In medieval times, reached the parchment is of great importance, it was such as France's production under the supervision of the University of Paris. Even now, important documents, placed on their unlimited shelf life as possible large value (eg diplomas, addresses, memory, writings, documents for primary and keystones) written on parchment...

A tourist poses for a picture with the Sphinx at the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo, Egypt, on October 19, 2011. (Reuters/Jamal Saidi)

Raising a flag over the Reichstag is a historic World War II photograph taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945, by Yevgeny Khaldei.

Last Friday, in Afghanistan's mountainous northeastern province of Badakhshan, an enormous landslide took place, burying much of a small village, and killing hundreds. Officials say that at least 300 residents of Abi Barik village were killed, but are uncertain about exact numbers, cautioning that the final number could be 500 or more. Rescue teams gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors, focusing energy on helping the hundreds suddenly made homeless. Many of the surviving families have struggled to get aid. Some have gone to nearby villages to stay with relatives or friends, while others have slept in tents provided by aid groups.