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)

Kea are the only true alpine parrots in the world and thrive as cunning opportunists in the freezing conditions of the Southern Alps. Kea are thought to have developed their wide array of food-finding strategies during the last great ice age, where they learned to adapt using their unusual powers of curiosity. (Photo by Tom Walker/BBC Pictures/The Guardian)

An artist draws a mural on a wall during a wall painting competition in Amritsar on February 25, 2023. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

“Google is launching balloons into near space to provide internet access to buildings below on the ground. About 30 of the superpressure balloons are being launched from New Zealand from where they will drift around the world on a controlled path. Attached equipment will offer 3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country”. – BBC News. Photo: A Google balloon sails through the air with the Southern Alps mountains in the background, in Tekapo, New Zealand. (Photo by Jon Shenk/Associated Press)

Revelers celebrate New Years Eve in socially distanced pods at Times Square on December 31, 2020, in New York City. On average, about one million revelers are drawn to the Crossroads of the World to watch performances and celebrate the New Year. This year a limited live audience of about 40 first responders and essential workers will be allowed to watch the New Years' ball drop from a secure area in Times Square. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

The Belgian photographer Anton Kusters spent two years photographing the Yakuza, Japan’s most notorious gang. He returned with some amazing images that he made into a book called “Odo Yakuza Tokyo”. (Odo means “the way of the cherry blossom” and is the credo of the Yakuza family he followed. Photo: An erotic danser picks up fake 2-dollar bills during a private dance with a Yakuza customer in a strip tease bar in Kabukicho, a bar which is controlled by the ODO family – 2010. (Photo and caption by Anton Kusters)

Two young boys kneel on stools on either side of a round table as one uses a match to this the other's cigarette, November 12, 1928. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images)

A Russian Rosguardia (National Guard) soldier stands at a central avenue in front of a restaurant promoter, a day before Sunday's protest in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, January 30, 2021. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)