Meerkats at ZSL (Zoological Society of London) London Zoo received an early Christmas gift from their keepers of home-made crackers filled with meal worms and locusts on December 17, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi attends a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano at the Quirinale Palace on June 10, 2009 in Rome, Italy. Colonel Gaddafi is in Rome to attend a meeting of G8 Development Ministers. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images). ROME – JUNE 10

Musician Simon Desorgher walks his giant sphere on the foreshore of the River Thames after a rehearsal for a performance of “Water Cycle for flute and sound system” on the river on September 11, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Men watch model trains running along the bar at Bar Ginza Panorama Shibuya Branch on June 3, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan. The bar caters to model train enthusists and customers are able to bring their own model trains to run on the tracks. (Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

Migrating gray cranes, on November 30, 2009 around the Hula Lakes in northern Israel. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

These pictures reveal the crumbling ruins of the famed Grand Orient Express, now hollowed-out and almost reduced to rubble. There are only a couple of the trains, launched in 1883, left in the world. This example stands dormant in Belgium, untouched from its last voyage in the winter of 2009. Rusty ceilings, moth-eaten seats and tattered floors capture its level of decay. A Rotterdam-based urban photographer Brian Romeijn managed to snap these pictures while exploring the area. (Photo by Brian Romeijn/IMP Features)