North Korean children wave to people on a Chinese tourist boat on the banks of Yalu River near the Chongsong county of North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, May 8, 2011. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)

Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Zombie Boy, who holds a Guinness World Record for most bones inked on a human body, gave Londoners a fright on October 5, 2016 as he was spotted at commuter hotspots across the capital to promote Thorpe Park’s new Halloween attraction. Canadian born Zombie Boy has 90% of his body covered in tattoos with a value of over $20,000 in total, including an entire skeleton and skull on his face, visited Canary Wharf, Oxford Street and Soho. (Photo by Rex Features)

An armed youth loyal to the Houthi movement takes part in a protest against the Saudi-backed exiled government deciding to cut off the Yemeni central bank from the outside world, in the capital Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

Tribal artists and supporters from the southern Indian state of Karnataka dance outside the residence of Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi during her birthday celebrations in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, December 9, 2015. The Italian-born Gandhi is the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and has led the Congress party since 1998. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

Two Iranian women walk past a mural depicting a flying dove at a street in Tehran, Iran, 01 November 2021. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Islamic Republic is ready to return to nuclear talks in Vienna before the end of November. Iran also proposed to the US administration to lift the sanctions and to start negotiations. Iran is facing an economic crisis under US heavy sanctions following the United States' withdrawal from a nuclear deal in 2018. (Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/EFE)

A man crosses a mud-covered trail carrying his wife on his back at a flooded Han River park in Seoul, South Korea, August 4, 2020. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A man reacts as he holds the equipment used by Palestinian cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who was a contractor for Reuters, at the site where he was killed along with other journalists and people in Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still image taken from a video shot by Reuters contractor Hatem Khaled, who was wounded shortly afterwards in another strike while he was filming the site on August 25, 2025. (Photo by Hatem Khaled/Reuters)