Türkiye
Economy
Opinion
World
Arts & Life
Sports
Photo
Pictures of the year 2014
Pictures of the year 2014
Pictures of the year 2014
A man walks next to full trash cans on Ipanema beach during a strike by some garbage collectors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on March 6, 2014. Rio de Janeiro's cleaners got a police escort as they pursued their post-Carnival sweep up after some striking colleagues reportedly threatened them, in some cases with guns, authorities said. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA
Pictures of the year 2014
In this photograph taken on April 16, 2014, a veterinary staff member of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme center conducts medical examinations on a 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun metal pellets embedded in his body in Sibolangit district in northern Sumatra island. The orangutan was rescued by Indonesia's ministry of forestry personnel and Orangutan Information Center on April 15, 2014 in nearby Langkat district in a small patch of forest and agricultural plantation. The center has cared for over 280 orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations, poachers and pet owners and over 200 have been reintroduced in the wilds. The critically-endangered primates population are dwindling rapidly due to poaching and rapid destruction of their forest habital that is being converted into palm oil plantation. AFP PHOTO / SUTANTA ADITYA
Pictures of the year 2014
An X-ray film shows a bullet lodged on 18-month-old boy Satrin Osinya (R), as he receives treatment at the Kenyatta National hospital Nairobi March 26, 2014 , three days after gunmen spraying bullets on the congregation killed six worshipers and injured 17 others during a worship service in the Coastal city of Mombasa. The fate of one-and-a-half-year-old Satrin Osinya, whose mother died trying to protect him when the attackers sprayed the church service with bullets, has gripped the east African nation. Doctors will likely wait for two weeks until swelling in the brain reduces to allow the tricky surgery to go ahead. AFP PHOTO/SIMON MAINA
Pictures of the year 2014
A young girl is pictured after she was wounded during clashes between riot-police and prostestors after the funeral of Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old boy who died from injuries suffered during last year's anti-government protests, in Istanbul on March 12, 2014. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at protestors in the capital Ankara, while in Istbanbul, crowds shouting anti-government slogans lit a huge fire as they made their way to a cemetery for the burial of Berkin Elvan. AFP PHOTO/BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
Islamist militants (Rear) stand next to an ISIL flag atop a hill in Kobane as seen from the Turkish-Syrian border, with Turkish troops in foreground, in the southeastern town of Suruç, Şanlıurfa province, on October 6, 2014. Two flags of ISIL jihadists seeking to take the Syrian town of Kobane were flying on the eastern side of the town, an AFP photographer reported. The flags, black with the Arabic lettering of the group, were seen by the photographer from the Turkish side of the border. One flew on a building while another larger flag was planted on a hill. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS
Pictures of the year 2014
Perople react as a man attempts to revive another, wounded as a result of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian troops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on May 26, 2014. A fierce battle erupted on May 26 for control of the main airport in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, just hours after president-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed he would not let the country become another Somalia. AFP PHOTO/ VIKTOR DRACHEV
Pictures of the year 2014
A man kisses his son, rescued of the mine, on May 13, 2014 after an explosion in a coal mine in Manisa. A FP PHOTO/BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
Pro-Russian militants take position on the roof of the international airport of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on May 26, 2014. The main airport in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk was rocked by an explosion and heavy shooting after armed rebels seized the facility, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Thick black smoke was seen rising from the airport complex and the sound of fighter jets could be heard overhead. All flights have been cancelled in and out of the regional transport hub. AFP PHOTO/ ALEXANDER KHUDOTEPLY
Pictures of the year 2014
A Somali man carries the body of a dead child after a huge explosion believed to be a roadside bomb killed 7 people in the centre of the Somali capital Mogadishu on May 3, 2014. The bomb went off near the busy KM4 junction in central Mogadishu, close to the Turkish embassy. Another security source at the scene said the bomb appeared to have been planted at the side of the road. The attack is the latest in a string of bombings in the city attributed to Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, who are battling to overthrow the war-torn country's internationally backed but fragile government. AFP PHOTO/Mohamed Abdiwahab
Pictures of the year 2014
A handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis praying at Israel's separation barrier on May 25, 2014 after he made an unscheduled stop at the security wall drawing attention to the towering eight-metre (26-foot) high concrete wall topped by a guard tower. Pope Francis arrived in Bethlehem to begin the most sensitive part of his three-day Middle East tour aimed at forging regional peace and easing an age-old rift within Christianit AFP PHOTO/ OSSERVATORE ROMANO / HO
Pictures of the year 2014
Relatives of victims of the South Korean ferry 'Sewol' sit before the sea at Jindo harbour on April 20, 2014. Divers began to locate bodies on April 19 inside a submerged South Korean ferry as the detained captain defended his decision to delay evacuation of the ship when it capsized nearly four days ago with 476 people on board. AFP PHOTO / ED JONES
Pictures of the year 2014
A local Hong Kong journalist collapses in agony after being hit in the face with pepper spray by police in the Mongkok district of Hong Kong on October 17, 2014. Fresh clashes broke out in Hong Kong on October 17 as pro-democracy demonstrators attempted to take back a protest camp in a densely populated suburb that had been partially cleared by police earlier in the day. AFP PHOTO / ALEX OGLE
Pictures of the year 2014
Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai gestures after addressing the media in Birmingham, central England on October 10, 2014. The Nobel Peace Prize went Friday to 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and India's Kailash Satyarthi for their work promoting children's rights. Seventeen-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was "honoured" to be the first Pakistani and the youngest person to be given the award and dedicated the award to the "voiceless". "This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard," she said. AFP PHOTO / OLI SCARFF
Pictures of the year 2014
TOPSHOTS -- AFP PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2014 -- A pro-democracy protester (2L) shakes his fist at police officers as they advance in Hong Kong on October 15, 2014. Hong Kong has been plunged into the worst political crisis since its 1997 handover as pro-democracy activists take over the streets following China's refusal to grant citizens full universal suffrage. AFP PHOTO / ALEX OGLE
Pictures of the year 2014
People watch as smokes rises from the town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on October 26, 2014, at the Turkish border near the southeastern village of Mursitpinar, Sanliurfa province. AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
US Secretary of State John Kerry kicks around a soccer ball while talking on his cellphone during an airplane refueling stop at Sal Island, Cape Verde, enroute to Washington, DC, May 5, 2014. AFP PHOTO / POOL / Saul LOEB
Pictures of the year 2014
A Syrian Kurdish woman walks in a refugee camp in the town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on October 17, 2014. Kurdish rebels have been infuriated by the lack of action by Turkey against Islamic State (IS) jihadists trying to take the mainly Kurdish town of Kobane just across the Syrian border. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS
Pictures of the year 2014
A Kurdish man sits at the border area close to the southeastern village of Mursitpinar, in the Sanliurfa province, opposite the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, where heavy fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters is taking place, on October 16, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS
Pictures of the year 2014
A picture taken on October 7, 2014 in Grabels near Montpellier shows a car in an upright position following the overnight flash floods due to heavy showers. Floodwater streamed down roads and highways, engulfing cars as the Lez river burst its banks in the seaside capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region after it was lashed by record-breaking downpours. AFP PHOTO SYLVAIN THOMAS
Pictures of the year 2014
Protesters catch fire as they stand behind burning barricades during clashes with police on February 20, 2014 in Kiev. Ukraine's embattled leader announced a "truce" with the opposition as he prepared to get grilled by visiting EU diplomats over clashes that killed 26 and left the government facing diplomatic isolation. The shocking scale of the violence three months into the crisis brought expressions of grave concern from the West and condemnation of an "attempted coup" by the Kremlin. AFP PHOTO/BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
Young men take part in the destruction of houses in the PK5 neighborhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, on February 17, 2014. The interim prime minister of the Central African Republic met on February 16 with leaders of the mainly Christian "anti-balaka" militias, some of whom say they are "ready to cooperate". Troops from several EU countries will begin deploying in the strife-torn Central African Republic next month, a French official said on Febuary 17. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR
Pictures of the year 2014
Ukrainian riot policemen stand guard in central Kiev following clashes with pro-EU protesters on January 23, 2014. Ukraine's opposition agreed to observe an eight-hour truce in clashes with security forces after five days of deadly fighting but threatened to go on the attack if the government failed to agree concessions. Opposition leader and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko brokered the truce after talks with radical protesters and armoured security forces on the frontline of the clashes, saying the ceasefire should hold while he conducts talks with President Viktor Yanukovych. AFP PHOTO/VOLODYMYR SHUVAYEV
Pictures of the year 2014
People carry a coffin of a man who was killed during recent clashes, as they gather at Independence Square on February 22, 2014. Newly freed Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko received a rapturous welcome on Independence Square on February 22, 2014, declaring "You are heroes, you are the best of Ukraine" to the 50,000-strong crowd before breaking down in tears. The latest developments in the ex-Soviet nation's three-month political crisis came after protesters took control of Kiev's charred city centre and seized Yanukovych's lavish residence on a day of dramatic twists and turns. AFP PHOTO /BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
Children play with a suitcase in a IDP camp for the Nuer ethnic group inside the UNMISS compound in Bor, South Sudan, on February 27, 2014. War crimes have been committed by all sides in conflict-wracked South Sudan, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, reporting widespread atrocities in weeks of carnage in the world's youngest nation. Thousands have been killed and almost 900,000 forced from their homes by over two months of battles between rebel and government forces, backed by troops from neighbouring Uganda. AFP PHOTO / JM LOPEZ
Pictures of the year 2014
A boy stands on an airplane in the Christian Mpoko refugee camp on February 20, 2014 during sunset, in Bangui, Central African Republic. Interim President Samba Panza has vowed to "go to war" on the anti-balaka, who claim to seek vengeance for atrocities committed by a mainly Muslim rebel alliance, the Seleka, which temporarily seized power in March last year. The Seleka coup plunged the country into chaos, unleashing a wave of Muslim-Christian violence that has left thousands dead. Hundreds of thousands of people have also been displaced by the brutal surge of killings, mutilations, rapes and looting. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR
Pictures of the year 2014
An Orthodox priest tries to stop clash protesters the police in the center of Kiev on January 22, 2014. Ukrainian police on Wednesday stormed protesters' barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. Total of two activists shot dead during clashing. The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU. AFP PHOTO/ SERGEI SUPINSKY
Pictures of the year 2014
Priest Xavier Arnold Fagba comforts Muslim people taking refuge in the Boali church on January 19, 2014, in Boali, some 100km north of Bangui. Fresh fighting broke out in the strife-torn Central African Republic on the eve of an announcement of the candidates seeking to become the new interim president. Sectarian violence has gripped the landlocked country after a March 2013 coup launched by the mostly Muslim Seleka rebels, and the UN has warned that the bloodshed could turn into genocide. AFP PHOTO / ERIC FEFERBERG
Pictures of the year 2014
People play football at sunset at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 9, 2014. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA
Pictures of the year 2014
Children play around a man disguised as Batman at the Favela do Metro slum, area just near the Maracana stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 9, 2014. Families living in this shantytown within a stone's throw of Rio's mythical Maracana stadium refuse to have their homes demolished as part of a project to renovate the district before the FIFA World Cup circus pitches camp in June. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA
Pictures of the year 2014
Lightning flashes over the Christ the Redeemer statue on top of Corcovado Hill in Rio de Janeiro on January 14, 2014. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA
Pictures of the year 2014
Members of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) lynch a man suspected of being a former Seleka rebel on February 5, 2014, in Bangui. The impoverished former French colony descended into chaos last March when rebel forces overthrew the president, but an interim government lost control of the country. Rival Muslim and Christian militias are now battling each other and rogue checkpoints have been set up on nearly all main roads.Despite the presence of French and African peacekeeping troops, violence continues to rock the country, and has already forced about a fifth of the population of 4.6 million from their homes. AFP PHOTO/ ISSOUF SANOGO ---GRAPHIC CONTENT ----
Pictures of the year 2014
Riot police officers gather as they clash with protestors in the center of Kiev on January 22, 2014. Ukrainian police today stormed protesters' barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. Total of two activists shot dead during clashing. The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU. AFP PHOTO/ ANATOLII BOIKO
Pictures of the year 2014
A protestor throws a molotov cocktail at riot police in the centre of Kiev on January 22, 2014. Ukrainian police today stormed protesters' barricades in Kiev as violent clashes erupted and activists said that one person had been shot dead by the security forces. Total of two activists shot dead during clashing. The move by police increased tensions to a new peak after two months of protests over President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to sign a deal for closer ties with the EU. AFP PHOTO/ VASILY MAXIMOV
Pictures of the year 2014
A giant cloud of hot volcanic ash clouds engulfs villages in Karo district during the eruption of Mount Sinabung volcano located in Indonesia's Sumatra island on February 1, 2014. Fourteen people, including four schoolchildren, were killed February 1 after they were engulfed by scorching ash clouds spat out by Indonesia's Mount Sinabung in its biggest eruption in recent days, officials said. AFP PHOTO / SUTANTA ADITYA
Pictures of the year 2014
A leopard leaps across an under-construction structure near a furniture market in the Degumpur residential area as a bystander moves out of the way in Meerut on February 23, 2014. A leopard sparked panic in a north Indian city when it strayed inside a hospital, a cinema and an apartment block before evading captors, an official said. AFP PHOTO
Pictures of the year 2014
An alleged sniper (C) and member of the pro-government forces is beaten by anti-government protestors in Kiev on February 22, 2014. The regime of Ukraine's president appeared close to collapse on February 22 as the emboldened opposition took control of central Kiev and key government and parliament positions and voted to immediately free its jailed leader Yulia Tymoshenko. AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
- A flock of migrating starlings is seen as they perform their traditional dance fly before landing to sleep during the sunset near the southern Israeli village of Tidhar, in the northern Israeli Negev desert, on February 12, 2014. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA
Pictures of the year 2014
South Sudanese children from the Dinka ethnic group pose at cattle camp in the town of Yirol, in central South Sudan on February 12, 2014. UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned on February 12 what he said was the use of cluster bombs in the war in South Sudan, a day after the opening of peace talks between South Sudan's government and rebels. Troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and renegade soldiers who support his former vice president Riek Machar have been battling since mid-December. AFP PHOTO / FABIO BUCCIARELLI
Pictures of the year 2014
A man holds a knife to his throat claiming that he is looking for Muslims to cut off their heads in the 5th district of Bangui on February 9, 2014. According to witnesses, at least ten people have been killed since the night before in central Bangui, and many buildings burned, after violence broke out near the district hall of Bangui's 5th district. Large-scale looting was also taking place in the same neighbourhood in the morning of February 9 despite the deployment of French troops and Central African gendarmes. The International Criminal Court in the Hague said on February 7 it had opened an initial probe into war crimes in the Central African Republic. AFP PHOTO/ ISSOUF SANOGO
Pictures of the year 2014
Young men take part in the destruction of houses in the PK5 neighborhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, on February 17, 2014. The interim prime minister of the Central African Republic met on February 16 with leaders of the mainly Christian "anti-balaka" militias, some of whom say they are "ready to cooperate". Troops from several EU countries will begin deploying in the strife-torn Central African Republic next month, a French official said on Febuary 17. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR
Pictures of the year 2014
Would-be immigrants react on a fence near Beni Enza, into the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla on March 28, 2014. Several hundreds people launched a dawn assault today to cross into the Spanish city, which lies on the northern tip of Morocco, and dozen made it across. AFP PHOTO/ JOSE COLON
Pictures of the year 2014
A man sharpens his machete as young people, who created a self-defence committee for their district Benz-vi, meet before leaving for a patrol in their district, on March 12, 2014 in Bangui. UN investigators left for the Central African Republic on March 10 to launch a probe into human right violations in the conflict-ravaged country amid fears of genocide and ethnic cleansing. AFP-PHOTO/ SIA KAMBOU
Pictures of the year 2014
The mother (R) of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh, who was murdered in 2007, slaps Balal who killed her son during the execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014 just before she removed the noose around his neck with the help of her husband, sparing the life of her son's convicted murderer. The dramatic events followed a rare public campaign to save the life of Balal, who at 19 killed another young man, Abdollah Hosseinzadeh, in a street fight with a knife back in 2007. AFP PHOTO/ARASH KHAMOOSHI/ISNA
Pictures of the year 2014
Australian journalist Peter Greste (3rd R) of Al-Jazeera and his colleagues stand inside the defendants cage during their trial for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood at Cairo's Tora prison on March 5, 2014. The high-profile case that sparked a global outcry over muzzling of the press is seen as a test of the military-installed government's tolerance of independent media, with activists fearing a return to autocracy three years after the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. AFP PHOTO / KHALED DESOUKI
Pictures of the year 2014
General view during a fire in Valparaiso, 110 km west of Santiago, Chile, on April 12, 2014. Authorities decreed a red alert for the area after the fire consumed more than 100 houses. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO MIRANDA
Pictures of the year 2014
An anti-government activist is arrested by national police during a protest against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro government in Caracas on March 13, 2014. A total of 28 people have been killed and 365 injured in anti-government protests rocking Venezuela, the country's top prosecutor said Thursday, lamenting an atmosphere of "violence and chaos".AFP PHOTO/LEO RAMIREZ
Pictures of the year 2014
A picture taken on May 3, 2014, shows people visiting "The Gateway to Hell," a huge burning gas crater in the heart of Turkmenistan's Karakum desert. The fiery pit was the result of a simple miscalculation by Soviet scientists in 1971 after their boring equipment suddenly drilled through into an underground cavern and a deep sinkhole formed. Fearing that the crater would emit poisonous gases, the scientists took the decision to set it alight, thinking that the gas would burn out quickly and this would cause the flames to go out. But the flames have not gone out in more than 40 years, in a potent symbol of the vast gas reserves of Turkmenistan, which are believed to be the fourth largest in the world. AFP PHOTO / IGOR SASIN
Pictures of the year 2014
Russia's Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of European Space Agency's German astronaut Alexander Gerst, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and US NASA astronaut Gregory Wiseman blasts off from the launch pad at Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome early on May 29, 2014. AFP PHOTO/KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV
Pictures of the year 2014
Belarus' Catholics attend the annual celebration of Icon of the Mother of God in Budslav some 150 km north of Minsk early on July 5, 2014. Thousands of Catholics come to Budslav as pilgrims to participate in prayer, confession and take part in a procession with candles, dedicated to the celebration of the anniversary Budslav Mother of God. AFP PHOTO/SERGEY BALAY
Pictures of the year 2014
Kosovar Bosnian woman Arleta Sahiti poses after her face was painted by a woman during a presentation of the traditional wedding ceremony of Bosnian women from Zhupa region at the Ethnological Museum in Pristina on July 2, 2014. As part of the tradition, old ladies prepare young brides, painting their faces in many layers of colors. The golden circles symbolize the cycles of life. AFP PHOTO / ARMEND NIMANI
Pictures of the year 2014
An Indonesian girl sits by a lamp at the Istiqlal mosque as men pray inside, in Jakarta during the "tarawih" prayer marking the eve before the start of Islam's holy month of Ramadan on June 28, 2014. Muslims around the world celebrate Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calender, in which they abstain from eating, drinking and sex from sunrise to sunset. AFP PHOTO / ROMEO GACAD
Pictures of the year 2014
Torchlights are placed next to soldiers' tombs at the Douaumont's boneyard, eastern France, during the annual event known as The Four Days of Verdun, a night parade of veterans, as they commemorate the Verdun battle 98th anniversary. AFP PHOTO/FREDERICK FLORIN
Pictures of the year 2014
A man protects a woman as they face a police officer dispersing protesters who gathered on the central Istoklal avenue near Taksim square in Istanbul, on May 31, 2014, as the police blocked access to the square during the one year anniversary of the Gezi park and Taksim square demonstrations. Turkey's combative prime minister warned protesters that police would do "whatever is necessary" to clamp down on demonstrations today in Istanbul's Taksim Square to mark the anniversary of last year's turmoil. Last year, what started as a small campaign to save the nearby Gezi Park from the bulldozers eventually drew an estimated three million protesters in an outpouring of anger at the perceived authoritarian tendencies of Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government. Eight people died and thousands were injured in the ensuing violence as police launched a brutal crackdown, frequently employing tear gas and water cannons. AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
A man carries a young girl who was injured in a reported barrel-bomb attack by government forces on June 3, 2014 in Kallaseh district in the northern city of Aleppo. Some 2,000 civilians, including more than 500 children, have been killed in regime air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo since January, many of them in barrel bomb attacks. AFP PHOTO / BARAA AL-HALABI
Pictures of the year 2014
"Aloitadores" (fighters) struggle with a wild horse during the "Rapa Das Bestas" (Shearing of the Beasts) traditional event in the Spanish northwestern village of Sabucedo, some 40 kms from Santiago de Compostela, on July 5, 2014. During the 400-year-old horse festival, hundreds of wild horses are rounded up from the mountains, trimmed and groomed. AFP PHOTO / MIGUEL RIOPA
Pictures of the year 2014
An Afghan election commission worker waits prior to the opening of the seals to a box containing ballot papers for an audit of the presidential run-off votes at a counting centre in Kabul on July 17, 2014. Afghanistan on July 17 began a massive audit of 8.1 million ballots cast in the run-off round of its controversial presidential vote, hours after a brazen Taliban raid on Kabul's airport. The audit is aimed at reversing a destabilising political crisis that has threatened to widen the country's ethnic fissures as NATO winds down its deployment after more than a decade of war. AFP PHOTO/Wakil KOHSAR
Pictures of the year 2014
A member of the Afghan intelligence force points his pistol towards the body of an insurgent following an attack by the Taliban at Kabul's airport on July 17, 2014. Explosions and gunfire rang out as the Taliban attacked Kabul airport in the militants' latest attempt to steal the initiative with the country in the grip of a presidential power struggle. AFP PHOTO/SHAH Marai
Pictures of the year 2014
A picture taken on July 17, 2014 shows wreckages of the malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels fighting central Kiev authorities claimed on Thursday that the Malaysian airline that crashed in Ukraine had been shot down by a Ukrainian jet. AFP PHOTO/DOMINIQUE FAGET
Pictures of the year 2014
A Palestinian girl sits and eats in the rubble of her destroyed home, on August 2, 2014 following an overnight Israeli strike on Gaza City. A fresh wave of violence killed dozens in Gaza after the collapse of a UN and US backed ceasefire, officials said, as Hamas denied it kidnapped an Israeli soldier. AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS
Pictures of the year 2014
Heavy smoke billows following an Israeli military strike in Gaza City on July 29, 2014. The Israeli offensive, which began on July 8 to end Hamas rocket attacks on the Jewish state, has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians according to the United Nations, while 56 lives have been lost on the Israeli side, all but three of them soldiers. AFP PHOTO / ASHRAF AMRA
Pictures of the year 2014
Israeli residents and relatives take cover from a rocket attack from Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip during the funeral of Israeli soldier Corporal Meidan Maymon Biton, 20, at the cemetery of the southern Israeli city of Netivot on July 29, 2014. Meidan was killed the previous day when a mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip hit the Eshkol regional council, which flanks Gaza's southern border with Israel. AFP PHOTO/GIL COHEN-MAGEN
Pictures of the year 2014
A Palestinian woman pauses amid destroyed buildings in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014. The bodies of at least another 35 Palestinians were recovered from rubble across Gaza during a truce, raising to over 900 the overall death toll of Israel's onslaught on the territory since July 8, medics said. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABED
Pictures of the year 2014
German pianist Stefan Aaron hovers about the Munich airport Franz-Josef-Strauss, southern Germany, on July 23, 2014. Stefan Aaron is seated in front of his piano on an aluminum structure that is reminiscent of a flying carpet and attached to a helicopter. The appearance is the fourth stop on his "Orange Piano Tour" that will take him and his orange piano at exceptional locations around the world for the musician. On the 4206 meter high Alphubel in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Stefan Aaron has played on the Great Wall and the Pulpit Rock in Norway, a natural rock platform 604 meters above the Lysefjord near Stavanger. AFP PHOTO/CHRISTOF STACHE
Pictures of the year 2014
This picture taken on July 25, 2014 shows people cooling off in a waterpark in Suining, southwest China's Sichuan province. Meteorological departments issued an orange alert for high temperature as a heat wave embraces Sichuan province, with temperature of most area topped 37 , local media reported. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO
Pictures of the year 2014
Members of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service search for bodies in a field near the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove (Grabove), in Donetsk region on July 26, 2014. Ukraine sought on July 25 to avoid a political crisis after the shock resignation of its prime minister, as fighting between the army and rebels close to the Malaysian airliner crash site claimed over a dozen more lives. The Netherlands and Australia, the two countries that lost the most citizens when the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down, are seeking a mandate to deploy troops on the ground, possibly through a United Nations Security Council resolution. AFP PHOTO/ BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
A competitor competes in the Mud Madness race, at Foymore Lodge in Portadown, County Armagh on September 14, 2014. Some 800 Competitors ran, crawled and belly-flop their way across four and half miles of bogs and ponds, under cargo nets and through water sprays and muddy trenches in aid of Charity. AFP PHOTO / Paul Faith
Pictures of the year 2014
Catalan hold Catalan independentist flags (Estelada) during celebrations of Catalonia National Day (Diada) in Barcelona on September 11, 2014. Red and yellow flags filled the streets of Barcelona today as Catalan nationalists fired up by Scotland's independence referendum rallied to demand a vote on breaking away from Spain. Demonstrators planned to mass in the late afternoon along two central Barcelona avenues in the shape of a giant letter "V" for vote. AFP PHOTO/ LLUIS GENE
Pictures of the year 2014
Children living inside the cemetery play near human bones on top of stacked graves at the Navotas Public Cemetery in Manila on October 31, 2014, days ahead of the traditional All Souls' day. Millions across the Philippines will visit cemeteries to pay their respects to their dead, in an annual tradition that combines catholic religious rites with the country's penchant for festivity. AFP PHOTO/NOEL CELIS
Pictures of the year 2014
Residents, affected by flooding, wait to board an army helicopter with injured people in the Peer Kot area of Jhang, in central Punjab province on September 11, 2014. Pakistani troops on September 11 rushed to protect two major cities from raging floodwaters, using explosives to divert swollen rivers in a crisis which has hit more than a million people and inundated swathes of farmland. The floods and landslides from days of heavy monsoon rains have now claimed more than 450 lives in Pakistan and India, with hospitals struggling to cope with the disaster. AFP PHOTO/ Arif ALI
Pictures of the year 2014
This long exposure picture shows vehicles on roads during rush hour on the eve of the National Day holidays in Shanghai on September 30, 2014. According to local media, police checkpoints will be set up at highways, elevated roads and business hubs to tackle drunk driving during the National Day holiday. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE
Pictures of the year 2014
A pro-democracy demonstrator gestures after police fired tear gas towards protesters near the Hong Kong government headquarters on September 28, 2014. Police fired tear gas as tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators brought parts of central Hong Kong to a standstill on September 28, in a dramatic escalation of protests that have gripped the semi-autonomous Chinese city for days. AFP PHOTO / XAUME OLLEROS
Pictures of the year 2014
- Demonstrators protest against the August 9 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by holding their hands up while gathered on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri late on August 16, 2014. A crowd of some 200 demonstrators defied a curfew that came into effect in Ferguson early on August 17, days after police shot dead the unarmed black teen, triggering a wave of rioting. AFP PHOTO / Joshua LOTT
Pictures of the year 2014
A man looks out towards the US from the Mexican side of the border fence that divides the two countries in San Diego on August 20, 2014. At least 57,000 unaccompanied children, most from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, have crossed the border into the United States illegally since October, triggering a migration crisis that has sent US border and immigration authorities into a frenzy. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON
Pictures of the year 2014
This photo taken on September 3, 2014 shows Leng Yuting, 26, posing underwater for her wedding pictures at a photo studio in Shanghai, ahead of her wedding next year. Her fiance Riyang said they had their wedding photographs taken underwater because 'its romantic and beautiful'. Mr Wedding studio owner, Tina Lui, started providing underwater pictures four years ago. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE
Pictures of the year 2014
Pro-union supporters celebrate as Scottish independence referendum results are announced at a 'Better Together' event in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 19, 2014. Scotland appeared set to reject independence on Friday with 23 out of 32 voting areas declared and the crucial Glasgow region having given its result. AFP PHOTO / ANDY BUCHANAN
Pictures of the year 2014
An Iranian Kurdish female member of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) keeps a position in Dibis, some 50 kms northwest of Kirkuk, on September 15, 2014. The world's top diplomats pledged today to support Iraq in its fight against Islamic State militants by "any means necessary", including "appropriate military assistance", as leaders stressed the urgency of the crisis. AFP PHOTO/SAFIN HAMED
Pictures of the year 2014
Iraqi Christians, who fled the violence in the city of Mosul, decorate a cross with lights in commemoration of the Elevation of the Holy Cross festival on September 14, 2014, in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. The annual Christian feast marks the recovery of the Cross on which Jesus Christ is believed to have been crucified by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 627 AD after defeating the Sassanid Persians. AFP PHOTO/SAFIN HAMED
Pictures of the year 2014
Israeli children hold toy guns as they pretend to play war games next to newly built protection cement walls around a kindergarten in the center of Kibbutz Nahal Oz located near the border with Gaza Strip on September 8, 2014. Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants, following fifty days of fighting, most Israeli residents living near the border with the Palestinian enclave returned to their homes with the army on high alert and new security measures to protect them. AFP PHOTO/ MENAHEM KAHANA
Pictures of the year 2014
Tarek al-Rifi (C), the father of one of the three children from the Al-Rifi family killed in an Israeli military strike, reacts at Gaza city's Al-Shifa hospital on August 21, 2014. Israeli air strikes killed at least six Palestinians, four of them children, in the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for the emergency services said. According to the UN 2065 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke between Israel and Hamas on July 8 and of those 467 are children. AFP PHOTO/ ROBERTO SCHMIDT
Pictures of the year 2014
A Palestinian bride, who lost her home during fighting between Hamas and Israel, poses during her wedding ceremony, along with two other couples, at a UN school in Rafah in southern Gaza Strip on August 17, 2014. AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB
Pictures of the year 2014
An aerial picture taken on September 14, 2014 shows a plane flying over the Bardarbunga volcano spewing lava and smoke in southeast Iceland. The Bardarbunga volcano system has been rocked by hundreds of tremors daily since mid-August, prompting fears the volcano could explode. Bardarbunga, at 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), is Iceland's second-highest peak and is located under Europe's largest glacier, Vatnajoekull. AFP PHOTO / BERNARD MERIC
Pictures of the year 2014
South African Paralympian athlete Oscar Pistorius (C) leaves the High Court after the verdict hearing of his trial over the killing of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on September 11, 2014 in Pretoria. Oscar Pistorius was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a shock decision that left the South African celebrity athlete sobbing with emotion in the dock. The high-profile trial was adjourned until Friday when the 27-year-old Paralympian will hear whether he has been found guilty of culpable homicide, a lesser charge roughly equivalent to manslaughter. AFP PHOTO/MUJAHID SAFODIEN
Pictures of the year 2014
Workers wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) stand inside the contaminated area at the Elwa hospital runned by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), on September 7, 2014 in Monrovia. President Barack Obama said in an interview aired Sunday the US military would help in the fight against fast-spreading Ebola in Africa, but said it would be months before the epidemic slows. Obama said that, in its current form, he did not believe Ebola would reach the United States, but warned the virus could mutate and become a much greater threat to those outside Africa. AFP PHOTO / DOMINIQUE FAGET
Pictures of the year 2014
A South African albino maiden poses with other maidens, bare breasted as the tradition requires, as they prepare themselves for the Reed Dance ceremony on September 5, 2014 at the eNyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma in the KwaZulu-Natal region, ahead of the 13th anniversary of the Reed Dance (uMkhosi woMhlanga) celebrated by the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithin. As part of the ceremony, the young women dance bare-breasted for the king, each carrying a long reed, deposited later as they approach the King and is a cultural celebration that promotes respect for young women, and preserves the custom of keeping girls as virgins until marriage. AFP PHOTO/MARCO LONGARI
Pictures of the year 2014
A man infected with the Ebola virus lies unconscious in his house on September 4, 2014 at the small city of Banjor, 30 kilometers of Monrovia. he Ebola virus has killed over 1,500 people in four west African countries since the start of the year, spreading through contact with infected bodily fluids.AFP PHOTO / DOMINIQUE FAGET
Pictures of the year 2014
French president Francois Hollande delivers a speech on August 25, 2014 on the Ile de Sein, an island off the coast of Brittany, western France, as part of celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation during World War II. French President Francois Hollande asked French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to form a new government on August 25, on the day he leads celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the joyful liberation of Paris after four long and bitter years of Nazi occupation in World War II. AFP PHOTO / FRED TANNEAU
Pictures of the year 2014
Lukas Michul, a member of the 'dream walker' group jumps from atop the rugged rocks overlooking the azure waters of Navagio beach, one of the Greece's most renowned leisure spots on the popular tourist island of Zakynthos on June 23, 2014. This is rope jumping -- part diving, part rock climbing, with a touch of engineering. The aim of the project is to dream jump in 80 places with most ravishing nature and architecture all over the world .They plan to stage their next leaps at a cave complex in Croatia, a French viaduct, skyscrapers in Las Vegas and Johannesburg, and the Grand Canyon. AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI
Pictures of the year 2014
A girls suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus has her temperature checked at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 16, 2014. Kenema hospital estimates that 15 of their staff have died treating ebola patients, at least 12 of them were nurses. The death toll from an Ebola outbreak that began at the start of the year stands at 1,145 in four afflicted west African countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. Kailahun, the traditional home of around 30,000 mainly Mende tribespeople, and Kenema account for the lion's share of Sierra Leone's 810 cases and 384 deaths. AFP PHOTO/CARL DE SOUZA
Pictures of the year 2014
A protester holds her hands up in front of a police car in Ferguson, Missouri, on November 25, 2014 during demonstrations a day after violent protests and looting following the grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of a 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown. Protest marches sprang up in cities across the US on November 25, amid a tense security operation in Ferguson, the Missouri town at the center of the country's latest racially-charged stand-off. Clashes erupted in the St Louis suburb for a second night, after grand jury's decision not to prosecute a white police officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager. AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad
Pictures of the year 2014
A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Turkey at the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province on September 23, 2014. The UN refugee agency warned Tuesday that as many as 400,000 people may flee to Turkey from Syria's Kurdish region to escape attacks by the Islamic State group. AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC
Pictures of the year 2014
Protestors and student demonstrators hold up their cellphones in a display of solidarity during a protest outside the headquarters of Legislative Council in Hong Kong on September 29, 2014. Hong Kong has been plunged into the worst political crisis since its 1997 handover as pro-democracy activists take over the streets following China's refusal to grant citizens full universal suffrage. AFP PHOTO / XAUME OLLEROS
Pictures of the year 2014
Senior soloist of the Joburg Ballet Kitty Phetla performs in a classroom at the Nka-Thuto Primary School in Soweto on October 16, 2014. Using ballet and dance to promote healthy and positive choices, Joburg Ballet will provide lecture demonstrations to twenty schools in Soweto, raising awareness and informing students of the available free classes they provide together with the provincial department of education. AFP PHOTO/MARCO LONGARI
ALL PHOTOS
Global South needs $2 trillion a year to tame, cope with climate
Winter arrives in Turkey as snowfall hits metropolises
Kütahya province welcomes winter with snowfall
Ancient Dara captivates tourists
Ancient Patara lures visitors
Enchanting sunset scenery from 'Little Venice'
Blanket of snow covers renowned crater lake
Frozen Lake Çıldır lures visitors
Postcard-like winter views from Turkey's Bitlis
