Best photos of the year 2011

1. Britain's Prince William (L) and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, look at one another after their wedding ceremony in Westminster Abbey, in central London April 29, 2011. Click to continue

2. A miner climbs on excavated rocks after a giant drill machine broke through at the final section Sedrun-Faido, at the construction site of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel March 23, 2011. Crossing the Alps, the world's longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of 2016. The project consists of two parallel single track tunnels, each of a length of 57 km (35 miles).

3. A Somali doctor treats a malnourished child, as the child's mother (L) looks on at Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, July 21, 2011. The child later passed away.

4. A volunteer cleans a family photo that was washed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as baby photos are placed to dry at a volunteer center in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture, April 12, 2011.

5. President Barack Obama (2nd L) and Vice President Joe Biden (L), along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Also pictured are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2nd R) and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (R).

6. Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand lays on the track after falling during the women's 1,500 meters heats at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu August 28, 2011

7. Muslims pray in Hyde Park as protesters demonstrate to show solidarity with the Arab peoples, as they march to Downing Street, in London February 25, 2011.

8. A boy plays with a balloon at an evacuation center set in a gymnasium in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture in northern Japan, March 14, 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area.

9. People watch on a screen as Spanish actor and director Antonio Banderas delivers a traditional speech known as the "pregon" to open the year's Malaga Holy Week in Malaga, southern Spain April 9, 2011

10. A child dressed up as a Spanish legionnaire looks at another holding a toy during the Holy Week in Malaga, southern Spain, April 21, 2011

11. A woman rebel fighter supporter shoots an AK-47 rifle as she reacts to the news of the withdrawal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces from Benghazi March 19, 2011.

12. Zukhro, an employee of the city zoo, walks with Vadik, an 18-month-old male lion, on the territory of the zoo in the capital Dushanbe, January 20, 2011. Employees take the lion from its cage to have a promenade along the territory two times a week while holding a piece of meat to attract Vadik's attention so it walks nearby.

13. A Buddhist monk walks in a flooded street in central Bangkok October 24, 2011.

14. A Palestinian boy looks at an Israeli soldier during a protest at Israel's Qalandiya checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah August 26, 2011.

15. Women stand in the desert in Wajir in this recently taken photo released on July 21, 2011.

16. A baby gestures minutes after he was born inside the pediatric unit at hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa October 21, 2011

17. Policemen and residents run as waves from a tidal bore surge past a barrier on the banks of Qiantang River in Haining, Zhejiang province August 31, 2011. As Typhoon Nanmadol approaches eastern China, the tides and waves in Qiantang River recorded its highest level in 10 years, local media reported

18. People who evacuated from Futaba, a city near the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, rest in a space cordoned off with cardboard in a hallway at the evacuees' new shelter Saitama Super Arena, near Tokyo March 20, 2011, nine days after an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan.

19. Roza Yevloyeva, mother of 20-year-old suicide bomber Magomed Yevloyev, sits on her son's bed during an interview at her house in the town of Ali-Yurt, southeast of Ingushetia's biggest city Nazran, February 16, 2011. Speaking softly through tears in her family's tiny home in the North Caucasus, Yevloyeva apologized for her son's suicide bomb attack on Russia's busiest airport. Yevloyev detonated explosives strapped to his body at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Jan. 24, killing 36 people.

20. Eight-year-old Sumayya, whose uncle, Imran Ali, was injured in a shootout by unidentified gunmen, looks at him as he is brought to a hospital for treatment in Karachi August 23, 2011.

21. Resident boy Adeel, 8, plays with a tennis ball in front of the compound where U.S. Navy SEAL commandos killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad May 5, 2011.

22. A North Korean boy works in a field of a collective farm in the area damaged by summer floods and typhoons in South Hwanghae province September 30, 2011

23. A man in handcuffs cries as he says farewell to his son after he was arrested by the police on suspicion of drug dealing during a pre-dawn raid in an impoverished neighborhood of Bangkok February 25, 2011.

24. A woman opposition supporter takes shelter while providing water during rioting with pro-Mubarak demonstrators near Tahrir Square in Cairo February 3, 2011.

25. A man sets himself on fire outside a bank branch in Thessaloniki in northern Greece September 16, 2011. The 55-year old man had entered the bank and asked for a renegotiation of his overdue loan payments on his home and business, according to police, which he could not pay, but was refused by the bank.

26. Youths pose near their bonfire in Ballykeel housing estate, in Ballymena, Northern Ireland July 11, 2011. Northern Irish Protestants traditionally light bonfires on the 11th of July to celebrate their culture.

27. Demonstrators kiss as they camp out at Madrid's Puerta del Sol, four days after Spanish regional and local elections, early May 26, 2011

28. A man holds a stick as he installs a pump to extract mud at a primitive gold mine in Panompa near Phichin February 17, 2011. A group of Thais use primitive tools and methods to extract gold from self-run mines near the country's biggest and most modern Chatree gold mine. A family working at the mine can get around one gram of gold per day which they sell at the site for about 1000 Thai bahts ($32).

29. Police detain protesters during clashes in Tbilisi May 26, 2011.

30. Migrant workers waiting to board trains wait outside the Dongguan East train station in China's southern Pearl River Delta January 24, 2011

31. A gazelle stands in what local residents say is the bombed out ruins of the compound of Abdullah Al-Senussi, head of the Libyan Intelligence Service and brother in law of Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli August 19, 2011.

32. Police officers rescue a girl who was held hostage by a man in Parramatta, an outer Sydney suburb September 6, 2011. A man claiming to be carrying a bomb occupied a legal office in Sydney, holding his daughter captive in a security scare believed to be linked to a custody dispute, Australian media said .

33. Women and children run away with their belongings from a fire in Kuma Garadayat, a village located in North Darfur controlled by members of SLA-Free Will faction, a signatory of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) May 19, 2011.

34. Rescue workers pay their final respects to a dead body retrieved from the rubble in Rikuzentakat, Iwate Prefecture, days after the area was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami March 17, 2011.

35. Aspiring boxers Chibata (L) and Valdir Aparecido (nicknamed "Gorilla") punch a discarded refrigerator during a training session at a gymnasium under the Alcantara Machado viaduct in the Mooca neighborhood of Sao Paulo, March 28, 2011.

36. Senegalese models prepare backstage before a show during Dakar Fashion Week in Senegal's capital July 7, 2011.

37. A man walks as crude oil spills from a pipeline in Dadabili, Niger state, April 2, 2011.

38. Thousands of Bangladeshi evacuees carry their belongings as they walk away from the border area where they have been stranded for more than four days after crossing into Tunisia and fleeing the violence in Libya, at the border crossing of Ras Jdir March 4, 2011.

39. A rebel on crutches fires a rocket propelled grenade while fighting on the front line in Sirte September 24, 2011