The Agence France Presse (AFP) has just released its AFP Pictures Of The Year from 2014, which like every year helps to paint a portrait of the past year, with incredible, strong and fascinating pictures from all around the world, captured on the spot during the events that had marked the spirits.
Protesters pose with a police shield outside the parliament in Ouagadougou on October 30, 2014 as cars and documents burn outside. Hundreds of angry demonstrators in Burkina Faso stormed parliament on October 30 before setting it on fire in protest at plans to change the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaore to extend his 27-year rule. Police had fired tear gas on protesters to try to prevent them from moving in on the National Assembly building ahead of a vote on the controversial legislation. But about 1,500 people managed to break through the security cordon and were ransacking parliament. AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty ImagesThis picture taken on July 25, 2014 shows people cooling off in a water park 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 PHOTOSTR/AFP/Getty ImagesChildren 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/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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/AFP/Getty ImagesWorkers wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) stand inside the contaminated area at the Elwa hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), on September 7, 2014 in Monrovia. AFP PHOTO / DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty ImagesLightning flashes over the Christ the Redeemer statue on top of Corcovado Hill in Rio de Janeiro on January 14, 2014. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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/AFP/Getty ImagesWorld Champion Christian Sprenger of Australia swims during a swimming clinic session for children with special needs on the rooftop pool of the Marina Bay Sands resort hotel in Singapore on May 20, 2014. Sprenger is in Singapore to promote the Singapore Swim Stars held in September, a three-day swim festival that includes an unprecedented competition format involving some of the world’s best swimmers which will showcase a synchronized swimming as well as swimming clinics. AFP PHOTO/ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty ImagesHeavy 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/AFP/Getty ImagesThis 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/AFP/Getty ImagesA boy stands on an airplane in the Christian Mpoko refugee camp on February 20, 2014 during sunset, in Bangui, Central African Republic. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty ImagesThe car of Caterham-Renault driver Kamui Kobayashi of Japan veers off the track during an accident at the start of the Formula One Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Saeed KHAN /AFP/Getty ImagesA 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. Turkey’s ruling party said it was optimistic about the prospects for the peace process with Kurdish rebels after a spate of violence raised concern about its viability. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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/AFP/Getty ImagesGerman 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. AFP PHOTO/CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople look on as a woman reacts after her husband is suspected of dying from the Ebola virus, in the Liberian capital Monrovia, on October 4, 2014. AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty ImagesSouth 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/AFP/Getty ImagesProtestors 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/AFP/Getty ImagesAn 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/AFP/Getty ImagesAn 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/AFP/Getty ImagesBrazil’s defender David Luiz celebrates scoring during the quarter-final football match between Brazil and Colombia at the Castelao Stadium in Fortaleza during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on July 4, 2014. AFP PHOTO / VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty ImagesA competitor competes in the Mud Madness race, at Foymore Lodge in Portadown, County Armagh on September 14, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Paul FAITH/AFP/Getty ImagesDemonstrators 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/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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/AFP/Getty ImagesPolicemen rest following pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong on September 29, 2014. Police fired tear gas as tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators brought parts of central Hong Kong to a standstill in a dramatic escalation of protests that have gripped the semi-autonomous Chinese city for days. AFP PHOTO / XAUME OLLEROS/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople play football at sunset at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 9, 2014. AFP PHOTO / YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty ImagesA Syrian man carries two girls covered with dust following a reported air strike by government forces on July 9, 2014 in the northern city of Aleppo. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, by May some 2,000 civilians including 500 children had been killed in the daily air strikes, which rights groups have condemned as a “war crime” for failing to discriminate between military and civilian targets. AFP PHOTO /AMC/ZEIN AL-RIFAI/AFP/Getty ImagesA protestor throws a molotov cocktail at riot police in the centre of Kiev on January 22, 2014. AFP PHOTO/ VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty ImagesProtesters advance to new positions in Kiev on February 20, 2014. AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty ImagesA 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. AFP PHOTO/CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty ImagesAn 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/AFP/Getty ImagesA Syrian Kurdish woman walks in a refugee camp in the town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on October 17, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images
