Germany ... polar bear cub Knut

plays during his first

outing in the Berlin Zoo.

Reuters year in pictures Part 2.

Italy ... Japan's

Kazuhiro Koshi

crosses the finish line during the

men's skeleton

world cup tour in Cesana Pariol,

northern Italy.

Autonomous province of Kosovo

... a Kosovo Albanian protester

flees after UN police fired tear

gas during clashes in Pristina.

Colombia ... charcoal seller

Carlos Vasquez rests in the Caribbean city

of Cartagena.

Sri Lanka ... an elephant destroys a minibus after throwing its rider and going on a rampage during Sri

Lanka's sixth annual elephant polo tournament.

India ... a boy plays in the waves of the Arabian sea at

a beach in Mumbai.

Taiwan ... a

crocodile at a zoo in

the southern

city of Kaohsiung holds the forearm of

a zoo veterinarian in its teeth.

Australia ... the moon is visible during a total lunar eclipse above one of the sails of the Sydney Opera

House.

Netherlands ... children play near a 2.5m Lego man that was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort

of Zandvoort.

China ... a man walks on the handrail of a staircase at a flooded street in southwest

China's Chongqing municipality.

Austria ... Germany's

Tino Edelmann

soars through the air during

the Nordic combined World Cup event in Seefeld.

Malaysia ... toothless kangal, or "doctor" fish, nibble the dead skin of a customer's feet at Malaysia's first

fish spa in Kuala Lumpur

China ... a child gets a haircut on

a street in Nanjing, in

eastern China's Jiangsu province.

Russia ... a soft toy lies amid flowers in

the burned-out school gym in Beslan, on the

anniversary of the 2004 hostage crisis.

Netherlands ... Anak, a 31-year-old Orang Utan, holds

her five-day-old baby Apie in her arms in Ouwehands Zoo

in Rhenen.

United Kingdom ...

workers clean the clock face of Big Ben above the Houses of Parliament in London.

Malaysia ... Diana Hadi, a staff member at the Tiara Malaysia ... Diana Hadi, a staff member at the Tiara Beach Resort, in a swimming pool with 20,000 apples in Beach Resort, in a swimming pool with 20,000 apples in

an attempt to set the national record for the most an attempt to set the national record for the most number of apples used in spa therapy.number of apples used in spa therapy.

Japan ... a boy watches the beetle sumo

competition of the IWBC

(Insect World Battle

Championships) in a miniature ring in Tokyo.

Indonesia ... the Anak Krakatau volcano spews

smoke and lava in the Sunda strait.

Iraq ... male and female pilgrims are separated by a barrier at the Imam Hussein shrine in the holy

city of Kerbala.

United Kingdom ... steam rises from a power station

behind the Royd Moor Wind Farm in Penistone in northern England.

China ... a winter swimmer dives into a river in Heihe, northeast China's

Heilongjiang province.

USA ... a dog tag ID is wedged

between panels of the Vietnam

Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Greece ... a firefighter watches a firefighting

airplane unload water during a

forest fire raging out of

control near the village of Karytena.

China ... the world's tallest living man, Bao Xishun, a

2.36m (7 feet, 9 inches) tall herdsman meets He

Pingping, who measures just a 0.73m (2 feet, 5

inches).

East Timor ... a voter shows his ink-stained finger after casting the ballot in Dili.

Baluchistan province ... villagers surrounded by flood water near Shahdad Kot.

Greece ... a dead bird lies on the dry lake Koronia,

550km north of Athens.

Brazil ... carnival revellers of the Unidos

da Tijuca samba school parade during the second night of

competition between the schools in Rio de

Janeiro.

Roelof.