The year in pictures - 2015

9 JANUARY, PALESTINE:

A Palestinian protestor throws a stone at Israeli security forces during clashes following a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel, in the West Bank village of Kfar Qaddum, near Nablus.

Warning: some pictures contain graphic content

11 JANUARY, FRANCE: Demonstrators make their way along Boulevard Voltaire, Paris, in a unity rally following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack on 7 January.

Ukrainian soldiers play football on a road in the war-torn east of the country

23 FEBRUARY, BANGLADESH: A woman reacts after finding the body of a relative following a ferry accident which left 69 dead at Paturia, 70km east of the capital Dhaka.

3 MARCH, KENYA: A Kenya Wildlife Services officer stands near a burning pile of 15 tonnes of elephant ivory seized at Nairobi National Park. An average of 30,000 elephants are poached every year across Africa.

8 MARCH, CHINA: Catherine Gang, whose husband is one of the missing passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, holds a sign as she and other relatives protest outside the Malaysia Embassy in Beijing. There were 239 people on board the flight when it disappeared on 8 March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. More than 21 months after the accident, investigators still haven't discovered the whereabouts of the plane.

18 APRIL, UNITED KINGDOM: As part of the Conservative Party campaign, Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha take part the Vaisakhi Nagar Kirtan procession at Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend, England. The Conservative Party went on to win at the General Election in May.

29 APRIL, NEPAL: Victims of a devastating earthquake in Nepal

9 MAY, RUSSIA: Ceremonial unit soldiers march during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War victory, the term used to describe the battles fought on the Eastern Front during World War II.

11 MAY, MALAYSIA: Illegal Bangladeshi refugees wait at the police headquarters in Langkawi, Malaysia, after landing on Malaysian shores earlier that day. Almost 27,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been rescued off the coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia since the beginning of the year.

22 JUNE, GREECE: People read newspaper headlines in central Athens. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was meeting in Brussels for an emergency eurozone summit, trying to broker a deal with creditors of thedebt-swamped country.

28 JUNE, TUNISIA: A man cries after laying flowers on Marhaba beach, Sousse, where 38 people,

including 30 Britons,

were killed in a terrorist attack on 26 June 2015.

6 JULY, SPAIN: Revellers enjoy the atmosphere during the opening day or 'Chupinazo' of the San Fermin Running of the Bulls fiesta in Pamplona, Spain. The annual Fiesta de San Fermin, made famous by Ernest Hemmingway's 1926 novel 'The Sun Also Rises', involves the daily running of the bulls through the historic heart of Pamplona to the bull ring.

22 JULY, TURKEY: Masked protesters stand on the street in the Gazi district of Istanbul, two days after a suicide bomb killed 33 people and wounded 104 in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey in recent years and the first time the Turkish government directly accused Islamic State of carrying out an act of terror on Turkish soil.

19 AUGUST, NICARAGUA: In Managua, a woman asks permission from riot police to go to her house during protests against the electoral system. Demonstrators asked that elections taking place in 2016 be free and fair, amid accusations that president Daniel Ortega was involved in rigging previous ballots.

28 AUGUST, PALESTINE: An 11-year-old Palestinian boy is held by an Israeli soldier during clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters, following a march against Palestinian land confiscation in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Land confiscations and Israeli settlers have been particularly contentious issues this year, with an escalation in Palestinian-Israeli violence in October. Since then, daily attacks and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers have killed 111 Palestinians, 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.

2 SEPTEMBER, TURKEY: The body of Alan Shenu lies on the shore in Bodrum, southern Turkey, after a boat carrying Syrian refugees sank while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. The photograph was seen as a turning point in the refugee crisis, renewing debate about Europe's responsibility to help the victims of overseas conflicts.

23 SEPTEMBER, UNITED STATES: Pope Francis leans out and waves to the crowds as he rides along a parade route around the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Pope was on his first official visit to the United States, which lasted for a week and marked the first time a pontiff ever addressed Congress and the United Nations General Assembly.

2 OCTOBER, GREECE: A woman and her child fall into the water as they disembark off a dinghi, as refugees arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after making the three-hour sea trip from Turkey. Around 400,000 people, most of them Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans fleeing war, have arrived on Greek shores this year.

12 OCTOBER, UNITED STATES: In St Louis, Missouri, a demonstrator protesting police brutality and the recent violent killings of black people by police officers gets help after being maced by police. The St Louis area has been struggling to heal since riots erupted in suburban Ferguson following the death of a man called Michael Brown in August 2014. In 2015 alone, more than 1,000 people have been killed by police in the US, 6.3 per cent of them black.

1 NOVEMBER, INDONESIA: Peatland forest is cleared by burning, to make way for a palm oil plantation on the outskirts of Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Forest fires have occurred throughout Indonesia

.

Efforts to extinguish them have been hampered by seasonal dry conditions exacerbated by the El Nino effect. The fires add to years of deforestation by palm oil, timber and other agribusiness companies, and further endanger rare animal species such as the orangutan.

16 NOVEMBER, FRANCE: Members of the public leave candles and tributes opposite the main entrance of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where a series of terrorist attacks occurred on 13 November, killing 130 people.

9 DECEMBER, SOUTH KOREA:

15 DECEMBER, KAZAKHSTAN: Photographers take pictures of Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. British astronaut Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Tim Kopra arrived safely at the