China ... three-year-old Yang Yang kisses a beluga whale during a publicity photo call at the

Qingdao Polar Ocean World

Reuters year in

pictures.

Netherlands ... naked volunteers

pose for US photographer

Spencer Tunick on an "invisible"

bridge constructed for

the photoshoot in Amsterdam,

South Africa ... surfers in an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the highest number of riders on a single wave at Muizenberg in Cape

Town.

Austria ... women

dressed as clowns in front of a work by British artist Damien Hirst

titled "Iodomethane - 13C" at the Kunsthaus in

Bregenz

Indonesia ... all that can be seen of a passenger on board a train at a station in

Jakarta.

USA ... the space shuttle Discovery

lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy

Space Centre in Florida.

Belgium ... a young member of the folkloric brotherhood of Blancs Moussis adjusts his mask during a carnival celebrating its 60th anniversary in Stavelot,

Poland ... kayakers in the Rospuda nature reserve

near Augustow.

China ... a worker cleans the windows of an apartment block in Beijing's central buisiness district,

South Korea ... members of the South Korean Marine Corps scrub their bodies with snow during an annual

winter season drill in Pyongchang

China ... paramilitary recruits practice

goose-stepping in Nanjing,

USA ... students hold their candles aloft during

a vigil after a gunman killed 32 people at

Virginia Tech

Indonesia ... children play on a railway track in a

slum area in Jakarta,

United Kingdom ... a reveller slides in the mud during the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset,

Guatemala ... a giant sinkhole that swallowed

several homes in Guatemala City.

USA ... boots representing Corporal

Timothy D. Ross sit among more than 3400 pairs of combat boots, one pair for every US

soldier killed in the Iraq War

Roelof.