Photos Of The Day
Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's broadcast region and beyond. For more photo galleries, see our "Picture This" archive.
Published 15 February 2013
1 The trail of a meteor is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. The strike caused widespread injuries and damage. (AFP/Oleg Kargopolov)
2 U.S. President Barack Obama uses a magnifying glass to play a game with children in a pre-kindergarten classroom at an early childhood learning center in Decatur, Georgia. (Reuters/Jason Reed)
3 People visit in front of bronze statues of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung (left) and late leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. (Reuters/Kyodo)
4 Soldiers fire a salute at a monument to Kyrgyz-born Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan while fighting against the Afghan rebels in the 1980s during a ceremony in Bishkek. (AFP/Vyacheslav Oseledko)
5 Members of the Druze community take part in a rally in the Druze village of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights. (Reuters/Baz Ratner)
6 Israeli soldiers clean the barrel of a mobile artillery unit after an exercise in the Golan Heights, near Israel's border with Syria. (Reuters/Baz Ratner)
7 Zenit St. Petersburg fans cheer as they support their team during the Europa League soccer match against Liverpool at the Petrovsky stadium in St. Petersburg. (Reuters/Alexander Demianchuk)
8 A wedding party crowds around a bonfire to mark Trndez, an ancient pagan festival now absorbed into the Christian calendar, in Yerevan, Armenia.3. (AFP/Karen Minasyan)
9 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) and his Georgian counterpart, Bidzina Ivanishvili, attend a ceremony in Ankara. (AFP/Adem Altan)
10 Women walk past heart-shaped balloons on Valentine's Day in Lahore, Pakistan. (Reuters/Mohsin Raza)
11 People take part in a mass Hula Hoop event in a stadium at Thammasat University Rangsit campus in Bangkok, Thailand. The event was organised by Thailand's Public Health Ministry to promote exercise. (AFP/Thai Public Health Ministry)
12 A skier sets off from the peak of Mount Aigba in the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, some 50 kilometers from Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi. (AFP/Leon Neal)
13 A Free Syrian Army fighter covers his face in the district of Salaheddine in Aleppo. (Reuters/Aref Hretani)
14 Assistants carry Pope Benedict XVI's armchair prior to a Mass on Ash Wednesday at St. Peter's basilica at the Vatican. (AFP/Gabriel Bouys)
15 People carry firewood in their horse-driven cart at sunset on a road south of the Romanian capital, Bucharest. (Reuters/Bogdan Cristel)
16 Um Jaafar, a woman fighter in the Free Syrian Army, sits with her husband, Abu Jaafar, a Sawt al-Haq (Voice of Rights) battalion commander, and their daughter Faten at their home in Aleppo. Um Jaafar was a hairdresser before the revolution. (Reuters/Muzaffar Salman)
17 Newly initiatiated Hindu holy men are reflected in the water of the River Ganges during the Pitcher Festival in Allahabad in northern India. (Reuters/Jitendra Prakash)
18 Snowboarders practice in the half-pipe at the Extreme Park, a Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics venue for the snowboard and skiing freestyle events in Rosa Khutor near Sochi, Russia. (RIA Novosti/Ramil Sitdikov)
19 Girls appear through holes in a big national flag as they prepare to take part in a parade commemorating the second anniversary of the uprising against Yemen's former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa. (Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)
20 A Yemeni tribesman carries a national flag as he walks between chairs before a rally to commemorate the second anniversary of the uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Bani Hushaish. (Reuters/Mohamed al-Sayaghi)
21 A protester shouts at riot police during clashes in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo. (Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)
22 The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which ends in total darkness in the North Korean town of Sinuiju. (AFP/Mark Ralston)
23 Workers place blocks of ice around the remains of "Lolong," who at 6.17 meters was the largest saltwater crocodile in captivity, in Bunawan, on the island of Mindinao in the Philippines. Lolong survived just 17 months after capture. (AFP/Erwin Mascarinas)
24 A performer passes a snake from his nose through his mouth during festivities to ring in the lunar new year festivities in Beijing, China. (AFP/Ed Jones)
25 An employee tends to bottles at a winery in Tbilisi. Georgian officials recently held talks in Moscow to make preliminary arrangements for the lifting of a Russian trade embargo on Georgian wine and mineral water. (AFP/Vano Shlamov)
26 Visitors to a "chocolate spa" that's part of a St. Valentine's Day promotion enjoy the fun at a resort in Hakone, Japan. (AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)
27 A 4-month-old chimpanzee at Malaysia's national zoo in Kuala Lumpur. (AFP/Mohd Rasfan)
28 Devotees converge on the Sangam -- the confluence of the sacred Yamuna, Ganges, and Sarawati rivers -- in Allahabad, India during the world's largest religious festival, known as Maha Kumbh. (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)
29 Hindus bathe in the waters of the Sangam in Allahabad, India during the Maha Kumbh religious festival. (AFP/Manan Vatsyayana)
30 Hindu devotees pray and bathe after ash-smeared, naked saints led the ritual predawn bathing in the Kumbh Mela, which is said to cleanse pilgrims of their sins. Millions follow the saints into the swirling river waters at the festival site in Allahabad, in northern India. (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)
31 Iranians attend a rally to mark the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. (ISNA)
32 A motorcyclist passes a checkered-flag bearer during a snowbound race in the woods near Radoshkovichi, Belarus. (AFP/Viktor Drachev)
33 Revelers take part in the playful Bloco da Lama (Mud Block) festival in Parati, in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, to accompany the Carnival. (AFP/Victor Moriyama)