2023 in pictures: Striking photos from around the world
A selection of the most powerful pictures taken by news-agency photographers around the world this year.
More than a million people in France joined a day of protests and strikes against plans to push back the age of retirement from 62 to 64. Some 80,000 protesters took to the streets of Paris, with demonstrations in 200 more French cities.
Thousands of people paid their respects to former Pope Benedict XVI at his lying in state at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. He died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 95, almost a decade after he stood down because of ill health.
More than 750 people lost their homes and more than 40 died in landslides after record rainfall in a coastal area near São Paulo, Brazil. All but one of the deaths were in São Sebastião, 80km (50 miles) north of Bertioga.
Tens of thousands of people were killed and scores more injured by a huge earthquake which struck south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, in February. A woman walks alone among destroyed buildings in Hatay.
Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win best actress, as Everything Everywhere All at Once dominated at the Oscars. The multiverse adventure won seven awards, including best picture, director and original screenplay. Yeoh’s co-stars, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, triumphed in the supporting actor and actress categories.
Lyubov Vasilivna, 71, struggles to explain why she wishes to remain in her home and not evacuate from the village of Semenivka, near the frontline town of Avdiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. Since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of violating the Geneva Conventions.
Smoke billows after a fire broke out inside the Appa Pada slum in Mumbai, India. More than 1,000 houses were damaged or destroyed in the blaze.
Police officers stand guard with their shields covered in red paint during a protest by teachers against a new curriculum established by Bolivia’s Ministry of Education, in La Paz, Bolivia.
Former US president Donald Trump leaves a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, following his court appearance over an alleged “hush-money” payment. Mr Trump pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan courtroom to 34 counts of falsifying business records, but has not yet stood trial.
Fans flooded the streets of Naples, Italy, singing, dancing and hugging one another, after the city’s team won their first Serie A football title in 33 years.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following their Coronation in London, England. Charles became King on 8 September 2022, upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Revellers turn out to support LGBTQ rights during the Pride march in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline, as seen from Queens, New York City.
Colombian Air Force staff attend children who survived a plane crash in the Colombian jungle. Four indigenous children disappeared after the crash, on 1 May, sparking a massive search operation. Forty days later, the children, aged 13, nine, five and one, were found after their cries were heard. All four were exhausted, malnourished and dehydrated but alive.
Angela Stevenson, a marine scientist at the Geomar research institute in Kiel, collects flowering seagrass for research, from an underwater meadow in Laboe, Germany.
Judge Vincent Holian oversees the yearling filly class at the Roundstone Connemara Pony Show, in County Galway, Republic of Ireland.
Australian surfer Olivia Ottaway dives under a wave in Teahupo’o, French Polynesia. The village has been staging the World Surf League’s Tahiti Pro event for more than two decades and will next year host surfing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Jonay Ravelo sits on his horse, Nivaria, and observes the super moon, known as the Blue Moon, from a mountain in Mogan, southern Gran Canaria, Spain, on 31 August. Blue Moons occur in years when there are 13 full moons rather than the usual 12.
Firefighters attempt to extinguish a wildfire on burned peatland and fields in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia. At least six provinces in the country had to contend with forest fires from illegal blazes to clear land for agricultural plantations.
Migrants wait for some food from an aid worker after gathering between the primary and secondary border fences between Mexico and the United States, awaiting processing by US immigration officials in San Diego, USA.
Afghans congregate on a mound of rubble in the wake of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Herat. Two large earthquakes hit western Afghanistan four days apart, killing more than 1,300 people. The United Nations called it a “disaster on top of a disaster” in a nation still reeling from decades of war.
Hadas Kalderon, of Nir Oz kibbutz, Israel, whose children were taken hostage, breaks down in tears looking through the burnt out home of her mother, Rina Sutzkever, who was killed, along with her Ms Kalderon’s niece. Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, embraces the body of her five-year-old niece, Saly, killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Air and artillery strikes by the Israeli military have killed more than 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Maori perform karakia (incantations and prayer) to pay their respects to a sperm whale washed up at New Brighton, Christchurch, New Zealand.
A leading critic of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was granted bail after almost seven years in jail on charges related to his bloody war on drugs. Former senator Leila de Lima is accused of receiving drug money in a case she says is politically motivated.
Huge cracks appeared in the Icelandic town of Grindavik, hit by earthquakes. Thousands of people were evacuated, as officials feared an imminent volcanic eruption.
Plumes of smoke rise from the snow-covered Villarrica, in Pucon, Chile. The 2,847m (9,340ft) volcano, one of the most active in South America, last erupted in 2015.
Dancers Pauline Okumu and Natalia Como hug backstage during the festive production of classical ballet The Nutcracker, at the Kenya National Theatre, in Nairobi.
