RFE/RL looks back at the year 2011, from the Arab Spring to memorial services for Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel.
2011: The Year in Photos
1
Birds fly past an Orthodox church during a partial solar eclipse in the town of Volozhin, Belarus, on January 4. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
2
Turkish police spray demonstrators with water cannon during a student rally against the Islamic-linked government in Ankara on January 5. (AFP/Adem Altan)
3
Afghan soldiers sit on the ground at a training center in Kabul on January 11 during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. (AFP/Shah Marai)
4
U.S. President Barack Obama hugs NASA shuttle commander Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, after Giffords was seriously wounded in a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that left six people dead. (Reuters/Jim Young)
5
A protester throws a tear-gas canister back at riot police during a demonstration in Tunis on January 18, shortly after protests forced out longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the first wave of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring. (Reuters/Zo
6
A woman cries while talking on the phone to an acquaintance at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport as news broke of a suicide bombing there that killed 31 people and injured more than 130 on January 24. (Reuters/Denis Sinyakov)
7
Opposition supporters wave roses during an antigovernment protest in Sanaa, Yemen, on January 26, as the Arab Spring protests spread. After waging a months-long crackdown on protesters, President Ali Abdullah Saleh eventually stepped down. (Reuters/Khaled
8
Grand Mufti of Bosnia Mustafa Ceric visits the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, where prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians on February 1 in a gesture of solidarity against Holocaust deniers. (Reuters/Michal Lepecki)
9
An antigovernment protester waves a bloodstained Egyptian flag in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on February 4. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)
10
Protesters celebrate in Tahrir Square after the announcement of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation on February 11. An estimated 2 million people took part in the demonstrations that forced Mubarak out after nearly three decades in power. (
11
Protesters throw stones at riot police during an antigovernment demonstration in Tehran on February 14, held in support of the Arab uprisings in neighboring countries. (AFP)
12
Protesters run for cover after police fire tear gas in the village of Diraz, Bahrain, on February 14. Demands for greater political freedoms in Bahrain were met with a violent crackdown. (AFP)
13
An ethnic Albanian man holding a U.S. flag jogs down a road lined with Albanian national flags in the town of Kacanik, Kosovo, on February 16, one day before Kosovo celebrated the third anniversary of its declaration of independence from Serbia. (Reuters/
14
People in Lviv, Ukraine, pay little attention to a live TV show marking President Viktor Yanukovych's first year in office on February 25. (AFP/Yuriy Dyachyshyn)
15
Riot police hold their ground during the "Day of Rage" protest in Baghdad on February 25 against corruption and a lack of basic services. (Reuters/Saad Shalash)
16
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden greets people in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, on March 11. Biden is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit Moldova, Europe's poorest country. (AFP/Vadin Denisov)
17
Burning houses are swept out to sea in Natori, northeastern Japan, after the strongest earthquake on record and a massive tsunami struck the coast on March 11. (Reuters/Yomiuri)
18
A woman cries in the destroyed city of Natori, Japan, two days after an earthquake and tsunami left some 23,000 dead or missing. (Reuters/Asahi Shimbun)
19
Opposition activists in Moscow hold pictures of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka with the text "Next In Line" on March 13. (AFP/Andrey Smirnov)
20
Female students wear head scarves during classes at the Grozny State Oil Institute in Chechnya. The Kremlin-backed Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued a decree establishing an Islamic dress code for female public servants. (AFP/Mikhail Mordasov)
21
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev kisses the national flag during his inauguration in Astana on April 8. (Reuters/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov)
23
A child's gas mask and a shoe are seen at a kindergarten in the abandoned city of Prypyat near Chornobyl, shortly before Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus marked the 25th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident on April 26. (Reuters/Gle
24
A French Muslim woman of North African descent wears a niqab at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris, defying France's new ban on wearing full face veils. (Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier )
25
Police apprehend a girl after she shouted "freedom" during an opposition rally in Baku on April 17. The girl and her mother were both taken away in a police car. (Reuters/Irada Humbatov)
26
Britain's Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, travel to Buckingham Palace after their wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London on April 29. (Reuters/Warren Allott)