Light reflects from empty railway tracks outside the Saint Lazare train station in Paris on Tuesday, December 31, 2019. The strikes over the French government’s plan to revamp the retirement system have disrupted transport across France and beyond, hobbling Paris Metros and trains across the country as well as businesses. The strikes have been especially felt over the holiday season.
A woman holding incence sticks offers prayers on the first day of the New Year at Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing, Wednesday, January 1, 2020. New Year’s Eve isn’t celebrated widely in mainland China, where the lunar New Year is a more important holiday. But countdown events were held in major cities, and some of the faithful headed to Buddhist temples for bell-ringing and prayers.
Protesters set fires in front of the United States embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday, December 31, 2019. Dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters broke into the US Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday. The breach at the embassy followed US airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah.
A man holds a hot cup of tea on a cold and foggy morning in Jammu, India, Tuesday, December 31, 2019. Opaque, chilly smog has blanketed northern India as just-about-freezing temperatures collided with hazardous levels of air pollution. The cold and fog are expected to continue into the new year.
A boy carries a portrait of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq, prior to the Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, yesterday. Iran has vowed “harsh retaliation” for the US airstrike near Baghdad’s airport that killed Tehran’s top general and the architect of its interventions across the Middle East, as tensions soared in the wake of the targeted killing.
Birds fly over an anchored boat in the river Brahmaputra on a cold winter morning in Gauhati, India, Friday, January 3, 2020. Brahmaputra is one of Asia’s largest rivers, which passes through China’s Tibet region, India and Bangladesh before converging into the Bay of Bengal.
Orthodox Jewish people gather on a street in Monsey, New York, on early Sunday, December 29, 2019, following a nearby stabbing late Saturday at a Hanukkah celebration. A knife-wielding man stormed into a rabbi’s home and stabbed five people in the Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City.
Fireworks light the sky above the St Severi’s Church (left) and the Mariendom (Cathedral of Mary) at right, during New Year’s celebrations in Erfurt, central Germany, on Wednesday, January 1, 2020.
