World in pictures

SUMMER FUN: Beachgoers swim in the sea at a beach on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba near a parked 1954 Ford car.

WEDDING GARB: Palestinian girls sit in front of brides during a mass wedding for 240 couples organized by the Hamas movement, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

MOURNING: A man reads notes left in a sea of candles in a tunnel near the site where 21 revellers died as a result of a stampede on the fringe of the Love Parade techno festival in Germany.

QUICK COOLDOWN: Children play in the fountain at Rockville Town Square on a hot summer's day in Maryland.

A kitten sits next to a fish tail at the fish market in Essaouira, Morocco.

Rescued penguins wait to be fed in Piriapolis, Uruguay. Some 200 penguins, migrating from Patagonia, Argentina, arrived at the Uruguayan coast recently covered with oil and most of them have died, according to SOS Rescate Fauna Marina.

AnimalNaturalis activists, with their body covered in fake oil, take part in a protest over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, in Mexico City, July 22, 2010.

Childern cool off at the Hamilton Fish park pool on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Thursday, July 22, 2010 in New York.

Children play under rain clouds in a slum area in Karachi July 22, 2010.

Cyclist Eric Davidson, 65, battles against the rain to reach the top of Hartside Summit during his 300 mile cycling holiday in the North Pennines, England, July 22. The north of England is suffering heavy rain and flash floods while in the south temperatures soar.

Comic-Con attendee Cher Delacy, dressed as a character from Alice in Wonderland, at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, July 22.

An Adelieledone polymorpha, one of the four new venomous species of octopuses that researchers have discovered in Antarctica.

BACK TO WORK: US President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama with their daughters Malia and Sasha arrive at the White House in Washington following a weekend in Maine.

BOSTON: Paper lanterns float on Lake Hibiscus during the Forest Hills Lantern Festival in Boston, Massachusetts. The festival draws on similar rituals practiced in various forms throughout Asia and offers a way to remember departed family and friends.

JAPAN: Trucks washed away from a road are seen in Kani, central Japan, after the Kani river nearby flooded due to heavy rain. Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan have been urged to evacuate their homes as heavy rains caused mudslides and flooded houses.

ZEBRA BABY: A newborn male Grant's Zebra is flanked by his mother Wendy at the Rome Zoo. Its parents Wendy and Chucky are originally from a Dutch safari park.

FRENCH GALLANTRY: France's President Sarkozy kisses the hand of his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, during the annual Bastille Day military parade in Paris.

GULF COAST: US First lady Michelle Obama flashes two thumbs-up to the crowd at Panama City Beach in Florida as she promotes the area's tourism in the wake of the oil disaster.

GEORGIA: Children are baptised during a mass baptism ceremony in the town of Mtskheta outside Tbilisi. About 700 children were baptised by the Georgian Orthodox church during the 12th mass baptism ceremony led by Patriarch Ilia II.

GEORGE W: An Albanian worker tends to a monument of former US President George W Bush at a foundry near Tirana. The monument is cast in bronze, is 2.8m high and weighs 400kg. The final work will be placed in the city of Fushe-Kruje which Bush visited in 2007.

TOTAL ECLIPSE: The moon passes between the sun and the earth during a solar eclipse in Valparaiso City, northwest of Santiago. The effect was created by shooting part of the image through a piece of exposed X-ray film.

SWITZERLAND: A cyclist rides his bike past the spray of a sprinkler in a public garden on a hot summer day in Zurich.

SPAIN: A fallen runner is hit in the head by the leg of a Miura fighting bull during the fifth bull run of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona. A runner was gored in the leg and three more needed hospital treatment following a run that lasted three minutes and two seconds.

KEEPING COOL: People take a dip in a black mud pool at a tourist resort to escape the summer heat in Daying county of Suining, Sichuan province as China experienced temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius.

BALL SKILLS: Soccer freestyler Iya Traore from Guinea performs with a ball in the gardens of the Montmartre's Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris.

PAKISTAN: The wife and child of a man killed by a suicide bomb weep. Three suicide bombers struck a Sufi shrine in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore killing at least 42 people and wounding more than 170.

BALI: A Balinese woman smiles as she carries goods on her head at the Sukawati art market on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT HAT: Pope Benedict XVI wears the "Saturno" hat as he arrives to lead the weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.

SOUTH AFRICA: A young African elephant is seen at a nature reserve in Pilanesberg near Sun City.

VENEZUELA: An aerial view of the environmental damage caused by illegal mining at Canaima National Park. Thousands have been evicted from pristine jungles, where miners tempted by high gold prices rip down trees and blast mercury into mud.

AFGHANISTAN: An Afghan girl carries her brother in the village of Maruf-Kariz in Dand district, south of Kandahar.

WALES: A Guards regimental band marches through ticker tape during a parade on Armed Forces Day in Cardiff, Wales.

KIEV: Activists from the female rights organisation Femen walk away after holding a rally at the entrance to the Ukrainian Security Service headquarters in Kiev.

CHINA FLOODS: A flood victim holds his wife in Fuzhou, Jiangxi province. A flood-threatened dyke suffered a fresh breach after an earlier break forced 100,000 residents to flee as heavy rains swelled rivers and dams across the region.

SOLSTICE: A man uses a camera on a rocky crest filled with astronomical markers during the summer solstice at the Kokino megalithic observatory. The 3800-year-old observatory was discovered in 2001 in the town of Kumanovo, Macedonia and is the fourth oldest observatory in the world, according to NASA.

GUTTED: Britain's Princes William and Harry watch England and Algeria reach a 0-0 draw at Green Point stadium in Cape Town.

KISSING LEADERS: Britain's Prime Minister Cameron, and his wife Samantha, say goodbye to French President Sarkozy, and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, outside number 10 Downing Street in London.

ISRAEL: Rinat Matalon of the Wildlife Veterinary hospital feeds a baby desert porcupine at a hospital in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. The hospital treats about 2000 animals each year, many of which are rescued after suffering injuries in the wild.

DAY AT THE RACES: Racegoers arrive for the third day of racing at Royal Ascot in southern England.

GOING SWIMMINGLY: Lei Zhiqian rides a modified bicycle across the Hanjiang River. The bicycle, equipped with eight empty water containers at the bottom, was modified by Lei's instructor Li Weiguo, who hopes to put his invention on the market.

BANNED: A sticker forbidding the blowing of vuvuzelas is seen on a door of a mall in downtown Bloemfontein.

HOLDING ON: A koala joey hangs on a toy koala during a weighing procedure at the zoo in the western German city of Duisburg. The 215 day-old Koala baby, which weighs 528 grams, has yet to be named.

IS IS A BIRD, IS IT A PLANE: Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice, Prince Willam and other members of the royal family watch a fly-past from the balcony of Buckingham Palace after attending the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London.

NUDES ON BIKES: Naked cyclists taking part in the World Naked Bike Ride cross Westminster Bridge, in Central London. The ride aimed to highlight what the organisers said where the dangers to cyclists, pedestrians and the environment posed by oil and other forms of non-renewable energy.