MSNBC: Pictures of Year Selection

Source: Xinhua

That's my Flat Daddy
Ashton Gardner, 6, looks over at a large cardboard picture of his father, Troy Gardner, in the back yard of his home in Ellsworth, Me., on Tuesday, Sept. 12. The Maine National Guard is giving life-size pictures of soldiers to the families of deployed guard members. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Brazil prison crisis
Prisoners hold one guard hostage with a knife at his throat as two others lie bound on the floor at the Campo Mourao prison in Parana, Brazil May 15. Deadly gang violence in the streets of Sao Paulo was mirrored in the Brazilian prison system. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Flat-lining
A dead armadillo lies on the side of the road in Columbus, Ga., near Fort Benning on Tuesday, May 9, after a work crew painted over the carcass while restriping the road.(Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Roadblocks after the quake
A large flock of sheep blocks a mountain road that a year before was buried by a landslide in the Kashmir region of Pakistan on Saturday, Sept. 23. A 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 80,000 people in 2005. Despite pledges of 6.7 billion U.S. dollars in aid, reconstruction has proceeded slowly. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Chilled primates
A group of crested macaques, more accustomed to tropical rainforests in Indonesia, huddle together for warmth in Dublin Zoo in Dublin, Ireland, on Dec. 30, 2005. The primates are endangered in their own land because of hunting and the clearing of their native habitat. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Resisting West Bank evacuation
A Jewish settler struggles with Israeli security officers as authorities evacuated the Amona settlement in the West Bank on Wednesday, Feb. 1. Thousands of troops clashed with hundreds of settlers after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the demolition of nine homes in the illegal settlement. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Indonesian volcano spews smoke
Indonesia's Mount Merapi spews lava and thick smoke as seen from Tuggularum village in Yogykarta on May 14. Indonesia raised the alert status for the volcano to the highest level the day before, prompting compulsory evacuation of thousands living on the slopes. Some ignored the order.(Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Bucketbath time in India
Nineteen-month-old Hardhik cries as he takes a bath in a bucket in Virar, India, about 40 km from Mumbai, on Dec. 27, 2005. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Death in Congo
A mother closes the eyes of her dead child at a funeral at a camp for displaced people on Monday, July 24, in Manji-Sona, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Four children a day die at the camp. Violence, disease and malnutrition kill 1,200 a day in the DRC, the UN says. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Israeli-Hezbollah fighting
Israeli soldiers cover their ears as an artillery piece fires into southern Lebanon from a position near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, on Friday, July 14, as Israel responded to an escalation of the threats of missile attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

News from the Beirut front
Lebanese citizens watch Hezbollah leaders Sheik Hassan Nasrallah speak as smoke rises from Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah stronghold in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday, July 16. Nasrallah said his guerrillas were "in their full strength and power" after five days of Israeli bombardment. (Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

(Photo source: CRIOnline.com)

Editor: Helena Zhang