Portfolio 2011: The year in pictures

The year's most unforgettable photographs

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Protest in Egypt
8 February

Hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters crowd Cairo's Tahrir square in the largest protests since the start of a revolt against President Hosni Mubarak.
MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Victory in Libya
7 March

A Libyan rebel fighter wearing his old national flag flashes the 'victory' sign as he looks at an air force fighter jet overhead at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the oil town of Ras Lanuf.
AFP/ROBERTO SCHMIDT

After the Tsunami, Japan
13 March

A woman sits and weeps amid the remains of the city of Natori in northern Japan, after a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 15,000 people, as well as causing catastrophic damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
ASAHI SHIMBUN/REUTERS

Royal wedding
29 April

Crowds outside Buckingham Palace for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton
PAUL GROVER/REX FEATURES

Watching Bin Laden's death
1 May

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and US security officials in the White House Situation Room, observing the Abbottabad operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed.
REX FEATURES

DSK in court
16 May

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund, waits to be arraigned on charges of sexual assault in Manhattan Central Court (The charges were later dropped). AP

Anti-austerity protests
15 June

Protesters clash with riot police during a demonstration near parliament in central Athens. Thousands of demonstrators besieged the Greek parliament in a large anti-austerity protest marred by violence, leaving at least a dozen injured.
ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The end of the 'world'
10 July

Rupert Murdoch arrives at Wapping reading the last ever edition of the News of the World,which he closed in response to the phone-hacking scandal.
REX FEATURES

Anger in Tahrir Square
15 July

Egyptian protesters, angry at the slow pace of reform by their military rulers, wave their national flag and shout slogans as thousands crowd Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand political change.
MOHAMED HOSSAM/AFP/GETTY

Norway atrocities
22 July

Norwegian military police carry a young woman covered in blood to an ambulance after an explosion in central Oslo, which damaged government buildings including Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's office. The bombing, which killed eight people, was the work of Anders Breivik, a right-wing fanatic who, on the same day, massacred 69 young people, mostly teenagers, on the island of Utoya.
EPA/THOMAS WINJE

Mubarak tried
3 August

An Egyptian state television image shows former president Hosni Mubarak, 83, on a hospital bed in a mesh cage in a Cairo courtroom for his trial on charges of corruption and ordering the deaths of protesters.
REX FEATURES

Refugees, Kenya
14 August

A newly arrived Somalian refugee washes her children at the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya. The camp is home to more than 440,000 people.

GETTY IMAGES

A tyrant falls
23 August

Jubilant rebel fighters stamp on the remains of a statue of Muammar Gaddafi inside the dictator's main compound in Bab Al-Aziziya, Tripoli.
SERGEY PONOMAREV/AP

Mourning Steve Jobs
5 October

Students in Cupertino, California, mourn the death of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who died at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
GETTY IMAGES

Street music
10 October

A fearless guitarist provides musical encouragement for Libya's National Transitional Council fighters in a street battle in Sirte.
ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/GETTY

Anti-capitalist protest
16 October

Members of the Occupy movement in front of St Paul's Cathedral, as part of a global wave of protests (inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Indignant' movements) against the excesses of capitalism. Demonstrators also gathered near the London Stock Exchange. The St Paul's camp remained in place for more than two months
BEN STANSALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Occupying the cities
18 October

Masked protester outside the Frankfurt headquarters of the European Central Bank - one of many 'occupations' around the world inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests in the US.
GETTY IMAGES

Fall of Gaddafi
20 October

A mobile phone image shows the arrest of a badly wounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi near his home town of Sirte. The Libyan dictator was killed, in circumstances that remain controversial, shortly afterwards.
PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

G20 Summit talk
2 November

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, after arriving for talks with European Union and IMF representatives in Cannes, on the eve of the G20 Summit.
THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES