1The Soyuz TMA-04M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying Expedition 31 Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka, NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin to the International Space Station. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

2France's outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy and outgoing First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy leave the Elysee Palace at the end of a handover ceremony in Paris as newly-elected President Francois Hollande (R Rear) and companion Valerie Trierweiler look on from the steps of the palace. (Reuters)

3Local radio personalities Fitzy, right, and Wippa, left, lift Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the world shortest person, as water rushes in at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Dangi, a 72-year-old Nepalese man who according to the Guinness World Records, is 54.6 centimeters (21.5 inches), touches the ocean and sand for the first time in his life. (AP)

4Masked Palestinians hurl stones at Israeli troops, not seen, outside the Ofer military prison, near the West Bank city of Ramallah during the 64th anniversary of "Nakba", Arabic for catastrophe, the term used to mark the events leading to Israel's founding in 1948. (AP)

5Oil tankers, which were used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, are parked at a compound in Karachi, Pakistan. (AP)

6Warsaw residents and tourists sign a giant football with Poland's national symbols in downtown Warsaw. Emotions are building up for the Euro 2012 football championships that will kick off with a Poland-Greece match in Warsaw on June 8 and will close in July in Kyiv, Ukraine that co-hosts the event. (AP)

7Sri Lankan army officers prepare for a rehearsal of a military parade in Colombo. Sri Lanka will commemorate the government's victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels in an annual military pageant scheduled for May 19. (AP)

8A poster of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is covered with eggs thrown by protesters, outside the gate of JP Morgan Chase annual stockholders meeting, in Tampa, Florida. (AP)

9A worker rides past a garbage dump as she returns home along highway 5, near Hanoi, Vietnam. (Reuters)

10A woman walks in front of the sculpture 'Living together' (2012) in the exhibition 'Re-Generation' of Chinese artist Xu Jiang in the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, a museum of the Dresden State Art Collection (SKD), in Dresden, eastern Germany. (AP)

11A surfer falls off his board while riding after sunset in Cardiff, California. (Reuters)

12Police and spectators watch the slab of rock that is breaking away from Valegion in Preonzo in southern Switzerland. About 300,000 cubic meters of the Valegion mountain collapsed and crashed into the valley below close to the village of Preonzo. (Reuters)

1Refugees from Burma with their belongings at a makeshift camp in New Delhi, India. Hundreds of refugees have been camping outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) seeking refugee status and asylum in India. (AP)

2Officials and mourners perform funeral prayers over the coffin of former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the High Peace Council, in Kabul. Gunmen shot dead the top peace negotiator in the capital on May 13, 2012. (Reuters)

3Hye Man cries as a Buddhist monk shaves his head during a service to celebrate Buddha's upcoming birthday at Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea. Hye Man is one of nine children who entered the temple to participate in Little Buddha camp, which allows youngsters to experience a monk's life for three weeks. (AP)

4Workers watch as the forward section of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is moved onto a barge at HM Naval Base in Portsmouth, southern England. (Reuters)

5Participants form the Mayan word "MA OGM" (No Genetically Modified Organisms) during a protest organized by Greenpeace at the pyramid of Kabah, in the Mexican state of Yucatan. About 2,000 people staged protests simultaneously at eight archaeological sites to demand that the federal government ensure the Yucatan Peninsula remains a territory free of genetically modified food, according to organizers. (Reuters)

6A South Sudanese woman waiting to be flown back to her country sits at Khartoum Airport. The first batch of South Sudanese, who are among more than 12,000 South Sudanese stuck in Kosti port in White Nile State for up to a year, was flown back to their country in an evacuation assisted by the International Organization for Migration. (Reuters)

7The space shuttle Enterprise is lowered onto a transport vehicle at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in Queens, New York. The shuttle will be placed on a barge that will move by tugboat up the Hudson River to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in June. (NASA/Kim Shiflet)

8A Sunni gunman fires during clashes, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon. Street battles pitting Lebanese Sunnis, who generally support the Syrian uprising, against Alawite supporters of Assad's regime killed at least one person. (AP)

9Armed policemen ride on a locomotive transporting the Soyuz TMA-04M to its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome. (Reuters)

10A worker (L) sets up a giant canvas of the official poster of the 65th Cannes Film Festival featuring U.S. actress Marilyn Monroe on the facade of the Festival Palace in Cannes, France. (Reuters)

11A girl walks on a disused railway track - through what is known locally as the "Tunnel of Love" - in the small town Kleven some 350km (217 miles) off western Kyiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)

12Keeley Scothern of Madame Tussauds waxworks museum in London puts the finishing touches on a new figure of the Queen in honor of her Diamond Jubilee. (AP)

13Juventus' Alessandro Del Piero holds the football trophy after winning their 28th Italian Series A title at the end of their match against Atalanta at the Juventus stadium in Turin, Italy. (Reuters)

1Palestinian cyber activists work during a sit-in in Gaza City in support of more than a thousand prisoners who are observing an open-ended hunger strike in Israeli jails. At least 1,550 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike to demand improved conditions, including family visits and increased access to lawyers, an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention. (AFP)

2Men put up a creation of Cuban-American artist Jose Parla and French artist J.R. on a building in Havana for the upcoming 11th Havana Biennial contemporary art exhibition titled "Wrinkles Of The City".

3Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik beats a jingo drum displayed at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul, South Korea. Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary arrived in Seoul for a six-day visit. (Reuters)

4A woman holds a sign caricaturing the character of "Edward Scissorhands" with the face of Spain's Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert during a protest against cuts in the public education system in Oviedo, northern Spain. (Reuters)

5Flames and smoke raise from burning cars after two bombs exploded, at Qazaz neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, heavily damaging a military intelligence building and leaving blood and human remains in the streets. (AP Photo/SANA)

6French climber Alain Robert, also known as "Spiderman", scales the 231 metre First Tower at the La Defense business district outside Paris. (Reuters)

7Greek actress Ino Menegaki (R), playing the role of High Priestess, lights the Olympic flame during the torch lighting ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the site of ancient Olympia in Greece. (Reuters)

8Students during a training session at a gymnastic course at Shenyang Sports School in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, May 9, 2012. Some 60 students, between the ages of 6 to 15, undergo a nine-year gymnastic program. (Reuters)

1A woman talking on a mobile phone walks by the electronic stock board of a securities firm showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index, top left, which dropped 123.34 points to 9,058.31 in Tokyo. Asian stock markets fell, spooked by disappointing U.S. corporate earnings and fears that political turmoil in debt-crippled Greece is pushing it closer to financial disaster. (AP)

2The judicial Law Lords in their traditional ceremonial robes wait for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to read the Queen's Speech to lawmakers in London. (AP)

3Ukrainian soldiers dressed in WWII uniforms during a parade at the World War II memorial on the Victory Day in Kyiv. (AP)

4Cambodian Prince Norodom Chakravuth, rear center, holds plow handles to mark an annual royal plowing ceremony in Phnom Penh. The ceremony was held to mark the start of rice-farming season. (AP)

5Palestinian children take part in a rally in Gaza City ahead of Nakba. On May 15, Palestinians will mark "Nakba," or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in 1948, when hundreds of thousands Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes. (Reuters)

6Prince Albert II of Monaco and his wife Princess Charlene visit the Prince Albert II Leisure center in La Turbie, southern France near Monaco. (AP)

7Students attend a lecture on the impact of terrorism at their school in Sana'a. Yemen launched an awareness campaign against terrorism in schools this week. (Reuters)

8Relatives inspect the list of the passengers on board of the missing Russian airplane at Halim Perdanakusumah airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet-100 carrying 46 people lost contact with air controllers while flying over mountains during a demonstration flight in western Indonesia, officials said. (AP)

9Russian soldiers march during the Victory Day Parade on the Red Square in Moscow, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. (AP)

10A woman drinks water on a hot summer day in New Delhi. Heat wave conditions prevailed in the city and the northern state of India with the mercury rising above 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time this summer. (AFP)

11Residents of the town of Kibumba walk on the road to Rutshsuru, some 30 kms (20 miles) from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma, heading to the Nord-Kivu capital as they flee fighting between Congolese army deserters led by ex-general Bosco Ntaganda and the regular Congolese army (FARDC) near the Virunga national park on the border with Rwanda. (AFP)

12The Big O, a water screen that is a landmark of the Expo 2012, during a media day of the expo, in Yeosu, South Korea. The expo will open for three months on May 12 under the theme of "The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities." (AP)

13Astana's riders cycle to a third place during the team time trial 33.2-km fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia in Verona, Italy. (Reuters)

14General view of the set-up "Excentrique(s)" by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren for the Monumenta 2012 event in the nave of the "Grand Palais" in Paris. (Reuters)

15U.S. surfer Patrick Gudauskas competes in the round one of the Billabong Rio Pro men's surfing competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP)

16A long exposure picture shows a seasonal fog illuminated by the lights of Cape Town harbor as the city prepares for the start of the southern hemisphere winter, May 8, 2012. (Reuters)

1Members of the Jordanian military band walk after their performance at the opening of the Special Operations Forces Exhibition and Conference at King Abdullah I Airbase in Amman. (Reuters)

2Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti (R) poses with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a Turkish-Italian meeting at Villa Madama in Rome. (Reuters)

3A South Korean worker attaches a Buddhist's name card on lantern to prepare for the celebration of the upcoming Buddha's 2,556st birthday on May 28 at the Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea. (AP)

4A boy cries as he holds his sister in his lap after a confrontation with squatters and police personnel, who arrived to demolish houses that were built illegally, in Kathmandu. The demolition drive is a run up to the Nepalese government's decision to force out squatters from their place of residence and introduce an alternate settlement along with a property ownership document, according to the local media. (Reuters)

5A tourist walks besides kayaks and canoes on Fulong beach in New Taipei city, northeastern Taiwan. (Reuters)

6Members of a local dance troupe perform in Setif during a visit by Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika at the commemoration of the Algerian war of Independence. (Reuters)

7Singer Lady Gaga reacts as she gives her autographs to fans upon arrival at Narita international airport in Narita, east of Tokyo, Japan. (AP)

8A worker looks inside a disassembled 26-foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe in Chicago. The sculpture "Forever Marilyn" by artist Seward Johnson, is based on a scene from the movie "Seven Year Itch" was taken down after being on display since last July. (Reuters)

9Spain's Feliciano Lopez (R) returns the ball to Jurgen Melzer of Austria during the men's singles match at the Madrid Open tennis tournament in Spain. (Reuters)

1Cannons fire a salute outside Moscow's Kremlin wall after the inauguration ceremony of president elect Vladimir Putin as Russia's new President. Vladimir Putin took the oath of office for a third term as Russia's president. (AP)

2(L-R) Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony DeBrum, Bangladesh State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammed Hasan Mahmud, European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard, Gambia's Forestry Minister Fatou Ndeye Gaye and Denmark's Climate Minister Martin Lidegaard brief the media after the "Informal Ministerial Roundtable for Ambitious Follow-up to Durban - Accelerated Climate Actions", held at the EU Commision's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Reuters)

3A customer watches as cat 'Thomas' inspects his basket in Vienna's first cat cafe. After three years of negotiations with city officials over hygiene issues, Austria opened its first cat cafe on May 4, 2012. 'Cafe Neko', "Neko" meaning cat in Japanese, was opened by Vienna resident Takako Ishimitsu, 47, from Japan. Customers can stroke and interact with their five feline hosts, named Sonja, Thomas, Moritz, Luca and Momo, who all came from an animal shelter and now freely roam about the cafe and take naps. (Reuters)

4Will Smith autographs on the mobile phone of a fan during the world premiere, a red carpet event, for his film "Men in Black III" at a theater in Seoul, South Korea. (Reuters)

5A new Vatican Swiss Guard gives a salute while holding the flag during the swearing-in ceremony at the Vatican, May 6, 2012 at the Vatican. Twenty-six Swiss men have joined the oldest standing army in the world, swearing to give up their lives to protect the pope as the Vatican's newest Swiss Guards. (AP)

6Team Sky rider Mark Cavendish (C) of Britain crashes during the final rush of the 190-km third stage of the Giro d'Italia in Horsens, Denmark. (Reuters)

7Lanterns release by Buddhist worshipers fly during a procession commemorating Waisak day which marks the birth, death and enlightenment of Buddha at the 9th century Borobudur temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. (AP)

8Greek presidential guards perform ceremonial duties at the monument of the unknown soldier in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens. (AP)

9Mascots representing a variety of sports club and associations participate in the Mascot Grand National 2012 in aid of the Have a Heart Charity at Kempton Park race course in Sunbury on Thames, southern England. (Reuters)

10A full moon as seen from West Orange, New Jersey, rises over the skyline of Lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center (L) in New York, May 6, 2012. (Reuters)

1A protester, right, waves a stick at Egyptian soldiers during clashes outside the Ministry of Defense in Cairo. (AP)

2The Turanor Planetsolar ship arrives in the port of Monaco after completing the first around-the-world trip using solar energy. (Reuters)

3Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center, in academic dress, is congratulated after he received five honorary degrees from several universities at a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. (AP)

4A radar station at the missile defense facility in Sofrino, 50 km (31 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia (AP)

5A Chinese woman protesting about her own grievances is taken away by plain clothes security personnel and uniformed police officers outside the hospital where blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng is recuperating in Beijing. (AP)

6Hot walker Cesar Zarko holds Kentucky Derby entrant Union Rags during his bath after a morning workout at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. (AP)

7Serbian police officers escort an arrested ethnic-Albanian, in Belgrade, Serbia. Police have arrested 8 people in the tense, ethnic-Albanian dominated south - five of whom on suspicion of war crimes against Serbs during a 2001 conflict. (AP)

8Slovakia's team players gather near their goal before their 2012 IIHF men's ice hockey World Championship Group H game against the Canada in Helsinki, Finland. (Reuters)

9Citroen 2CV cars are parked at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, before a rally tour. (Reuters)

10A Crimson rumped Toucanet in the private reserve of Paz de las Aves (Peace of the Birds) near Nanegalito, Ecuador (AFP)

1A Malian refugee pulls a jerrican of water at the Mbere refugee camp near Bassiknou, southern Mauritania, 60 km from the border with Mali. The fighting in Mali has left more than 60,000 people internally displaced. (AFP)

2Birds flying over the marsh near the village of Smolichi, 160 km (100 miles) south of Minsk, Belarus. (AP)

3Children wait for alms from passing devotees during the chariot festival of Rato Machhindranath in Lalitpur, Nepal. Rato Machhindranath is known as the god of rain and both Hindus and Buddhists worship Machhindranath for good rain to prevent drought during the rice harvest season. (Reuters)

4Women march during a demonstration demanding a trial for Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sana'a. (Reuters)

5Traditional drummers wait for dancers from a school to perform during their debut with a traditional country dance form known as Kandian dance at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Reuters)

6Members of the 1st Battalion and 7 Company the Coldstream Guards line up for inspection before being presented with their new colors by the Queen at Windsor Castle, near London. (Reuters)

7A man rides his bicycle between policemen in riot gear who are guarding the venue of a meeting of the European Central Bank in Barcelona, Spain. (Reuters)

8Lawmakers debate in the Argentine Congress in Buenos Aires. The nationalization of the country's biggest oil company is expected to sail to final congressional approval. (Reuters)

9A model wearing designs by Jenny Lee stands in a static display during Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. Lee used natural props including leaves and branches from the country's native trees such as Gum Trees. (AP)

10Grooms take part in a mass wedding ceremony in Tabuk, 1500 km (932 miles) from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 2, 2012. Governor of Tabuk Prince Fahad Bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz and a local group organized the mass wedding for about 1600 couples to help youths who are unable to afford expensive ceremonies because of the rising cost of living. (Reuters)

11A Thai cleaning worker at Bangkok Art and Culture Center (AP)

12A little Golden Lion Tamarin at the zoo in Duisburg, Germany (AP)

13A giraffe near Lesser flamingos at Lake Oloidien near Naivasha. Kenya's Lesser flamingos are currently in abundance in the country's drier regions after heavy rains nationwide have altered the salinity of the water in many lakes forcing the birds to fly to drier regions. (AFP)

14Actress Scarlett Johansson and actor Jeremy Renner pose by her star after it was unveiled on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, May 2, 2012. (Reuters)

1A nun films as Pope Benedict XVI holds his weekly audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican. (Reuters)

2Smoke billows out from a compound after it was attacked by militants in Kabul, Afghanistan. Taliban insurgents attacked a compound housing foreigners in the Afghan capital, killing seven people, hours after President Barack Obama made a surprise visit. (AP)

3Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (C) and members of parliament from the National League for Democracy take their oaths in the lower house of parliament in Naypyitaw. (Reuters)

4A man walks in the M'bere refugee camp near Bassiknou in the Nema region of Southwestern Mauritania. More than 320,000 people have fled their homes in Mali since mid-January, with more than half seeking refuge in neighboring countries, U.N. officials said. (AFP)

5China's Wang Mengyu hits a shot past Argentina's Carla Rebecchi (L) during the women's International Invitational Hockey Tournament at the Riverbank Arena in the Olympic Park in London. (Reuters)

6Smoke is seen after United Arab Emirates F-16 fighter jets fired missiles during joint military maneuvers with the French army in the desert of Abu Dhabi. (Reuters)

7A cyclist passes by a statue of a giant bicycle in Tbilisi, Georgia. (Reuters)

8A laborer stacks firewood in a brick kiln as smoke billows from a chimney on the outskirts of Jammu, India. (Reuters)

9Tear gas fired by Israeli troops falls near Palestinian stone-throwers during clashes outside Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The clashes broke out following a protest in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners. (Reuters)

10Canadian female action sports star Jolene Van Vugt makes a practice run prior to setting a new land speed Guiness World Record for a motorized toilet in Sydney, Australia. After a few technical issues with the toilet Van Vugt beat the existing record of 68 km/h by 7 km/h, after completing the stunt in both directions with an average of the two speeds taken to give her the new world record. (AFP)

11A double rainbow appears in the sky as lightning strikes during a severe thunderstorm in Hamilton, Ohio, USA, May 1, 2012. (AP)