Mercedes Grand Prix driver Michael Schumacher of Germany steers his car during the first practice session ahead of the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain. Authorities in Bahrain have stepped up security around the Formula One circuit at the start of the controversial Grand Prix racing weekend. (AP)

A protester runs away from tear gas released by riot police during clashes after the rally by Bahrain’s main opposition party Al Wefaq in Budaiya, west of Manama. Pro-democracy protesters clashed with police in Manama as the Grand Prix event got underway. (Reuters)

An Indian Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police (JKAP) soldier stands guard in central Srinagar. (AFP)

A North Korean cameraman carries a ladder past North Koreans gathered on Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang, North Korea, for a rally denouncing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. (AP)

A man smokes five marijuana joints through a contraption with linked tubes in Amsterdam during a protest against a government plan to stop foreigners from buying marijuana in the Netherlands. (AP)

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, left, waves during his speech in Khartoum. (AP)

Nepalese workers stand together at a brick factory in Imadol on the outskirts of Kathmandu. (AP)

An employee works inside a shell of a wind turbine tower outside the assembly workshop in The Shanghai Electric Windpower Equipment Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, China. (Reuters)

Baek Sung-min, 23, one of the first buyers of a new iPad tablet computer outside an Apple’s reseller shop in Seoul, South Korea. (AP)

The Comedie Francaise theater temporary hall and the columns by French sculptor Daniel Buren (the ‘Colonnes de Buren’) in the Palais royal gardens in Paris. (Reuters)

The UEFA Champions League trophy before the official handover ceremony between UEFA President Michel Platini and Munich’s Mayor Christian Ude in Munich, Germany. The Champions League Final 2012 will take place in Munich’s Allianz Arena on May 19. (Reuters)

Members of the ‘Rescuer’, a state regional service, operate a ‘Khivus-10’ air-cushion motor boat as they patrol along the Yenisei river, some 60 km (37 miles) south of Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. (Reuters)

A giant puppet of a deep sea diver walks along a street in Liverpool, northern England. The diver is one of two giant models forming part of the Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacular happening over the weekend in Liverpool. (Reuters)

Chadian men and boys use a donkey to pull up water, of a quality only suitable for animals to drink, from a well which took twenty men a week to dig by hand, in a wadi near Tchyllah, a desert village in the Sahel belt of Chad, April 19, 2012. (AP)

Dancers of the Szeged Contemporary Dance Company perform on the stage of the National theater of Szeged, Hungary, April 19, 2012, during their rehearsal of a premiere for two one-act event of Szeged Contemporary Dance Company. (AFP)

The NTV high speed train Italo waits to depart at Rome’s Tiburtina railway station, on the occasion of the inaugural trip to Naples, Italy. (AP)