Clouds roil over the White House in Washington, D.C. as the nation’s capital has less than 48 hours to avert the “fiscal cliff,” a series of tax increases and spending cuts set to take hold on January 1, 2013. (AP)

Workers install an advertising billboard for a cosmetics company in Tokyo, Japan. (AP)

Children hang from the barrel of a tank, which was captured by the Free Syrian Army, in Azaz city, north Aleppo, Syria. (Reuters)

Farrows (Swabian-Halle pigs) at the zoo in Berlin, Germany (AFP)

Members of the Cryophil amateur winter bathing club form a snake figure to symbolize the coming Year of the Snake in the Chinese lunar calendar, during their New Year celebration in Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. (Reuters)

A bus is seen in flames at the site of a bomb explosion, which killed scores of people in Cantonment area, Karachi, Pakistan, December 29, 2012. (Reuters)

Czech Lukas Hvala vies during the first competition jump of the Four-Hills-Tournament in Oberstdorf, southern Germany. (AFP)

Nepalese Gurung community women with traditional attire during Tamu Loshar, the New Year of the Gurungs, in Katmandu. (AP)

A worker spreads salt to melt ice and clear snow from the stands at Ralph Wilson Stadium before an NFL football game between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, in Orchard Park, New York. (AP)

Everton supporters attend the English Premier League football match between Everton and Chelsea at Goodison Park in Liverpool, England. (AFP)