Striking photojournalism from around the world in 2019

A selection of the best photographs taken by news agency photographers around the world this year.

A farmer feeds his sheep in Louth, Australia, in February. Large parts of eastern Australia endured severe drought for months, crippling farming communities.

Devotees throw turmeric powder as an offering to the shepherd god Khandoba as others carry a palanquin during Somvati Amavasya, at a temple in Jejuri, India, in February.

Enia Joaquin Luis, 11, wakes up beside her sister Luisa, six, under plastic sheets protecting them from rain, at a shelter in Buzi. Cyclone Idai struck the coast of Mozambique on 14 March, causing devastation and heavy loss of life. The UN said 1.7 million people in the country lived in the path of the cyclone, with a further 920,000 people affected in Malawi and many thousands more in Zimbabwe.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman at the Kilbirnie Mosque, in Wellington, following mass shooting attacks in Christchurch. Fifty people died on 15 March when a white supremacist attacked two mosques while livestreaming on Facebook.

Kurdish families celebrate Nowruz, in the mountainous area around on Akre in Iraq. The festival, in March, marks the Persian New Year as well as the vernal equinox and is celebrated by diverse communities across western and central Asia.

Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn is escorted out of the Tokyo Detention House in April following his release on bail for multiple charges of financial misconduct. Ghosn's lawyers have accused the Japanese government of conspiring against him, along with prosecutors and Nissan executives.

Jesus Tavarez and Juan De La O kiss on steps covered in rainbow colours for Pride Month at Franklin D Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, in June. Hundreds of thousands of people attended this year's World Pride in New York City. A march on 30 March, one of the largest LGBT celebrations, took place 50 years after the Stonewall riots in the city, which helped energise the fight for gay equality.

The spire of Notre-Dame de Paris collapses as the cathedral is engulfed in flames, on 15 April. The main structure - including the two bell towers - was saved as firefighters worked through the night. President Emmanuel Macron set a five-year deadline for completing the restoration.

Coffins are carried to a grave during a mass funeral at St Sebastian's Church on 23 April in Negombo, Sri Lanka. A wave of bombings targeting churches and hotels left more than 250 people dead and many more injured. The bombers struck on Easter Sunday in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

Student Alaa Salah, 22, was nicknamed The Nubian Queen after a video of her leading chants against former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir went viral in April.

President Trump met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, at the demarcation line between North and South Korea on 30 June. The two men shook hands, with Mr Kim saying he had never expected to meet the president at this place. Mr Trump then crossed over into North Korea, the first US President to do so.

The 10th annual tomato-fight festival, Tomatina, took place in Sutamarchan, Colombia, in June, to mark the end of the tomato harvest.

Military re-enactors look on as 280 paratroops take part in a parachute drop on to fields at Sannerville, France. Veterans, families, visitors and military personnel gathered on 6 June to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings, which heralded the Allied advance towards Germany and victory in Europe 11 months later.

The US House of Representatives voted to condemn President Donald Trump after, in a series of tweets in July, he said congresswomen Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" and should "go back".

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and Ivy-Fleur Boileau, Virgile Mouquet, Adelaide Charlier and Alicia Arquetoux, from the Youth for Climate movement, attend the questions to the government session at the National Assembly in Paris, in July. Ms Thunberg later became Time magazine's youngest Person of the Year.

Pro-democracy protesters react as police fire water cannon in Hong Kong in September. The protests started in June over a controversial extradition bill but evolved into broader anti-government demonstrations that have gripped the territory for more than six months.

Afghans listen to speeches during the final campaign rally for presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah in Bamiyan. Low turnout was widely reported during Afghanistan's presidential poll as many voters were worried about security following threats from the Taliban.

A destroyed house is seen in the wake of Hurricane Dorian in Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, Bahamas. The most powerful storm to hit the Bahamas since records began left widespread devastation, at least 43 dead and many more still missing days after the storm passed in September.

A masked man with his head covered with barbed wire attends a protest in Srinagar in October, following the scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government.

Firefighters work on a back-fire in an attempt to control the Maria fire, in Santa Paula, California, in November. Nearly 100,000 acres (400 sq km) have been burned by wildfires and thousands of people have had to leave their homes.

A man from the Guajajara community - a member of Guardians of the Forest, a group formed to combat logging gangs in the area - stands by a fire at a loggers' camp on Arariboia indigenous land near the city of Amarante, Maranhao state. Brazil's populist President Jair Bolsonaro has drawn intense domestic and international criticism for failing to protect the Guardians' territory in the eastern Amazon region.

A woman covers her face by a road near the Syrian Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain, along the border with Turkey. Behind her, tyre fires have been lit to decrease visibility for Turkish warplanes. In October, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved against Kurdish forces after President Donald Trump announced he was pulling US forces out of Syria's border region.

A Mexican one-year-old awaiting her turn to seek asylum in the US with her mother is seen in front of the gates to the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros.

All Photographs copyright of the named photographers and agencies