Week in Pictures: 25-31 January
- Published
A selection of striking news photographs from around the world this week.
Chinese tourists wearing protective masks pray at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand. The World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency over the outbreak of coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China. At least 213 people in China have died from the virus, with almost 10,000 cases nationally.
People left tributes to basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter at a new mural in Los Angeles, California, following the helicopter crash which killed the the NBA star, his daughter Gianna and seven others on Sunday.
A member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament holds a scarf depicting the European Union and the Union Jack flags. There were emotional scenes after MEPs ratified the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement in Brussels, and British members left the parliament for the last time.
Candles are lit near the railway tracks at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, during the ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of its liberation. International leaders, as well as approximately 200 survivors and their families, attended the commemoration. The Nazi regime killed an estimated one million people at the camp. which was liberated by the Soviet Army on 27 January 1945.
Scottish Year 7 students from St Timothy's Primary School, and Holocaust survivor Janine Webber, took part in the "Stand Together" Glasgow Schools' Holocaust Memorial event at Glasgow City Chambers. Pupils from schools across Scotland gathered to remember the liberation of Auschwitz 75 years ago.
Members of the Jarl Squad in Lerwick on the Shetland Isles participate in the Up Helly Aa Viking festival. Originating in the 1880s, the festival celebrates Shetland's Norse heritage.
Firefighters brandish flares as they climb onto the statue of Le Triomphe de la Republique, in Paris, during a demonstration against the French government's plan to overhaul the country's retirement system. Since December, hundreds of thousands of people have marched in cities across France, against the government's reform plans.
A farm worker in a tobacco field in Zimbabwe carries freshly harvested leaves on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in London, ahead of talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
A baby bearded pygmy chameleon, one of three which have hatched at Chester Zoo, sits on the end of a pencil. Found only in the coastal forests of Tanzania, the tiny reptiles can change colour and produce a line down the side of their body to perfectly blend in with leaves in their surroundings.
US Senator Lamar Alexander leaves the Trump impeachment trial in Washington. Democrats have been dealt a major blow in their attempt to call witnesses at President Trump's trial. They needed four Republicans to vote with them to allow witness testimony, but Lamar Alexander, who had been undecided, said he will vote against the measure.
Volunteers take part in the annual pruning of the 400-year-old yew at the National Trust's Shugborough Estate in Staffordshire, England.
All photographs belong to the copyright holders as marked.