Events in Pictures

A boy takes part in a protest outside the UN headquarters in Beirut Preparations for the Chinese New Year get under way in Beijing Winds and wintry weather continues to battle Britain as sledgers brave the snow in County Durham Estonian sumo wrestler Baruto is thrown to the ground during the Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo The 44th president danced a slow two-step with America's new First Lady Michelle Obama. Keepers display the 13 baby pandas born in captivity at China's Chengdu breeding centre during 2008. A father holds his son, dressed in traditional Chinese costume, as they wait at Beijing Railway Station to travel home for the Lunar New Year, which falls on 26 January. Nine baby lions, born in early December to two mothers, meet the public at the Serengeti wildlife park in Hodenhagen, western Germany. A little boy looks back as he and his mother walk through a heavily damaged neighbourhood in Gaza City. One-day-old Michelle Obama yawns contentedly in Kisumu, Kenya, a day after her namesake became the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Workers building a new underground line in the Indian capital, New Delhi, emerge from a tunnel-boring machine at a breakthrough point.