24 Hours In Pictures

A Sri Lankan Hindu devotee offers prayers at a Hindu temple in Colombo on the occasion of Maha Siva Rathri. Sri Lanka's minority Tamils are mainly Hindus in a country of majority Sinhalese Buddhists
Photograph: Ishara S.Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

Athletes practice prior to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympics in Whistler, Canada Photograph: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

A bear cools off from the intense summer heat with a frozen water melon in Rio de Janeiro's city zoo
Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP

A wayside vendor takes a nap on a pile of watermelons in Bhubaneswar, India
Photograph: Biswaranjan Rout/AP

Fog shrouds a riverboat docked on the Ohio River Photograph: Al Behrman/AP

Robert Trujillo, bassist of heavy metal band Metallica, rocks out during a concert in Caracas, Venezuela
Photograph: REUTERS

People dance among foam during spring break at a nightclub in Cancun. Mexico's spring break king, the Caribbean resort of Cancun, is rebounding quickly from last year's triple blow to its tourism industry caused by the country's swine flu epidemic, drug violence and a global economic crisis Photograph: Israel Leal/AP

Lifette Sylvestre, right, and Joseph Dieujuste are tended by paramedics after they were rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince. At least three men were injured after a wooden roof fell on top of them while scavenging in a government building that was damaged in Haiti's earthquake
Photograph: Esteban Felix/AP

Hindu devotees taking a ritualistic bath in the River Ganges during the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, India Photograph: Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

Hostesses fill teacups ahead of the arrival of delegates and top leaders at the closing session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Photograph: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Palestinian youths sell sandwiches from a cart near the Unknown Soldier square in Gaza City Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

The wife of Arif Mushtaq wails as relatives prepare his body for his funeral in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir. Arif, a special police officer, was shot by unknown gunmen outside his residency during the night
Photograph: Farooq Khan/EPA

Jamshed, an Afghan boy, drinks tea as he waits for customers to buy chickens at his father's roadside shop in Kabul, Afghanistan
Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP