Top World News of 2010

The moon begins to obstruct the view of the sun from Earth during a soloar eclipse at the Tian'anmen Square on Jan. 15, 2010, in Shenyang, Liaoning Province of China. The eclipse, which first became visible in Tamil Nadu city of Kanyakumari, is predicted to be the longest of its kind for the next 1,000 years.

Firefighters battle one of several suspicious blazes in the Iron Market area Jan. 29, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the island nation Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving at least a million people homeless. Despite massive aid from around the world, Haiti remains in dire need.

SPECIAL SECTION: Year in Review 2010

Rescue workers remove a body from a car in Funchal, Madeira Island, on Feb. 22, 2010. Residents fled their homes for fear of new mudslides on the tourist island of Madeira as Portugal decreed three days of mourning for the 42 people killed in weekend flash floods.

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Grave digger Brund Pierre swings a pick into the rocky soil while preparing for the burial of about 30 unclaimed and unidentified earthquake victims Feb. 25, 2010, in Titayen, Haiti. About a dozen grave diggers work each week to bury the dead from the Port-au-Prince General Hospital in the same area where tens of thousands of people were buried in mass graves after the 7.0 earthquake that left more than 200,000 people dead and 1.2 million homeless.

SPECIAL SECTION: Year in Review 2010

Boats lay among damaged homes in Dichato, Chile. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile, March 4, 2010.

SPECIAL SECTION: Year in Review 2010

The Queen Mary 2 departs Fremantle Harbour on March 14, 2010, in Australia. The QM 2, the largest passenger ship ever to visit Fremantle, was on her 2010 world voyage in which the massive 151,400-tonne liner visited every major continent in the world, calling at 34 ports over 108 days as she traveled from New York to Southhampton, through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to the Middle East and Asia before visiting Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and South America.

SPECIAL SECTION: Year in Review 2010

A man lay dead in the street after being shot on March 20, 2010 in Juarez, Mexico. The border city of Juarez has been racked by violent drug-related crime and has quickly become one of the most dangerous cities in the world. As drug cartels have been fighting over ever lucrative drug corridors along the United States border, the murder rate in Juarez has risen to 173 slayings for every 100,000 residents. President Felipe Calderon in 2009 disbanded the corrupt local police force and sent 10,000 soldiers to Juarez, but the violence has raged on. With a population of 1.3 million in Juarez, 2,600 died in drug-related violence last year.

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Kyrgyz opposition supporters clash with police during an anti-government protest in Bishkek on April 7, 2010. Opposition followers killed Kyrgyzstan's interior minister, took the deputy prime minister hostage and captured state television in a deadly revolt against President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Nineteen people died and almost 200 were injured in riots that swept through the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan on April 7, a health ministry official told AFP.

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Resident looks at the rubble following a strong earthquake on Jiegu toweship of China's Qinghai province on April 16, 2010, in Golmud, China. Initial reports stood at 791 dead with more than 10,000 injured.

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Smoke and ash bellow from Eyjafjallajokull volcano as it is seen from Asolfsskali, Iceland, on April 23, 2010. Hundreds of thousands of travelers were left stranded across the globe by airport shutdowns that began April 15,when clouds of ash blanketed Europe

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Guards protect parliament speaker Volodymr Lytvyn with an umbrella from eggs thrown by opposition lawmakers during ratification of the Black Sea Fleet deal with Russia, in parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, April 27, 2010.

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A protester uses Molotov cocktails against riot police during May Day protests on May 1, 2010, in Athens, Greece. Thousands of protesters gathered for May Day rallies were angered by the harsh austerity measures demanded by the EU to tackle Greece's mounting debt crisis.

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Joran Andreas Petrus van der Sloot, center, is escorted by Peruvian police after being handed over to Chilean authorities at the border between both countries in Tacna, south of Lima, on June 4, 2010. A suspect in Natalie Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot ws accused of killing a young woman in Chile.

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A man stands on a road near flowers and drying furnaces for bricks June 14, 2010, in rural Dand District, just south of Kandahar, Afghanistan. US soldiers of the 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division, have fanned out in the vast hinterlands south of Kandahar, part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at protecting Afghan civilians and legitimizing the government of Afghanistan in the minds of the rural local populace.

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Villagers, displaced by floods, lead their livestock through flood waters on Aug. 22, 2010, in the village of Baseera near Muzaffargarh in Punjab, Pakistan. The country's agricultural heartland has been devastated, with rice, corn and wheat crops destroyed by floods. Officials say as many as 20 million people have been affected during Pakistan's worst flooding in 80 years.

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A baby, held by his mother, is crushed as she and other villagers, displaced from their homes by flooding, fight for bags of flour during relief distribution on Aug. 20, 2010, on the outskirts of Muzaffargarh in Punjab, Pakistan. The country's agricultural heartland has been devastated, with rice, corn and wheat crops destroyed by floods. Officials say as many as 20 million people have been affected during Pakistan's worst flooding in 80 years.

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Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, front right, hugs rescued miner Florencio Avalos after Avalos was rescued from the collapsed San Jose gold and copper mine where he was trapped with 32 other miners for more than two months near Copiapo, Chile, Oct. 12, 2010.

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Marines prepare to carry Cpl. Jorge Villarreal of San Antonio, Texas, to a MEDEVAC helicopter near Forward Operating Base (FOB) Zeebrugge on Oct.17, 2010, in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Villarreal was killed on the patrol after stepping on an improvised explosive device (IED). The Marines of India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment, are responsible for securing the area near the Kajaki Dam on the Helmand River.

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An ash-covered motorcycle caused by the Mount Merapi eruption at Kinahrejo village in Sleman, is seen on Oct. 27, 2010, near Yogyakarta, Indonesia. One of Indonesia's most active volcanoes spewed out clouds of ash and jets of searing gas in an eruption that has killed at least 25 people and injured 14. More than 11,000 villagers living on the slopes of the Mount Merapi volcano are being evacuated after the alert status for an eruption was raised to the highest level.

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Student protesters smash windows as they clash with police after entering Millbank Tower home of Conservative Party headquaters on Nov. 10, 2010, in London, England. Student groups are protesting against the government's proposed funding cuts to education and an increase in tuition fees.

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Members of a Haitian Ministry of Health body-collection team take the body of Lucienne Louis, 48, from her home to a vehicle where they pile her body onto other victims of the cholera epidemic to dispose of them on Nov. 17, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

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Prince William and Kate Middleton pose for photographs in the State Apartments of St James Palace on Nov. 16, 2010, in London, England. The couple will get married April 29, 2011, and will continue to live in North Wales while Prince William works as an air-sea rescue pilot for the RAF. The couple became engaged during a recent holiday in Kenya, having been together for eight years.

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A passenger train makes its way past Greenloaning on Nov. 29, 2010, in Greenloaning, Scotland. Much of Scotland experienced freezing temperatures and heavy snow overnight causing major problems to transport links across the country.

SPECIAL SECTION: Year in Review 2010