Half Moon Bay, Calif. — Contestants and surfers line up for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Mavericks surfing contest. The official contest window is Dec. 1 through Feb. 28, with the actual dates determined by the 24 contestants voting after they study the conditions.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Sachi Cunningham / Los Angeles Times

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London — A commuter waits for a train at the Monument underground station. The British capital's 3.5 million subway commuters struggled to get to work as London Underground workers staged a 24-hour strike over plans to cut 800 jobs.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Jason Alden / Bloomberg

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London — Shoppers mill past Christmas lights on fashionable South Molton Street. Despite the global economic downturn and frigid weather, retail sales have generally been good, attributed in part to the imminent rise in the VAT (value added tax) from 17.5% to 20% on the first of the year.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Oli Scarff / Getty Images

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London — Space-themed Christmas decorations hover over Carnaby Street, the shopping thoroughfare made famous during the so-called Swinging '60s.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Oli Scarff / Getty Images

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Deep Space — From a distance of 19,000 miles, NASA's Cassini spacecraft imaged the cratered plains of the trailing hemisphere of Rhea, one of Saturn's moons and 949 miles in diameter. Several of the moon's fractures, appearing as wispy bright lines, can be seen on the left.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: NASA / Reuters

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Ambato, Ecuador — Tungurahua volcano spews molten rocks and large clouds of gas and ash near Banos. Tungurahua, which means "Throat of Fire" in the local Quechua language, has been classified as active since 1999 and produced a strong eruption in 2008. It is one of the country's eight active volcanoes.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Reuters

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Alberta, Canada — A snow-covered cabin, illuminated by holiday lights, glows on the shoreline of Lake Louise after sunset.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Mike Blake / Reuters

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Mixdorf, Germany — Snow covers the landscape at the Schlaubetal natural park. Meteorologists expect the cold weather to continue, with temperatures dropping to 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Patrick Pleul / AFP/Getty Images

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Magdeburg, Germany — American flamingos, native to Central and South America, negotiate their snow-covered enclosure at the city's zoo.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Jens Wolf / AFP/Getty Images

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Paris — A man passes between two works of art by Piet Mondrian: "New York City," left, and "Composition No. 2," part of the Mondrian/De Stijl exhibition at the city's Pompidou Center.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Jacques Demarthon / AFP/Getty Images

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Khartoum, Sudan — An internally displaced person sells mobile phone chargers as Qatar's minister of state for foreign affairs and a joint UN/AU negotiator and Darfur chief mediator visit the Kalma camp outside Nyala town in South Darfur.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah / Reuters

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Lima, Peru — Spanish bullfighter David Fandila "El Fandi" falls during a bullfight at historic Plaza de Acho.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Pilar Olivares / Reuters

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Port-au-Prince, Haiti — A child walks through election ballots scattered on the ground in a building used as a polling station for the national election.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

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St. Petersburg, Russia — With temperatures well below freezing, a towboat attempts to break the ice on the Neva River.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Alexander Demianchuk / REUTERS

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Islamabad, Pakistan — A worker handles molten steel at Ittehad Steel Mill Islamabad. Workers involved in steel-making and casting at the mill work in one-hour shifts because of the extreme heat and the concentration required to work safely.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Carl De Souza / AFP/Getty Images

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Denny, Scotland — Stable hand Audrey Stevenson looks out a window at Riverside Livery Denny after a night of heavy snowfall. Motorists were stranded and hundreds of schools closed as the United Kingdom continued to shiver in the grip of freezing temperatures and heavy snow. Forecasters warned there was no sign of a let-up in the icy conditions, with several more inches of snow expected to fall in the northeast and parts of eastern Scotland over the coming days.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Andrew Milligan / Associated Press

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Hilltown, Ireland — Snow covers the fields around the Mourne mountains near the village of Hilltown. Heavy snow falls brought many parts of the province to a standstill.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Peter Morrison / Associated Press

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Allahabad, India — Laborers move a pontoon to construct a temporary bridge for the Magh Mela festival on the Ganges River in the northern Indian city of Allahabad. The festival is an annual religious event held during the Hindu month of Magh, when thousands of devotees take a dip in the waters of the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: JITENDRA PRAKASH / Reuters

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Seoul, South Korea — Reunification activists denounce the war games between South Korea and the United States during a candlelight vigil in Seoul. Troops geared up Monday for new artillery drills on a front-line island targeted by a deadly North Korean bombardment last week as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed tougher retaliation for any future aggression from North Korea.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Wally Santana / Associated Press

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Quarto, Italy — An Italian soldier disinfects a pile of garbage in Quarto near Naples. About 400 soldiers on Monday started to clear tons of uncollected garbage in the streets of Naples.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Ciro De Luca / Reuters

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Vilnius, Lithuania — Lithuanian and French soldiers carry a coffin containing the skeletal remains of 18 Napoleonic soldiers during a ceremony to bury their remains at Antakalnis Cemetery in Vilnius, 200 years after a desperate attempt to invade Russia. Experts have determined the soldiers were members of infantry, hussar and dragoon units, members of Napoleon's defeated army that invaded Russia in 1812, and were found recently during a road-building project.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Mindaugas Kulbis / Associated Press

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Jakarta, Indonesia — Masked protesters display a giant cigarette during a protest against the government ban on smoking in buildings in Jakarta. As smoking has declined in many Western countries, it has risen in Indonesia; about 63% of all men light up and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26% since 1995.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Dita Alangkara / Associated Press

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Herat, Afghanistan — An Afghan girl takes refuge at a camp in Herat, west of Kabul.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Reza Shirmohammadi / Associated Press

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Kandahar, Afghanistan — U.S. soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Batallion Charger Company, blow up a wall of a compound around Kop Ahmed camp near Kandahar. Afghan relations with the United States will not be affected by leaked U.S. criticism of President Hamid Karzai as an "extremely weak" and conspiracy-prone leader, his spokesman said.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: MARTIN BUREAU / AFP / Getty Images

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Kiev, Ukraine — Protesters shout slogans against a proposed tax law in Kiev. Thousands of people gathered in Ukraine's capital Monday on the eighth day of demonstrations against the tax law, part of a nationwide wave of protests, the biggest since the Orange Revolution of 2004.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Sergei Chuzavkov / Associated Press

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Nice, France — Boats from a sailing school leave the harbor area for a lesson in Nice.

PHOTOGRAPH BY: Lionel Cironneau / Associated Press

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