2025 world news in photos Photo: AFP
From extreme weather events to global conflicts, politics and a new pope, 2025 has been an eventful year.
AFP's Pictures of the Year 2025 show ssome of the world's top events and stories over the past year.
Politics
US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP
France's President Emmanuel Macron (R) speaks with France's Minister of Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu (L) after taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument of national heroes and martyrs in Hanoi on May 26, 2025. Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk (R) speak before departing the White House on his way to his South Florida home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida on March 14, 2025.. Trump is spending the weekend at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort. Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP
Environment
An adult female Masai giraffe rears on its hind legs as it resists efforts by Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) rangers to guide it into a transportation crate using rope. This was during an exercise to translocate large herbivores from Kedong Ranch due to land subdivisions and corralling that have disrupted wildlife migratory routes in Naivasha, Nakuru County, on November 16, 2025. Photo: TONY KARUMBA/AFP
Cars are submerged in mud following Hurricane Melissa in Petit-Goave, Haiti, 68km southwest of Port-au-Prince, on October 30, 2025. Hurricane Melissa was moving towards Bermuda on Thursday after ripping a path of destruction through the Caribbean that left at least 20 people dead in Haiti, and parts of Jamaica and Cuba in ruins. Photo: CLARENS SIFFROY
A worker cleans the lines of a cooling tower at an ice factory on a hot summer day in Karachi on May 29, 2025. Photo: ASIF HASSAN/AFP
This aerial view shows people standing near a flow of lava from the Mount Etna volcano (Torre del Filosofo - Etna Sud) on August 28, 2025. The Etna volcanic eruption started on August 10 and remained active the last weeks. Photo: GIUSEPPE DISTEFANO/AFP
The sun rises by the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur Basilica on top of the Montmartre hill in Paris on July 1, 2025, as the city is on red alert for high temperatures, with the top of the Eiffel Tower shut, polluting traffic banned and speed restrictions in place as a searing heatwave gripped Europe. Photo: THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP
A motorcyclist stops to look at a burning home during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles county, California on January 8, 2025. The United States' second-largest city had never faced a blaze of this scale, driven by an extreme autumn drought and fierce Santa Ana winds -- the strongest since 2011 -- that have turned dry hills into kindling, fuelling a relentless inferno that raged for more than a week. Photo: JOSH EDELSON/AFP
War and conflict
This aerial view shows Palestinians burying 54 unidentified bodies in a cemetery in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on October 22, 2025, after they were returned by Israel under a US-brokered ceasefire deal. Photo: AFP
A man prepares to cover a damaged car with a plastic sheet at the site of heavily damaged residential buildings following a Russian air attack on the outskirts of Kyiv, on September 28, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An overnight Russian barrage on Kyiv killed at least four people, including a 12-year-old girl, Ukrainian authorities said on September 28, 2025. Photo: ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP
People run for cover as a plume of smoke rises above tents at a camp for displaced Palestinians in northern Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, during an Israeli strike on April 19, 2025. Photo: AFP
Palestinian children wait for a meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. Photo: AFP
Ukrainian servicemen of the 59th brigade mobile air defence unit fire a Soviet made ZU-23 anti-aircraft twin autocannon towards a Russian drone from a sunflower field, during an air attack near Pavlograd, Dnipropetrovsk region on July 19, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP
Members of the Congolese Red Cross carry body bags containing human remains during a mass burial for victims of the clashes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo at Musigiko cemetery in Bukavu on February 20, 2025. Photo: LUIS TATO/AFP
Family and friends of Israeli hostage Eitan Horn react to the news of his release at their house in the central Israeli city of Rosh Haayin on October 13, 2025.. Hamas handed over the 20 surviving Israeli hostages on October 13 under a ceasefire agreement, as the US president and other world leaders geared up for a summit on Gaza. Photo: GIL COHEN-MAGEN
Religion
People watch late Pope Francis' funeral ceremony on a large screen in Via della Conciliazione street, near the Vatican in Rome on April 26, 2025. Pope Francis, champion of the poor and the Church's first Latin American leader, will be honoured April 26 with a funeral attended by world leaders and tens of thousands of Catholic faithful. Photo: HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP
Naga Sadhus or Hindu holy men take a dip in Sangam, the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, during Shahi Snan or 'royal bath', to mark the Maha Kumbh Mela festival, in Prayagraj on January 14, 2025. Photo: IDREES MOHAMMED/AFP
Sport
Paris Saint-Germain's French forward Ousmane Dembele celebrates with supporters after receiving the Ballon d'Or award at the end of the 2025 Ballon d'Or France Football award ceremony outside the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris on September 22, 2025. Photo: FRANCK FIFE/AFP
A cameraman on a unicycle films athletes in action as they compete in the men's 10000m final during the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on September 14, 2025. Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP
Fireworks explode as Paris Saint-Germain's players parade on a bus on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on June 1, 2025, a day after PSG won the 2025 UEFA Champions League final football match against Inter Milan in Munich. Photo: THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP
Protests
A demonstrator shouts slogans during a protest outside the Parliament in Kathmandu on September 8, 2025, condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government. Nepal police on September 8 opened fire, killing at least 17 people as thousands of young protesters took to the streets of Kathmandu demanding the government lift a social media ban and tackle corruption. Photo: PRABIN RANABHAT/AFP
A protester jumps for safety as she emerges from a narrow alley while Kenya police officers strike her with whips and clubs during clashes in downtown Nairobi on June 25, 2025 during a planned day of protest marking the first anniversary of the storming of the parliament. Photo: LUIS TATO/AFP
Immigration
A man is detained by federal agents after his hearing at New York Federal Plaza Immigration Court inside the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York on October 1, 2025. Photo: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP
Migrants try to board a smuggler's boat in an attempt to cross the English Channel off the beach of Gravelines, northern France on August 12, 2025. Photo: SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP
Pride
Drag queen Pariga smokes a cigarette in the backstage before a drag queens show at Finalmente Club in Lisbon on May 26, 2025.. Finalmente Club, opened in 1976, is one of the most iconic gay clubs in Portugal. Photo: PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP
-AFP