Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world.
Members of the ‘Ekum Baba’ light up the streets of Banjul ahead of the annual hunting festival in Banjul on January 1, 2025. Rooted in tradition, this vibrant celebration marks the New Year with music, dancing, and a fierce yet friendly competition between hunting societies for the title of the best display of animal heads, masks and costumes. (Photo by MUHAMADOU BITTAYE / AFP)
Lightning is seen during a thunderstorm over Montevideo on January 1, 2025. (Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP)Swimmers take a dip in the Kromme Rijn near Amelisweerd in Bunnink, the Netherlands, 01 January 2025. The New Year’s dive was organized by an action group called Amelisweerd Niet Geasfalteerd (literal translation: Do not asphalt Amelisweerd) and was a protest against the planned widening of the highway A27 that would result in cutting down part of the forrest of Amelisweerd. Picture: EPA-EFE/SANDER KONINGBirds fly around a crane at a construction site engulfed in smog, during sunset in Mumbai, India, 01 January 2025. Mumbai is experiencing severe air pollution as a result of ongoing construction work, including metro projects, building construction, bridges, road maintenance, and vehicular traffic as well as climate change, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) falling into the ‘poor’ category, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Picture: EPA-EFE/DIVYAKANT SOLANKIAymara Indigenous people celebrate the “Roscasiri” in the Pomata District, one of seven districts of the Chucuito Province in the Puno Region, southern Peru, on January 1, 2025. This ancient Aymara event, in which people decorate themselves with breads and fruits that represent abundance for the new year, celebrates the change of local authorities. (Photo by CONNIE FRANCE CALDERON MARTEL / AFP)A motorist navigates a flooded Barry Hertzog Avenue near Melville, 1 January 2025, after persistent rains on New Year’s Day. Picture: Michel Bega/The CitizenA general view of beachgoers enjoying the water on a hot summer’s day at Muizenberg Beach on January 01, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. With warm weather to start the new year, thousands of locals and visitors flocked to Cape Town’s Muizenberg Beach beach to enjoy the day. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)Participants drive in little cars during the annual New Year’s Day Parade in London, Britain, 01 January 2025. A number of events to celebrate the New Year have been cancelled due weather warnings of heavy rain and strong winds. Picture: EPA-EFE/NEIL HALLWell-wishers to Japanese royal family’s public appearance for New Year celebrations make their way at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan, 02 January 2025. People gathered at the Imperial Palace for the traditional New Year greeting by the Japanese Imperial Family. Picture: EPA-EFE/KIM KYUNG-HOON / POOLA vendor waits for customers behind fish for sale at a market in Surabaya on January 2, 2025. (Photo by Juni KRISWANTO / AFP)An aerial picture shows fishermen arranging nets at a beach in Banda Aceh on January 2, 2025. (Photo by CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN / AFP)A cyclist crosses railway tracks amid dense fog on a cold winter morning in Amritsar on January 2, 2025. (Photo by Narinder NANU / AFP)Members of the Gdansk Walrus club pose during the New Year’s bath on the beach in Gdansk Jelitkowo, Poland, 01 January 2025. Picture: EPA-EFE/ADAM WARZAWAStrollers walk between pancakes of snow on the frozen Lake des Rousses in Les Rousses, central-eastern France, on January 1, 2025. This phenomenon forms when slushy ice in water clumps into round, pancake-like shapes due to waves or currents. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)Cyril Xaba, eThekwini mayor greeting holiday makers during the walkabout at Durban beachfront on January 01, 2025 in Durban, South Africa. The eThekwini Municipality Mayor interacts with visitors to assure them of their safety. (Photo by Gallo Images/Darren Stewart)Women look at a billboard displaying images of elderly people for New Year celebrations in Phnom Penh on January 2, 2025. (Photo by TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP)A participant holding a sign reading 2025 runs towards the water during the annual New Year’s Day “Loony Dook” swim, in the Firth of Forth, in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh, on January 1, 2025. Every year people brave the River Forth, near the Forth Bridge, on New Year’s Day to see in the New Year and raise money for charity. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP)Aerial view showing believers on several types of boats following the image of Bom Jesus dos Navegantes during the annual procession in Salvador, Bahia State, Brazil, on January 1, 2025. The procession has more than two centuries of history and became a milestone in Bahia’s popular culture, blending faith, traditions and reflecting on contemporary themes such as ecology and solidarity. (Photo by Rafael MARTINS / AFP)Catholic devotees perform during a blessing of the Black Nazarene replicas outside the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, also known as Quiapo Church, in Manila, Philippines, 02 January 2025. The blessing activity is among several events leading up to the feast day of the Black Nazarene on 09 January, a special day for honoring Jesus Christ with a whole day procession of barefoot devotees. Picture: EPA-EFE/FRANCIS R. MALASIGAn Afghan burqa-clad woman looks for alms along a street, during the first heavy snowfall this winter in Kabul on January 2, 2025. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)
