Presenting some of the most scintillating pictures from around the globe in the last 24 hours

Retiring paramilitary policemen bid farewell to their comrades inside a train at a station in Dandong, Liaoning province.

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Police arrest an Occupy London protestor on the roof of Panton House, a building used by mining company Xstrata, in central London.

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Anti-government protesters, with men and women separated, take part in a rally to celebrate the anniversary of South Yemen's independence from British colonial rule, in Sanaa.

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A girl who lost her mother to HIV/AIDS looks out the window at Nkosi's Haven, south of Johannesburg. Nkosi's Haven provides residential care for destitute HIV-positive mothers and their children, whether HIV-positive or not. Nkosi's Haven is named after Nkosi Johnson, the young AIDS activist who passed away on International Children's Day on June 1. December 1 is World AIDS Day.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her phone while sitting next to South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan.

A woman wearing a gas mask glances as police force people on the street to move during a police raid of the Occupy Los Angeles encampment at City Hall Park in Los Angeles, California. Occupy LA protesters have been camping on the lawns of City Hall since October 1, outlasting major encampments broken up by police in big cities across the nation.

A woman sitting on her front porch takes a photo of US President Barack Obama emerging from a Scranton, Pennsylvania home.  Obama was in Scranton to urge Congress to extend and expand the payroll tax cuts.

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Birds take to the air as a helicopter flies over the Swiss Parliament building transporting the annual Christmas tree for the Federal square in Bern.

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A man, identified as the attacker by Turkish media, holding a rifle and wearing an ammunition belt and a backpack, makes his way to the entrance of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Turkish security forces killed a Libyan gunman who shot and wounded two people with a pump-action rifle in the courtyard of Istanbul's historic Topkapi Palace on Wednesday, Turkish officials said.

The assailant opened fire around the time the first visitors would normally be arriving at the lavish palace, home of Ottoman sultans for centuries and one of Istanbul's top tourist draws. He was killed after a one-hour siege.

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A Los Angeles police officer walks through debris after the Occupy LA encampment was dismantled outside City Hall in Los Angeles1. The nearly two-month-old encampment is among the oldest and largest on the West Coast aligned with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations protesting economic inequality in the country and the excesses of the US financial system.

Police officers look through apertures in a mobile steel cordon at the entrance to Whitehall, during a protest march, in central London. Teachers, nurses and border guards walked out on Wednesday as up to two million state workers staged Britain's first mass strike for more than 30 years in a growing confrontation with a deficit-cutting coalition government.

Workers participate in a rally in central Sofia. Thousands of Bulgarian workers marched through capital Sofia on Wednesday to protest against government plans to raise the retirement age next year in the European Union's poorest country.

A model prepares to present the new Speedo brand swimsuits for the US Olympic team during a news conference in New York.

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A man waits close to the overspill marquee, set up in preparation for overcrowding due to striking workers, outside Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport in London.

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Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo arrives in an airplane at Rotterdam Airport. Gbagbo arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday to face an arrest warrant at the International Criminal Court, the first former head of state to do so since its inception.

A girl walks between lanes of an empty highway connecting old Myanmar's capital Yangon and new capital Naypyitaw.

Buddhist monks stand outside Quan Su pagoda as they attend the funeral of the Buddhist monk Thich Thanh Tu, whose real name is Tran Van Long, in Hanoi. Thich Thanh Tu, a pro-ruling Communist government Buddhist monk and one of the most powerful religious clergymen, died on Saturday.

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A man walks with a tent used by Occupy London protesters in central London. Demonstrators broke into an office building used by mining company Xstrata in central London on Wednesday and hung protest banners on the roof before police regained control of the building. A group of about 60 from the 'Occupy' movement entered the offices in Haymarket in protest at the pay of the company's chief executive, Occupy said in a statement.

Firefighters rescue people from the roof of a building after a fire broke out at hawker stalls on Fa Yuen Street at Mong Kok in Hong Kong. Nine people were killed and at least 24 others injured after the fire broke out, according to a government radio station.The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Security forces watch supporters of South Ossetian Presidential candidate Alla Dzhioyeva outside the central Election Commision building in Tskhinvali. A court in Georgia's Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia has thrown out the results of a vote for president and ordered a new election in March.

Lyubov Kovalyova, mother of Vladislav Kovalyov, reacts at a court building in Minsk. Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov were sentenced to death on Wednesday for organising a deadly bomb blast at a metro station in Minsk.

People gather around lit candles to mark the upcoming World AIDS Day in Kathmandu. World AIDS Day, which falls on December 1, aims to raise awareness to tackle the prejudice towards HIV-infected people and help stop its spread.

A 26-year-old drug addict works in a workshop of the employment base at Harmonious Home Rehabilitation Community, on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan province. Nearly 297 drug addicts live and work at the community, which was built in 2006 as a public service agency for drug rehabilitation established by the Kunming government's public security department, with 513 low-rent single apartments and family suites and other supporting facilities such as hospital, kindergarten, supermarket and sports fitness centre.

Drug addicts can volunteer to apply and enter into it to get free training on labour production skills and work at its employment base.

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A Los Angeles police officer points his weapon to demonstrators in a tree as officers dismantle the Occupy LA encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles. The nearly two-month-old encampment is among the oldest and largest on the West Coast aligned with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations protesting economic inequality in the country and the excesses of the US financial system.