Powerful Images Of 2012

Vincenzo Scibetta is consoled by his father, Charles Scibetta, as his mother's name, Adrian Victoria, is read during ceremonies marking the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Karen Clarkson lies over her slain son's grave at the National Cemetery on Memorial Day. Her son, Sgt. Joel Clarkson, was serving as an Army Ranger team leader in Afghanistan when he was shot and killed in March 2010.

A Tibetan exile runs through a street during a protest against the upcoming visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

A man in Greece kicks riot police back.

Mohammad Rafique, a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar, begs a Bangladeshi coast guard official not to send his family back to Myanmar.

A man embraces his dog as she receives saline from a drip from a veterinarian hospital financed by Sao Paulo’s municipal government.

A boy cries as he holds his sister in his lap after a confrontation with squatters and police personnel in Kathmandu, Nepal.

A police officer stands in front of a wall of flames during a protest in Athens. Violent clashes erupted as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in opposition to a fresh round of budget cuts that the Greek government is expected to announce.

A Syrian refugee boy points a plastic toy pistol at a man in a Mickey Mouse costume on the first day of Eid al-Adha at a park in Beirut.

Vacationers bask in front of the wreckage of capsized cruise liner Costa Concordia. Twenty-eight people were killed when the cruise ship capsized off the coast of Italy.

A Virgin Mary is all that remains from a home that was destroyed in Breezy Point, Queens, after Hurricane Sandy.

Unidentified people beat Svyatoslav Sheremet, head of Gay-Forum of Ukraine, in May. Sheremet was attacked after meeting with members of the media to inform them that a scheduled gay parade was canceled due to threats of violence from neo-Nazis and other hate groups. The attackers ran off when they realized members of the media were documenting the attack.

Fashionistas pose for photographs in front of a homeless man outside Moynihan Station following a New York Fashion Week show in September.

An employee from a government-owned company in Athens, Greece, threatens to jump from her office window after being told she would likely be laid off.

Thousands of people with crutches and in wheelchairs protested against the government of Bolivia in February. They were protesting what they believe to be an inadequate welfare system.

A police officer uses his baton against an activist during a protest against the government in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Demonstrators demanded that the government withdraw a power-tariff hike marched toward the energy ministry.

Ramoncito Campo kisses his wife Hernelie Ruazol Campo on a flooded street during a southwest monsoon that battered Manila, Philippines, in August. The newlywed couple pushed through with their scheduled wedding despite severe flooding that inundated wide areas of the capital and nine nearby provinces.

Jillian Soto uses a phone to get information about her sister, Victoria Soto, who was killed at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.