A Chuan opera actress performs at a theater in Suining, Sichuan province January 5, 2008.

REUTERS/Stringer

Richard Whitehead, a British disability activist who was born without legs, competes as he runs past a Lebanese soldier during the annual Beirut Marathon in Beirut, November 30, 2008. Thousands of people took part in the run which started in the Lebanese capital.

REUTERS/ Mohamed Azakir

Iran News Paper

A video frame grab of President Bush ducking from a shoe during a news conference in Baghdad, December 14, 2008.

REUTERS/Reuters TV

One of some 700 couples who were married in a mass wedding walk along a road in Nagorno Karabakh October 16, 2008.

You Witness News/Anahit Hayrapetyan

A man walks past a burning car during riots in Athens December 8, 2008.

REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis

Picture of the Year, Lead Awards 2007 A would-be immigrant crawls after his arrival on a makeshift boat on the Gran Tarajal beach in Spain's Canary Island, May 5, 2006.

REUTERS/Juan Medina

An overcrowded passenger train is seen in Dhaka December 8, 2008. Millions of residents in Dhaka have started the exodus home from the capital city ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

A Muslim pilgrim prays at the top of Mount Noor in Mecca, during the annual pilgrimage (Haj) December 4, 2008.

REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel speak as they arrive for a lunch at the home of France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy during a Franco-German meeting in Paris on November 24, 2008.

REUTERS/Charles Platiau (FRANCE)

A child flies a kite with a red ribbon during a World AIDS Day event in Beijing November 30, 2008. There are about 700,000 cases of HIV/AIDS in China, according to official statistics.

REUTERS/Jason Lee

(L-R) France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain's Prime Minster Gordon Brown and Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi leave Downing Street following a meeting January 29, 2008.

REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

Jeremy Hibbin, headmaster of the British International School in Ljubljana, makes a funny face at students next to Britain's Queen Elizabeth during a workshop called "Jungle-Jangle" October 21, 2008. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are on a two-day official visit to Slovenia.

REUTERS/Pool

A U.S soldier shakes the hand of an Iraqi boy during a patrol in Baquba, in Diyala province some 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, October 21, 2008.

REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

City workers make phone calls outside the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square in the City of London at lunchtime October 1, 2008.

REUTERS/Toby Melville

The house of Austrian suspect Josef Fritzl is pictured in Amstetten in eastern Austria May 2, 2008. Josef Fritzl, a 73-year-old electrical engineer, who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered seven children with her had threatened to kill his victims by pumping gas into the cellar where he was holding them, police said on Thursday.

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

Padre Pio's body goes on display in his home town 40 years after his death /msbn

Tehran, Iran: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad helps a women who fainted after meeting him inside a polling stationPhotograph: Behrouz Mehri /AFP