Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009

Welcome to South Africa, folks. Please hand over your nectarines: A gang of baboon bandits, led by Fred here, has been terrorizing tourists in Cape Town. The apes will leap through windows and can open unlocked car doors. Once inside, they will ransack the interior for sandwiches, fruit or just about any kind of food.

Santa mugged: The economy is so bad in Beijing that the thieves are stealing the phony presents from the jolly old elf's gift bag.

She loves you yeah yeah yeah: Two-year-old Jessica Fletcher kisses a giant fiberglass penguin decorated as John Lennon at the pier head in Liverpool.

We wouldn't want you to get wet or anything: Swans go motorboating to their annual wintering grounds in Hamburg-Winterhude, Germany.

Is this seat taken? A homeless woman plops down in the aisle beside Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti during Mass in Tegucigalpa.

Our prices are INSANE! A young livestock salesman waits for customers at an animal market on the outskirts of Kabul. Cows, camels, goats and sheep are traditionally slaughtered for the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.

A sale means slaughter awaits a buffalo at a market in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The animal's eye reflects customers haggling with the owner over a price ahead of Eid al-Adha.

An Afghan widow waits in line at a CARE food distribution in Kabul, Afghanistan. The monthly food ration provides the needy with 50 kilograms of wheat, 3 liters of cooking oil and 1 kilogram of salt and beans.

Army tenderfoots: South Korean soldiers rest their blisters during a two-day, 63-mile march along the Han River in Seoul.

Slovakian segregation: Young Roma mothers Alena Kalejova and Lucia Kucharova stand behind a concrete wall dividing the village of Ostrovany, Slovakia, into gypsy and non-gypsy neighborhoods. Roma, locals and human rights organizations have condemned the separation.

You'd better not sneeze, I'm telling you why: After each child sits on his lap and talks to him, Santa (Jerry Peterson) sprays himself with a disinfectant so he won't give anyone H1N1 for Christmas. (Bass Pro Shop in Independence, Mo.)

Ignore the blob in the foreground: A polar travel expedition has discovered an enormous mass off Macquarie Island, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. The iceberg, that is. It is rare to find Antarctic icebergs this far north.

No stash is safe from this nose: K-9 Narcotics Detection Officer Raidin, a Belgian Malanois, looks like he's found some contraband at Kingman High School in Kingman, Ariz.

A job for the captain: The skipper of the Emirates Team New Zealand scales the mast as his crew competes against Italy's Azzurra during the final of the Louis Vuitton Trophy race near Nice, France.