Your week in pictures
BBC News website readers have been sending photos of news stories around the globe this week. Here is a selection of them:
How likely is a White Christmas this year? The start of the week saw the early snows before the bleak midwinter in rural parts of Scotland and northern England. Peter Steggles sent this photo from Altass in the Kyle of Sutherland, UK, an area mainly used for forestry and crofting, where the overnight temperature dropped to 1C.
His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, visited West Hanningfield, Essex, UK, on Tuesday. Ellie Spencer-Damps was among those gathered to watch the heir to the throne plant a tree in a neighbourhood of affordable housing as part of The Prince's Foundation for Building Community.
In Sydney, Australia, a siege in a cafe which lasted two days ended in the death of two hostages and their captor. During and afterwards, people across Australia shared their grief and support, such as outside the cafe, photographed here by Krishna Prasad.
Thousand's of Australians laid flowers in memory of those killed in the siege at an impromptu memorial at Martin Place in Sydney, Australia. Picture sent by Richard Wilson.
Hassan Suffyan took this picture of the grief and sympathy of people who assembled at Trafalgar Square, London, UK, to mourn the death of 141 pupils and staff when the Pakistan Taliban attacked an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday.
Thursday saw a major policy shift in the US with a promise to end decades of sanctions and hostility and 'normalise' relations with Cuba. In celebration, Matt Smith, a teacher from North Yorkshire who regularly takes pupils on school trips to the Caribbean communist state, sent this image of a girl on a balcony in Santa Clara.
The photo was taken "in the main square where the final battle of the Revolution took place," he says. "The little girl, standing triumphantly next to the Cuban flag, appeared to be proudly mimicking her leader Fidel Castro."
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