After our trip to Australia I worked for just two weeks before escaping again, this time to Vietnam. We began our journey in the south at Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) on the Mekong Delta, and travelled by minibus and plane via Nah Trang, flooded Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue (with its Forbidden City) to the northern Ha Long Bay and the capital Hanoi. Although it involved a lot of travelling and sightseeing, we had a good, relaxed time, always with an eye on the outstanding culinary delights, but that is a story for another day. 

I returned to the office completely relaxed and looking forward to my favourite job of the year, compiling the global selection of Pictures of the Year. Selecting the best pictures of the top stories of the year is a massive task and involves trawling through thousands of world class images including stunning news pictures, graphic scenes of conflict, natural disasters, sports, cute animal features and a lot of very, very boring pictures of men in suits, all too often shaking hands. There were artistic and colourful features, eye-catching stand alones and stunning sports action pictures. A huge challenge but a great job and one I still find thrilling even if I do have to look at more than 500 pictures every working day, five days a week.

At my request local and regional chief photographers had compiled their 2007 selections and while I was in Vietnam hundreds and hundreds of these images had flooded into the Singapore desk. Some were suggestions for the global “best of the best”, others targeted more locally. In the end there were more than 2,000 of them, about five times more pictures than than we needed. I whittled them down to a “short list” of about 1,000, then my boss Pedja Kujunzic and I went through the whole lot, time after time after time, discussing the merits of each picture and the relative importance of the story until we had our final cut. The hardest part was getting the blend right; ensuring that we had the best pictures of the big stories, spiced up with eye catchers to give clients everyhere a selection that was high impact and well balanced.  

In the end we moved clients some 400 Global Pictures of the Year 2007 - I’m sure you will see many of them in the round-ups of the year’s events in your papers or on the internet.

I would like to show you them all but here are a few, my personal selection.

Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai lies dying in the street, still trying to record the scenes of violence after he was shot through the chest when soldiers fired live rounds at protestors in Yangon - Adrees Latif. (please see also http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2007/09/2 8/shooting-to-kill/)

- Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, just visible beyond the riot shields of guards, as she pays her respects to the crowd of monks gathered outside the villa where she is under house arrest - stringer. (please also see http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2007/09/2 5/come-in-rangoon/)

Ow! That looks painful…

- Austrian Gunther Weidlinger comes a cropper during the heats of the men’s 3,000 metres steeplechase at the 11th IAAF World Athletics Championship in Osaka - David Gray

- Christina Kim of the U.S. reacts after missing a birdie putt during a golf tournament in Florida - Hans Deryk. To me this is more of a nice feature than a sports picture, it delights my eye.  

- Glaucelio Abreu (L) of Brazil fights against Clarence Joseph of the Virgin Islands during their bout for the men’s 75 kg boxing competition at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro - Daniel Munoz. Maybe Daniel didn’t realize during the fight but this is a great stand alone image - it doesn’t matter who won.

- A crocodile at a zoo in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung holds the forearm of a zoo veterinarian in between its teeth after biting it off - Frank Lin. What is there to say?  

- Yang Yang, 3, kisses a Beluga Whale during a publicity photocall at the Qingdao Polar Ocean World, in eastern China’s Shandong province - China Daily.

To prove that political pictures aren’t all men in suits shaking hands here are two examples of Condy Rice.  

- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee on the State Department’s international affairs budget on Capitol Hill in Washington - Larry Downing.

 - Desiree Fairooz of Texas, 50, jumps up in front of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before Rice testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington October 24, 2007. Fairooz, an anti-war protester waved blood-colored hands in Rice’s face at a congressional hearing on Wednesday and shouted “war criminal!”, but was pushed away and detained by police - Larry Downing.

- Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar, his nephew, hang from the cable of a crane in Tehran. Iran hanged Majid and Hossein, the killers of a judge who had jailed several reformist dissidents, before a crowd of hundreds of people - Morteza Nikoubazl.

- An unexploded grenade lies next to the body of a suspected militant during a shootout in Srinagar. Police on Thursday shot dead two Islamic militants holed up in a hotel in the heart of Kashmir’s main city after a 20-hour gunbattle - Danish Ishmail.

- Revellers perform during a parade at the Carnival de Barranquilla in Barranquilla, Colombia - Fredy Builes.

- A Swiss flag is thrown into the air as more then 100 Alphorn blowers perform during the International Alphorn contest on the alp Tracouet in Nendaz, southern Switzerland - Stefan Wermuth.

- A protestor dressed as a clown stands beside a police officer at the Camp for Climate Action near to Heathrow Airport in west London - Stephen Hird. 

Last but not least a combination picture from Poland, showing two planes from the Zelazny aerobatics team, crashing at the Radom Air Show - Kacper Pempel. A series of images which are just as horrifying now as the first time I saw them. (please also see: http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/200 7/09/03/no-second-chance/)

If you enjoyed these you can find an extended selection here: Pictures of the Year 2007.