Here is our selection of the best pictures from this week.
It was a tragic week for Turkey where avalanche and a plane crash claimed lives. Around the world, panic over coronavirus was spreading as quickly as the infection and a famous groundhog predicted an early spring. Here's a look on this week in pictures carefully selected for you.
Italian train derailed
A high-speed passenger train has derailed in northern Italy, killing two railway workers and injuring 27 people.
Avalanche and plane crash in Turkey
An avalanche slammed into a mountain road in eastern Turkey on Wednesday, wiping out a huge team of rescue workers sent to find people missing in an earlier avalanche. The number of people known to have died was put at 38.
A plane broke into pieces after it skidded off the runway and crashed into a field at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen Airport on Wednesday. As the wreck of the Pegasus Airlines plane was still being examined on Thursday, survivors of the ordeal - that killed three - have described their experience.
Coronavirus panic spreading
Coronavirus panic was only encreasing this week with photographs of extraordinary measures coming from different parts of the world. Britain and Germany announced more cases of the Wuhan coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed virus cases in Europe to 29.
Protests and clashes in Lesbos
Riot forces used tear gas on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday against asylum seekers, two thousand of whom demonstrated against the new law tightening asylum procedures in Greece, we learned from police sources.
After Brexit
Britain is getting used to its new status after leaving the EU. Both sides face a huge challenge to strike a trade deal and address the future relationship before a standstill transition period ends in December 2020.
Spring is around the corner?
Pennsylvania’s famed groundhog, 'Punxsutawney Phil', has predicted (according to his handlers) that spring will come early this year. The annual Groundhog Day festivities have their origin in the superstition that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on February 2 sees a shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks.
Missile tests
A captivating image was created by the launch of a US Air Force unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile as part of a developmental test. The missile blasted off from a base in California just after midnight local time and its reentry vehicle travelled 6,500km to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
French strikes
Pension reform is being debated in the French parliament and resistance remains high in public opinion. Strikes by different groups of of different public workers, including lawyers, continued this week.