Residents of the Philippine capital, Manila, attend the first of nine dawn masses which marks the official start of the Christmas season...
...while elsewhere in the Philippines, a survivor gathers firewood from the ruins of houses destroyed during last month's super-typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban city.
US President Barack Obama and his family are greeted by a team of elves made up of former patients of the Children's National Medical Center at the National Building Museum in Washington.
An Indian man brushes his teeth as he sits near the water of an irrigation canal on the outskirts of the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar, India.
A girl poses next to a 3D painting of China's Mao Zedong at an exhibition in Binzhou, Shandong province. The 120th anniversary of the late Chinese leader's birth will be marked on 26 December.
French President Francois Hollande pays his respect in front of the flag-draped coffin of one of the two French soldiers killed in the Central African Republic last week, during a ceremony in the courtyard of the Invalides monument in Paris.
Protesters guard opposition barricades on Independence Square in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. Anti-government demonstrators are calling for the president's resignation, after the EU abruptly suspended partnership talks.
The grave of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who was buried on Sunday, is covered with flowers at his home village of Qunu, South Africa.
