Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world.
A young member of a troupe catches a baton as they take part in the annual parade of Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Second New Year) in Cape Town on January 5, 2026. (Photo by RODGER BOSCH / AFP)Armed supporters of ousted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ride motorcycles as they demonstrate in Caracas on January 4, 2026, a day after he was captured in a US strike. The Venezuelan military recognized Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s VP, as acting president Sunday. (Photo by Juan BARRETO / AFP)A man holds a symbolic key of freedom as relatives and friends of Ukrainian prisoners of war hold a rally calling to speed up prisoner exchanges, in Kyiv, on January 4, 2026, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)A cattle herder walks in field of wild flowers near Zuurbekom in Johannesburg, 5 June 2026. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The CitizenA member of staff holds up a head of a 243-kilogram bluefin tuna at the sushi restaurant ‘Sushizanmai’ in Tokyo on January 5, 2026, after the New Year’s auction at Toyosu fish market. A Japanese sushi entrepreneur paid a record $3.2 million for a giant bluefin tuna January 5 at an annual prestigious new year auction in Tokyo’s main fish market, smashing the previous all-time high. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)Tourists take pictures at the Yehliu Geopark, which is made of sedimentary rocks being impacted by sea erosion and full of ‘mushroom rocks’, in New Taipei City on January 5, 2026. (Photo by I-Hwa Cheng / AFP)Activists and supporters of the Frontline Socialist Party hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against the US’s attack on Venezuela, outside the US Embassy in Colombo on January 5, 2026. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was in a New York jail on January 3, hours after American special forces seized and flew him out of his country—which Donald Trump said would come under effective US control. (Photo by Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP)Honda CRF 450’s Spanish rider Tosha Schareina competes in Stage 2 of the 48th edition of the Dakar Rally, between Yanbu and Al Ula in Saudi Arabia, on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP)A US Air Force F22-Raptor takes off from José Aponte de la Torre Airport, formerly Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, on January 4, 2026. US President Donald Trump threatened Sunday that Venezuela’s new leader will pay a “big price” if she does not cooperate with the United States, after US forces seized and jailed her former boss Nicolas Maduro. If interim president Delcy Rodriguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a telephone interview. (Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP)Passengers ride a government bus on a winter morning in New Delhi on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP)A man walks across Jhelum’s parched riverbed on the outskirts of Srinagar on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP)Toyota Gazoo Racing SA’s South African driver Guy Botterill and his Spanish co-driver Oriol Mena compete in Stage 2 of the 48th edition of the Dakar Rally, between Yanbu and Al Ula in Saudi Arabia, on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP)Snow blankets the town of Thury-Harcourt-le-Hom in Normandy, northwestern France, on January 5, 2026. (Photo by Lou BENOIST / AFP)A protester looks at his phones as he walks among mechanical diggers and trucks transporting hay as farmers block the ringway, in Caen, northwestern France, on January 5, 2026 as part of a series of action called in the region by French farmer union Coordination Rural. Several roadblocks were reported by the police on January 5 on the country’s motorways. France’s Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu is meeting with farmers’ unions in an attempt to avert the threat of a third winter of rural unrest, as protests resume after the festive season. All sides are hoping for a break from the crises shaking the agricultural world: the contagious nodular dermatitis (CND) epidemic affecting cattle; low wheat prices and high fertiliser costs weighing heavily on cereal farmers; and the threat of increased competition from Latin American Mercosur countries. (Photo by Lou BENOIST / AFP)A security guard sits in front of a wall with traditional Chinese opera facemasks along an alley in Beijing on January 5, 2026. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)
