View the entire collection of winning images from the 56th World Press Photo Contest. The winners were selected from over 100,000 images submitted to the contest.
Vietnam has historically been unwelcoming to same-sex couples, but in 2012 the Vietnamese government announced it was considering recognizing same-sex marriage, a move that would make it the first Asian country to do so.
The people of Afghanistan have had to deal with conflict and military occupation for much of the past 50 years. Conflict and long-term instability in Afghanistan have led to personal trauma, and severe economic and infrastructural damage.
The Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota live near the site of the massacre of over 250 Lakota Sioux, at Wounded Knee Creek (1890). They recount a long history of violated treaties and broken promises on the part of successive US governments.
A woman sits on bags of waste she has salvaged, at the Dandora municipal dump, outside Nairobi, Kenya. She said that she enjoys looking at books, even industrial catalogues, as a break from picking up garbage.
Mireia Arnau (39) reacts behind the broken glass of her shop, stormed by demonstrators clashing with police in Barcelona, during a general strike on 29 March.
A free school in New Delhi was founded by Rajesh Kumar Sharma (40), who was unable to complete his own college education, because of financial difficulties. Every day he takes two hours out to teach children of local laborers, while his brother replaces him at his general store.