As we all prepare to usher in the New Year, it seems appropriate to look back on the major events of 2008, which has been a disastrous year for many. P’s aimless wanderings around the web turned up the following favourite “Year in Photos” photosites and she thought she’d share them with readers.

The Boston Globe posted a wonderful tripartite series of 120 photos that capture 2008 events from a pan-US viewpoint. All of them are absolutely gorgeous, but P particularly likes this one as a piece of photojournalism summarizing some of the religious conflict of the year and yet holding out hope for the future.

It shows Muslim mourners at the funeral for Mohsin Navqi, a Pakistani Emigre to the US and US army officer. He was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Afghanistan.

From P’s part of the world, comes this shot of the Shenzhou-7 manned spaceship which took Taikonaut Zhai Zhigang on China’s first ever manned space walk.

Here’s a stunning image of lightning bolts illuminating the explosion of the Chaiten volcano in Southern Chile.

Here’s an iconic pic of Obama at a rain-swept rally in Fredericksburg, VA.

View the rest of the photos at the Boston Globe blog site, part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

Pixcetera has another set of 50 photos looking back on 2008 here. Sadly, they can only be viewed in the Pixcetera player, but P urges all readers to click through – great photo of Michael Phelps celebrating his winning the 4x100metre freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics and lots of cute/strange animal photos as well. P particularly likes the surfing dog and the peeping seal pup.

Finally, from good ol’ Singapore comes a set of photo collages in a blog post from The Singapore Daily.

This set largely depicts the Lehmann bond fallout in Singapore with investors in the Development Bank of Singapore’s (DBS) High Notes mini-bonds package losing their life savings. Protesting crowds besieged the bank in Hong Kong and wrote letters to the forum in Singapore.

P loves this set which play on radical muslim detainee Mas Selamat’s escape from police detention in February 2008. “Have you seen this man” posters of Mas Selamat in various guises were posted everywhere in Singapore leading to endless parodies on the Internet.

View the rest of the collages here.

And don’t forget to add a second to your countdown tonight as you usher in the New Year! P will be tuning to the Marina Bay countdown tonight on the gogglebox (see pic below). HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!

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