As 2012 draws to a close, the IBTimes UK has pulled together some of the most striking and powerful images from the past 12 months.

The past year has featured a bombardment of extraordinary news, with some phenomenal photography to help expand the stories further.

The Syrian civil war maintains its tense grip on the news agenda, national pride reached amazing highs with the triumphant London Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the year ended with the heartbreaking tragedy of the Sandy Hook school massacre.

No matter the story - whether protests about a jailed Russia punk band or a snapshot on how the eurozone crisis has hit millions across the continent - each picture communicates with an audience in a way words cannot.

Click through to see what IBTimes UK believes to be the most powerful images of 2012:

Follow the links below to read the IBTimes UK picks of the year, in:-

Tennis

UK Television

Manchester United

Films

Free apps for iPhone 5

50 Shades of Grey

World football

Technology

Sporting Heroes and Villains

England Cricket

The Newsmakers

Business Quotes

A heavily armed Adam Lanza opened fire on schoolchildren and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

Desperate Greeks bustle for free onions and other vegetables offered by farmers in Athens' Syntagma Square

Jamphel Yeshi, a Tibetan exile in India, sets himself on fire in protest against a visit by Chinese president Hu Jintao

Brazil's Terezinha Guilhermina (left) and her guide Guilherme Soares de Santana cross the finish line to win the women's 100m - T11 final in the 2012 Paralympic Games

Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, a supporter of jailed members of female punk band Pussy Riot, has his mouth sewn up in protest at their trial for religious hooliganism

Police strike activists protesting against fuel price hikes in Dhaka

A boy cries as he holds his sister after a confrontation between squatters and police who wrecked illegally built homes in Kathmandu

Svyatoslav Sheremet, the head of Gay Forum of Ukraine, is beaten mercilessly by anti-gay thugs in Kiev after a pride march was called off. The attackers ran away when they realised they had been captured on film

Refugees in Pibor gather for basic supplies from the World Food Programme

A satellite image of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship aground off the coast of Italy. Thirty-two people died in the capsize.

Relatives of people who died during Egypt's revolution react after a court sentenced deposed president Hosni Mubarak to life in prison

A boy mourns school friends killed when a bus carrying Belgian students crashed in a tunnel in Switzerland. Twenty-eight people died, 22 of them children.

Hundreds of physically disabled people break through police lines in La Paz to lodge demands for disability payments from the Bolivian government

A doctor removes a bullet from the hand of a young girl wounded during an attack by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the flashpoint city of Homs