Day in pictures

Chinese security guards sporting tropical shirts run to their positions as the Olympic torch passes through Haikou, in southern China's Hainan province.

Swimmers break the water to begin a five-kilometre (three-mile) open water race in Spain.

Barrels of oil are stacked in Jakarta, Indonesia as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says he may pull his country out of Opec because it is no longer a net oil exporter.

Bulgarians mark St George's Day with a parade by honour guard soldiers in the capital Sofia.

And in the Republic of Ireland, historical re-enactors demonstrate their musketry skills at the opening of the Battle of the Boyne Heritage Centre in County Meath.

Painstaking work as a restorer cleans the floor of Westminster Abbey's centuries-old Cosmati Pavement mosaic.

Robot meets human at the Science Museum in London.

Dancers arrive for the International Tourism Fair which runs until 9 May in Havana, Cuba.

The town of Chaiten, south of Santiago in Chile, has been evacuated, leaving only animals, following the eruption of the Chaiten volcano for the first time in recent memory...

...while in neighbouring Argentina, a young woman protects her face from the volcano's ash.