Day in pictures

1 of 9 Pope John Paul II blesses a music band from Palestine at his summer residence south of Rome.

2 of 9 Lebanese Christian and Muslim clergymen prepare to take part in a sit-in against the attack on the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

3 of 9 Moroccan immigrants wait to be transferred to the Spanish port of Tarifa, after being caught on a small boat.

4 of 9 Heavy rains in the Indian State of West Bengal force an Indian husband and wife to wade through flooded fields.

5 of 9 Residents of Boscastle in Britain begin clearing up after a flash flood swept through their village.

6 of 9 Pakistani women wait outside a polling station to cast their vote in a national by-election in Tharpakar in southern province of Sindh.

7 of 9 A left-wing Berliner salutes a memorial to Ernst Thaelmann, a German Communist Party leader in the 1930s, on the 60th anniversary of his death in Buchenwald concentration camp.

8 of 9 A lonely spectator watches a basketball game at the Olympic women's tournament in Athens.

9 of 9 A man looks at a painting near an unusual artwork at the Musee des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux, France.