Photos: Happy moments of 2023

This photo, taken on June 28, 2023, shows 85-year-old rugby player Yasutake Oshima (R) participating in a rugby training session for his senior over 70s team at the Fukasawa Multi-Purpose Sports Plaza in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture. He plays in the Fuwaku Rugby Club, which was created in 1979. They have different short colours depending on their age: white shorts are for those in their forties, blue for the fifties, red for the sixties, yellow for the seventies, purple for the eighties and gold for the nineties. It is one of approximately 150 Japanese clubs that stage competitive full-contact matches for players over 40.

A Palestinian prisoner hugs his mother after being released amid a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, December 1, 2023.

Pandas eating inside their enclosure at a zoo in China's southwestern Chongqing municipality.

Teammates hold up Inter Miami's Argentine forward #10 Lionel Messi as they celebrate after winning the Leagues Cup final football match against Nashville SC at Geodis Park in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 19, 2023. Lionel Messi was named on December 5, 2023, Time magazine's "Athlete of the Year" for 2023 after a trailblazing season marked by an eighth Ballon d'Or award and his ground-breaking move to Major League Soccer's Inter Miami.

Cadets celebrate during their graduation ceremony at the United States Air Force Academy, just north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, on June 1, 2023.

Gert-Jan from the Netherlands, 40, a victim of a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed, poses with the implants that allow him to walk naturally during a press conference in Lausanne on May 23, 2023. For the first time after more than a decade of work by researchers in France and Switzerland, a paralyzed man has regained the ability to walk naturally using only his thoughts thanks to two implants that restored communication between his brain and spinal cord. The advance was revealed in a study in the journal Nature.

World Athletics Championship - Women's 5000m Final - National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary - August 26, 2023. Kenya's Faith Kipyegon celebrates after winning the gold medal in the women's 5000m final.

Dancers wait to perform the Sundanese peacock dance in Bandung, West Java August 19, 2023.

A migrant family from Venezuela reacts after breaking through a razor wire barricade into the United States, following hours of waiting on a river bank on the Rio Grande river in Eagle Pass, Texas, on September 25, 2023. Dozens of migrants arrived at the US-Mexico border on September 22, 2023, hoping to be allowed into the United States, with US border forces reporting 1.8 million encounters with migrants in the last 12 months.

Students daubed in 'Gulal' or coloured powder celebrate Holi, the Hindu spring festival of colours, at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar on March 6, 2023.

Children playing with bubbles at a kindergarten during an event to celebrate International Children's Day in Nanjing, in China's eastern Jiangsu province.

Couples dance in Place Colette, central Paris on September 2, 2023.

Competitors dressed as Barbie and Ken arrive at the World Bog Snorkelling Championships held at the Waen Rhydd peat bog, Llanwrtyd Wells, Mid Wales, on August 27, 2023. The race is held along a 55-metre bog trench, in which the contestants must complete two lengths. Conventional swimming strokes are not allowed, though snorkels and flippers are mandatory.

A pensioner looks at Dounka, a 10 years old mare, used to work with old people at the MARPA (Maisons d'Accueil et de Residence pour l'Autonomie) "Pays de Courbet" in Ornans, eastern France, on March 21, 2023.

A woman admires an artwork entitled 'The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe', which features in an exhibition by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama entitled 'You, Me and the Balloons' in the Aviva Studios gallery in Manchester, northwest England, on June 29, 2023.

Mud-covered farmers play in a paddy field during "National Paddy Day", which marks the start of the annual rice planting season, in Tokha village on the outskirts of Kathmandu on June 30, 2023.

Students draw pictures among blossoming rapeseed flowers in Haian, Nantong city, in China's eastern Jiangsu province, on March 28, 2023.

Chrach Peou is spraying water in a garden in front of his house shaped like an aeroplane in Siem Reap province. A Cambodian aeroplane fanatic has built his house shaped like a private jet -- despite never having been up in the air himself.

Dancers Pauline Okumu (C) and Natalia Como (R) hug backstage during the production of the 'Nutcracker', a classical ballet traditionally performed in the Christmas period, at the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi on December 2, 2023. Dance Centre Kenya (DCK) has grown to become Kenya's pre-eminent and most diverse dance school committed to teaching talented dancers, irrespective of their ability to pay for training. DCK's sponsorship plan in schools and informal settlements has already affected the lives of many aspiring dancers from disadvantaged backgrounds, some engaging in training programmes abroad with renowned international ballet schools.

Young Maasai men perform their traditional jumping dance as they gather to sing and dance during the Eunoto ceremony in a remote area near Kilgoris, Kenya, on August 18, 2023. Hundreds of young Maasai participate in the Eunoto ceremony, a rite of passage that marks the transition from Moran (young warrior) to adulthood as junior elders.