A Syrian performer breaks bricks reading “sanctions” as a show of endurance during a pro-regime rally in Damascus, Dec. 2, 2011. (Louia BesharaAFP/Getty Images)

Pakistani Islamists burn an effigy of US President Barack Obama during a protest in Lahore, Dec. 2, 2011, against the cross-border NATO air strike on Pakistani troops. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)

A masked Palestinian protestor climbs Israel’s separation wall during a weekly demonstration against Israeli occupation in the West Bank village of Nilin, Dec. 02, 2011. (Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

Rebecca Flaig of Goochland, Va., left, and Ryan Jung of Richmond hold their umbrellas aloft as part of the World AIDS Day event on Brown’s Island in Richmond, Va., Dec. 1, 2011. A sea of red umbrellas, in the form of a giant red ribbon, was displayed for 9.5 minutes. (Dean Hoffmeyer/Richmond Times-Dispatch/AP Photo)

A man walks through the rain in Piccadilly Circus in central London, England, Dec. 1, 2011. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

Sri Lanka’s ruling party activists cutout portraits of President Mahinda Rajapakse during a support rally in Colombo, Dec. 2, 2011. (Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images)

Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi’s residence in Yangon, Myanmar, Dec. 2, 2011. (Saul Loeb, Pool/AP Photo)

A sure sign that cold weather has arrived is when Florence, Ala., residents begin complaining about massive flocks of blackbirds, starlings and grackles in their neighborhoods. Huge clouds of black birds nearly blot out the sky as they shift from one spot to another at the Helton drive overpass, Nov. 30, 2011. (Matt McKean/Times Daily/AP Photo)