The two faces of Brazil. The satirical online newspaper The Onion has put this picture on the front cover of its 2009 World Calender. I think the image captures something of Brazil's contradictions - beauty, devotion and religious fervour, on the one hand - favelas with gang violence which rival war zones, on the other. As the tagline I read for the photo says: "People at their most beautiful, humanity at its ugliest".

This addition should be added to this montage of alternative Christ the Redeemer photos I published on here back at the start of 2007. Click here for those.