Capturing horrors of war

Images of Iraq dominate the news categories of this year's World Press Photo contest, the annual award which has attracted entires from 124 countries.

The overall winning entry, taken in an Iraqi holding centre by French photographer Jean-Marc Bouju, shows a hooded detainee holding his four-year-old son.

The boy was terrified on seeing his father hooded and handcuffed, so a US
soldier severed the plastic handcuffs to let the man comfort his child.

Belgian photographer Bruno Stevens won the Daily Life section by capturing a calm interlude of everyday life in a Baghdad café weeks before the first US bombing.

Ahmed Jadall's slightly askew picture shows the fatal aftermath of a raid by Israeli tanks on Jabalya, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza strip.

Wounded by shrapnel, the Palestinian took the image after collapsing with a severed leg artery.

But one of the most intriguing images is that by Briton Nick Danziger. Showing George Bush and Tony Blair in almost identical suits, with Bush captured from behind, the image tricks the viewer into initially thinking that Blair is smiling at his own reflection. Wonderful stuff.