-- AFP PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2015 -- In a picture taken on January 21, 2015, children dressed in uniform sing after raising the national flag at the Beichuan Red army elementary school in Beichuan, southwest China's Sichuan province. China's push to encourage more couples to have a second child after decades of restrictive family planning policies has fallen short of expectations in the first year, state media reported in January. The world's most populous country has restricted most families to a single child since the late 1970s, but the Communist Party has started easing controls, allowing couples to have two offspring so long as one of the parents is an only child, rather than both. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR