Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's broadcast region and beyond for the 17th week of 2013. For more photo galleries, see our "Picture This" archive. (39 PHOTOS)
Photos Of The Week #17
1
Garbage collectors work at a dump site in Najaf, Iraq. (Reuters/Ahmed Mousa)
2
Indian activists shout slogans as they burn a Pakistani flag during a demonstration against Pakistan's imprisonment of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian prisoner held in the country. (AFP/Narinder Nanu)
3
Belarusian schoolchildren attend an honor guard ceremony amid preparations for the upcoming Victory Day celebrations in Minsk, which commemorate the end of World War II. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
4
Britain's Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, tries a wand in the Harry Potter Tour during a visit to the inauguration of the Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in north London. (AFP/Paul Rogers)
5
Dortmund's Serbian defender Neven Subotic (left) catches Real Madrid's defender Sergio Ramos with his foot during the UEFA Champions League semifinal first leg football match between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid in Dortmund, Germany. Dortmund won 4-1. (AFP/Odd Andersen)
6
Russian riot police display their shooting skills during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of OMON, the Russian Interior Ministry's special police force, in St. Petersburg. (AFP/Olga Maltseva)
7
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (center) attends the George W. Bush Presidential Center dedication ceremony in Dallas, Texas. (AFP/Jewel Samad)
8
Russian soldiers take part in a Victory Day parade rehearsal on Red Square in Moscow. (ITAR-TASS/Sergei Karpov)
9
Belarusian honor guards lay flowers at the Chornobyl victims' memorial in Minsk. The world marked the 27th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear pant in Ukraine on April 26. (AFP/Viktor Drachev)
10
Afghan traffic police inspect the site where a passenger bus collided with a fuel tanker in Kandahar Province. At least 45 people were killed. (AFP/Noor Mohammad)
11
Some 38 people, mostly patients, were killed in a fire at a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Moscow. Some patients died in their beds while others were trapped by barred windows. Reports say a criminal investigation into the tragedy has been launched. (Reuters/Tatyana Makeyeva)
12
Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova looks out from a holding cell during a court hearing on her parole request in the Russian town of Zubova Polyana. Tolokonnikova is appealing her conviction for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for which she is serving two years in a remote penal colony. (Reuters/Mikhail Voskresensky)
13
Pope Francis greets a young girl as he arrives for his weekly general audience at St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. (AFP/Alberto Pizzoli)
14
U.S. President Barack Obama (left) walks alongside former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Jimmy Carter as they attend the dedication ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. (Reuters/Jason Reed)
15
U.S. first lady Michelle Obama (left) and former first ladies Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, and Rosalynn Carter attend the opening ceremony of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. (AFP/Alex Wong/Getty Images)
16
Russia's Maria Sharapova serves the ball to the Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova in their match at the WTA Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany. Sharapova won the match and later the tournament. (AFP/Thomas Kienzle)
17
People light candles at a memorial dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the Chornobyl nuclear disaster during a night service near the Chornobyl plant in the Ukrainian city of Slavutych. Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia marked the 27th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster on April 26. It was the world's worst civil nuclear accident. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)
18
Bangladeshi volunteers and rescue workers are pictured at the scene after an eight-story building collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka. At least 190 people died in the disaster. (AFP/Munir uz Zaman)
19
Two women kiss during a rally in support of gay marriage outside the French lower house, the National Assembly, in Paris. The National Assembly adopted a bill legalizing same-sex marriages and adoptions for gay couples, defying months of opposition protests. (AFP/Kenzo Tribouillard)
20
A green flying frog, also known as a Reinwardt's tree frog or black-webbed tree frog, sits on someone's finger at the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany, to promote the show "Bottomless -- Through the Air and Under Water." (AFP/Uli Deck)
21
An Egyptian farmer harvests wheat in the El-Menoufia governorate, north of Cairo. Egypt's wheat crop will be close to 10 million tons this season, Agriculture Minister Salah Abdel Momen said, more than the 9.5 million tons that were forecast. (Reuters/Mohamed Abd el-Ghany)
23
An Afghan woman stands in her home in the village of Charbagh in Nangarhar Province, which was heavily damaged by a powerful earthquake. At least 12 people were killed, more than 100 were injured, and many homes destroyed in the magnitude 5.7 quake. (AFP/Noorullah Shirzada)
24
Members of the Samaritan religious sect seal an oven after filling it with large sheep skewers during a traditional Passover sacrifice ceremony on Mount Gerizim, near the West Bank city of Nablus. (Reuters/Nir Elias)
25
Polio vaccination volunteers ride in the open trunk of a car as they travel to administer the vaccine during a campaign in Afghanistan's Balkh Province. (AFP/Farshad Usyan)
26
A crucifix is seen in the deserted Ukrainian town of Pripyat. Ukraine will mark the 27th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, the world's worst civil nuclear accident, on April 26. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)