Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's broadcast region and beyond for the 45th week of 2016. For more photo galleries, see our Picture This archive.
Photos Of The Week #45
1
Afghan schoolgirls take part in a running race held for a peace initiative in the western Herat Province. (AFP/Aref Karimi)
2
The moon is pictured over a statue of Russian cosmonaut Yury Gagarin at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)
3
Syrian children walk around a temporary refugee camp during a sandstorm 50 kilometers away from the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. (AFP/Delil Souleiman)
4
U.S. President Barack Obama (right) greets President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on November 10. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
5
A displaced Iraqi woman holds her cat, Lulu, as she waits for transport in the Iraqi Kurdish checkpoint village of Shaqouli, about 35 kilometers east of Mosul, after she fled her home in the embattled city with her children and took refuge at a camp in Irbil. Iraqi forces are taking part in an operation to recapture Iraq's second city from Islamic State militants. (AFP/Odd Andersen)
6
Syrian children sit during a class in a barn that was converted into a makeshift school to teach internally displaced children in a rebel-held area of Daraa, in southern Syria, on November 10. Rebels hold most of Daraa Province, but the regional capital is largely controlled by the government. (AFP/Mohamad Abazeed)
7
Members of an honor guard arrive at the Palace of Independence before a meeting of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Minsk. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
8
An explosive belt is seen on a chair in the town of Bashiqa, Iraq, after it was recaptured from the Islamic State extremist group, east of Mosul, on November 9. (Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani)
9
Members of the Iraqi armed forces in the village of Arbid on the southern outskirts of Mosul react as they watch U.S. President-elect Donald Trump giving his victory speech during ongoing military operations to retake Mosul from the Islamic State extremist group. (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)
10
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (center) looks into a book presented to him during a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem on November 10. (Reuters/Dan Balilty)
11
Iraqis and members of Iraqi forces bathe in a sulfur pond some 14 kilometers from the southern outskirts of Mosul. (AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)
12
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (left) greets the son (center) of refugee Sharbat Gula (second right) at the Presidential Palace in Kabul following her deportation from Pakistan on November 9. (AFP/Shah Marai)
13
An Afghan athlete raises a tree-trunk during a strongman contest in Herat on November 8. (epa/Jalil Rezayee)
14
Clouds and fog hang over the Macedonian capital, Skopje, on November 8. (epa/Georgi Licovski)
15
A civil-defense member sits near a site hit by an air strike in the rebel-held Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. (Reuters/Bassam Khabieh)
16
An injured girl reacts after an air strike in the rebel-held Douma neighburhood of Damascus, Syria. (Reuters/Bassam Khabieh)
17
A Russian Communist Party supporter takes part in a march in Novosibirsk marking the 99th anniversary of the October Revolution. (TASS/Kirill Kukhmar)
18
A boy who just fled Islamic State militants in the Samah district of eastern Mosul flashes a victory sign from inside a bus at an Iraqi Special Forces checkpoint in Kokjali, east of Mosul. (Reuters/Zohra Bensemra)
19
A sacred site of Tuvan buddhists and shamanists on the roadside of the M54 federal highway near the town of Kyzyl, the administrative center of the Republic of Tuva, in southern Siberia. The region is inhabited by Tuvans, historically cattle-herding nomads, who nowadays practice two main confessions -- Buddhism and Shamanism. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
20
Afghan women collect saffron flowers in the Karukh district of Herat, Afghanistan. The plant is seen as an alternative to poppy cultivation. (epa/Jalil Rezayee)
21
Russian paratroopers jump from an IL-76 transport plane during a joint Serbian-Russian military training exercise in the town of Kovin, near Belgrade. (Reuters/Marko Djurica)
22
A policeman washes away the effects of tear gas fired by police after Shi'ite Muslim men blocked the main national highway and railway tracks to protest raids of both Sunni and Shi'ite religious seminaries and the detention of an unspecified number of people, in Karachi, Pakistan. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)