Photos Of The Week #49
An Indian Hindu devotee prays near the polluted Yamuna River in New Delhi. India's Supreme Court said that all measurements of water quality indicate that it is highly polluted and urged authorities to tackle the problem. More than 2,400 million liters of untreated sewage flows into the Yamuna every day. (AFP/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)
A train of the Brocken Railway steams through a winter landscape on Brocken Mountain in eastern Germany. (AFP/Stefan Rampfel)
Surrounded with 12 towering giant structures from 25 to 50 meters in height, visitors to Singapore's Supertrees grove were mesmerized by an array of lights and music. (AFP/Roslan Rahman)
Ukrainian virtuoso Oleksandr Bozhyk plays four violins at the same time as he performs ''Requiem For A Dream" by Clint Mansell during a solo concert in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. (AFP/Yuriy Dyachyshyn)
A woman feeds tomtits in a snow-blanketed park in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. (AFP/Viktor Drachev)
People are pictured among toppled trees and crops in the aftermath of Typhoon Bopha in the southern Philippines. Residents buried their dead even as rescue workers continued scouring remote areas for survivors of Typhoon Bopha, the nation's strongest storm this year, which killed 418 people and left nearly as many missing. (Reuters/Jay Morales)
Work is done on newly installed overhead power cables ahead of the Kumbh Mela (Pitcher Festival) as the sun sets in the northern Indian city of Allahabad. (Reuters/Jitendra Prakash)
An undated handout photo shows Ginny, one of three dogs trained to drive -- steering, pedals, and all -- as part of a campaign in New Zealand to boost pet adoptions from animal shelters. (Photo AFP/DraftFCB)
Afghan spectators watch a quail fight in Mazar-e Sharif. A popular sport in Afghanistan, two birds are placed inside a circle and made to fight each other until one of the birds flees. (AFP/Qais Usyan)
German Bundeswehr Army soldiers walk in front of an armored personnel carrier at a combat outpost near Baghlan in northern Afghanistan. (Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch)
A wounded rebel fighter lies in the back of a pickup truck making its way to a hospital through traffic in the northern Syrian city Aleppo. (AFP/Odd Anderson)
Former Ukrainian adult film actress Anastasia Hrishay, also known as Wiska, attends a protest in front of the parliament building in Prague. Grishay, a mother of three, who was investigated by Ukrainian officials for the production and distribution of pornography in her home country, is under the threat of jail and deprivation of her maternity rights, according to local media. Grishay, who is supported by the women's rights group Femen, took part in the protest after Czech authorities rejected her asylum request. (Reuters/David W. Cerny)
Seagulls in Stockholm (AFP/Jonathan Nackstrand)
Two girls play in the snow on the bank of an island in the middle of the Yenisei River, where the air temperature reached minus 22 degrees Celsius, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
The bandaged hand of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is pictured during a group photo at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference in Dublin. Lavrov sustained undisclosed injuries to his hand and face while in Turkey on December 3. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
Prince William leaves the King Edward VII hospital in London with his wife, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. Catherine, who is pregnant, spent four days being treated for acute morning sickness. (Reuters/Andrew Winning)
A man walks near the National Congress building, designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, in the Ministries Esplanade in Brasilia. Niemeyer, who died on December 5, was a towering patriarch of modern architecture who shaped the look of modern Brazil and whose inventive, curved designs left their mark on cities worldwide. He was 104. (Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino)
A man inspects a destroyed car trapped under the rubble of a house in the eastern Iranian village of Shaj after an earthquake struck the region. The quake, which registered 5.5 in magnitude, killed at least eight people. (AFP/Mojtaba Ghorgi)
Members of the Muslim Brothood and supporters of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi carry an injured comrade during clashes with anti-Morsi protesters on the road leading to the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo. (AFP/Mahmoud Khaled)
A man makes sweets at a traditional factory in Jalabadad, Afghanistan. (Reuters/Parwiz)
Migratory birds fly above men rowing a boat on the Yamuna River in the old quarters of Delhi, India. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood)
A man gives food to cats in the al-Khalidiya neighborhood of embattled Homs, Syria. (Reuters/Yazan Homsy)
A farm employee checks the maturity of chicory in Pretschen, Germany. Unlike most plants, chicory is grown in the dark. (AFP/Patrick Pleul)
As Xiao Liwu gains strength in his legs, the curious 18-week-old giant panda cub at the San Diego Zoo is exploring more, even getting near the camera for an up-close view of his black-and-white markings. Only 1,600 giant pandas are believed to exist in the wild. The species is primarily threatened by habitat loss. (AFP/San Diego Zoo/Ken Bohn)
The freshly painted Hollywood sign is seen atop the Hollywood Hills following a press conference to announce the completion of the famous landmark's major makeover. Almost 1,400 liters of paint and primer were used to provide the iconic sign with its most extensive refurbishment in almost 35 years in advance of its 90th birthday next year. (AFP/Robyn Beck)
Swedish Christian charity worker Bargeeta Almby, who was injured in an attack by gunmen, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. The 72-year-old was shot in the chest by unknown assailants on December 3 as she drove back to her home in the eastern city of Lahore. No one has claimed responsibility. (AFP/Arif Ali)
An Afghan amputee waits for the doctor at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital for war victims and the disabled in Mazar-e Sharif. The ICRC Orthopedic Project, which began in 1988 in Kabul, now has seven centers in various Afghan provinces. (AFP/Qais Usyan)
Royal Guards parade ahead of an address by Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Anantasamakom Throne Hall in Bangkok's historic district. Tens of thousands of Thais crowded central Bangkok on December 5 for a rare address by the king, the world's longest reigning monarch, as part of celebrations marking his 85th birthday. (AFP PHOTO/Christophe Archambault)
A Swiss Shepherd feeds orphaned tiger cubs along with her own cubs in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. The little cubs -- two males named Olymp and Dar and one female named Talli after the adoptive mother -- were born last month in the Oktyabrsky Zoo in Sochi but abandoned by their birth mother. (AFP/Mikhail Mordasov)
Antigovernment protesters run away from tear gas as they try to remove barriers outside the presidential palace in Cairo during a demonstration against President Muhammad Morsi's decree widening his powers. Tens of thousands of demonstrators encircled the presidential palace after riot police failed to keep them at bay. (AFP/Mahmoud Khaled)
Syrians cross the border from the town of Ras al-Ain to the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar. (Reuters/Laszlo Balogh)
Serbian students protest in Belgrade over recent verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. (RFE/RL /Vesna Andjic)
A worker holds oyster mushrooms at a private farm located inside the hangars at a former Soviet missile base in the Belarusian village of Minoity, some 160 kilometers west of Minsk. The farm cultivates and sells about 10 tons of oyster mushrooms each month in Belarus and neighboring countries. The mushrooms cost 23,000 Belarusian rubles ($2.70) per kilogram. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)
A dog, covered with hoarfrost and snow, in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)
A street vendor selling bread walks among antigovernment protesters on Cairo's Tahrir Square. (Reuters/Asmaa Waguih)
The French Alps are seen from Geneva under heavy clouds at sunrise. (AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
This picture shows a view of the third and fourth trenches made by a scoop on NASA's Mars rover "Curiosity" in October 2012. The image, just released by NASA, was taken on October 31 and shows some of the details regarding the properties of the planet's wind drift sand. (AFP/NASA)
A seller of dried fruit and nuts plies her wares in the central market in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. (RFE/RL/Ernist Nurmatov)
Smoke rises from the Hanano and Bustan al-Basha districts in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as fighting continued between the Syrian Army and antigovernment rebels. (AFP/Javier Manzano)
Roofs are covered with snow in Freudenberg in western Germany. (AFP/Hartmut Reeh)
A vendor arranges bangles at his shop in Lahore, Pakistan. (AFP/Arif Ali)
A Bedouin camp is seen between Jerusalem and the Israeli West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim. (AFP/Menahem Kahana)
Blood stains are seen on the pavement after artillery shells landed opposite a bread shop operated by the civilian arm of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo. The United Nations is pulling nonessential staff out of Syria because of the growing conflict and is restricting travel for those remaining. (AFP/Javier Manzano)
A couple stands at a viewpoint in the north of Tehran overlooking the capital, which is covered by smog. Schools, universities, and government agencies in Tehran will be closed on December 4-5 due to pollution. (AFP)
An ash cloud rises from the Plosky (Flat) Tolbachik volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. (ITAR-TASS/Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul on December 3. Putin's health has been the object of intense speculation lately. He is reported to have injured his back. He arrived in Istanbul for a visit due to focus on resolving differences with Turkey over the 20-month crisis in Syria. (AFP/Tolga Bozoglu)
Female members of the Afghan National Police (ANP) line up during a training session near the German Bundeswehr army camp in Konduz. German and Dutch police are mentoring the training program for the ANP as part of an ongoing International Security Assistance Force mission. (Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch)