Photos Of The Week -- April 9-15

A TV grab from Belarusian television shows the smoke-filled vestibule near the site of the April 11 subway blast in downtown Minsk.

AFP photo

A woman cries at the entrance to Kastrychnitskaya subway station in Minsk on April 13, where a total of  13 people were killed  and about 200 injured in the explosion on April 11.

Photo by Vladimir Nikolsky for Reuters

A Russian policeman detains a demonstrator after an authorized Day of Wrath protest in central Moscow on April 10.

Photo by Vladimir Astapkovich for ITAR-TASS

A visitor looks at an exhibit during the opening of an exhibition of Soviet space placards at the Museum of Modern Art in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk on April 12, as  Russia celebrated the 50th anniversary  of Yury Gagarin's historic first space flight.

Photo by Ilya Naymushin for Reuters

A member of Iran's women's national soccer team kicks the ball during a practice in Tehran on April 11. The team, which hopes to qualify for the 2012 OIympics, was founded in 2005 and plays their matches at the women's only Azadiye Stadium.

Photo by Caren Firouz for Reuters

A woman who identified herself as Nayet, wearing a burqa, is seen after her release from a police station in Paris on April 11. France's ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force, exposing anyone who wears the Muslim niqab or burqa in public to fines of 150 euros ($216) and lessons in French citizenship.

Photo by Gonzalo Fuentes for Reuters

A Japanese police officer in a protective suit walks past a damaged house while searching for bodies in Minamisoma, about 18 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station on April 11.

Photo by Kim Kyung-hoon for Reuters

Shoichiro Kamaichi walks through rubble to salvage family memories in a devastated area of the Japanese town of Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture on April 12, a month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the northeastern coast of Japan.

Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi for AFP

Wooden grave markers for tsunami victims stick out of the ground following their recent burials due to the lack of crematoriums in the town of Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture on April 13. Japanese usually cremate their dead, but the normal system has been unable to cope with the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands along the northeastern coast of the country.

Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba for AFP

A rebel fighter escorts his son away from the front line at the western entrance of Ajdabiya on April 12. Forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi bombarded the western entrance to the rebel-held town of Ajdabiya in eastern Libya.

Photo by Yannis Behrakis for Reuters

A student carries a picture of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as she stands near pieces of glass from broken windows, which the government said was caused by a Western air strike, at Al-Fatah University in Tripoli on April 14.

Photo by Zohra Bensemra for Reuters

U.S. Army soldiers walk through a poppy field during a patrol near the village of Sami Kalache in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar on April 15.

Photo by Bob Strong for Reuters

As a civil servant, Afghan Ahmad Mahfooz earns nearly 10 times the average annual salary in his impoverished homeland, but he still cannot afford to marry his fiancee. Already thousands of dollars in debt after hosting a lavish engagement party for 500 guests, Mahfooz says he doesn't know how he will ever afford the kind of wedding his wife-to-be and her family expect.

Photo by Marai Shah for AFP

Rescuers help people in the sea after a boat carrying some 250 migrants crashed into rocks as they tried to enter the port of Pantelleria, an island off the southern coast of Italy, on April 13. A fishing boat that had sailed across the Mediterranean from Libya ran aground on rocks on Pantelleria, killing two women. Italy is struggling to cope with a mass influx of immigrants from North Africa, many of whom risk their lives by sailing across the often stormy Mediterranean in makeshift vessels.

Photo by Francesco Malavolta for AFP

People react after hearing the verdict for Croatian General Ante Gotovina, accused by The Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, in Zagreb's main square on April 15. Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years in prison for war crimes.

Photo by Hrvoje Polan for AFP

A man straightens mourning ribbons on the Belarusian flag in Minsk on April 13, two days after the blast that killed at least 13 people.

Photo by Alexey Gromov for AFP