Photos Of The Week #1

Some of roughly 3,000 contestants participate in the 48th annual New Year calligraphy contest in Tokyo. (AFP/Toshifumi Kitamura)

Racing Metro flanker Camille Gerondeau (right) is tackled by a scrum-half from home team Oyonnax during a French Top 14 rugby union match. (AFP/Romain Lafabregue)

People walk amid a devastated section of the northeastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, where antigovernment rebels have united against jihadists they accuse of atrocities worse than those perpetrated by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. (AFP/Ahmad Aboud)

Russian President Vladimir Putin taking part with the stars of Soviet hockey in an exhibition event in Sochi ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics slated for February. (AFP/RIA Novosti/Aleksei Nikolsky)

Bathers at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)

A resident of a depressed area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, washes clothes in the waters of the Buriganga River. (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)

A man and a woman wearing Father Frost and Snow Maiden costumes ahead of Orthodox Christmas eat in the pro-EU opposition camp on Independence Square in Kyiv. (AFP/Sergei Supinsky)

Mount Sinabung is seen spewing volcanic hot gas and ashes from Suka Ndebi village in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, on January 3. (epa/Dedi Sahputra)

Pigeons sit on a tree in front of the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif, northern Afghanistan. (epa/Sayed Mustafa)

Waves crash over the promenade at hightide in Saundersfoot, in west Wales. (Reuters/Rebecca Naden)

A wounded man is seen on the ground during clashes between garment workers and security forces in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on January 3. (Reuters/Samrang Pring)

A Russian woman in costume rides a horse with a cart during New Year celebrations in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on January 2. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)

A Palestinian boy watches as men carry the body of Saeed Jaser Ali, 85, during his funeral near Nablus. According to witnesses, Ali died on January 2 after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli troops to disperse protesters in the occupied West Bank. (Reuters/Mohamad Torokman) 

A meerkat peers out from beneath a rock during an inventory at London Zoo. Every January the zoo takes stock of all its animals. (epa/Andy Rain)

Kumbuka, a male western lowland silverback gorilla, touches a chalkboard in a photocall for London Zoo's annual stocktake. (AFP/Leon Neal)

A claw hangs from a crane near venues in the Olympic Park in Adler near the southern Russian city of Sochi. (Reuters/Maksim Shemetov)

A New Year's Eve fireworks show takes place on Sydney Harbour at Mrs Macquarie's Chair in Sydney, Australia on January 1. (epa/Nikki Short)

Chinese craftsmen make a snow castle at a park in Changchun, Jilin Province. (Reuters/China Daily)

Father Frost (left) and his granddaughter the Snowmaiden take part in a New Year's parade in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on December 31. (epa/Igor Kovalenko)

Afghan children play on a frozen lake in Kabul. (Reuters/Omar Sobhani)

A passenger photo of the Russian research vessel "MV Akademik Shokalskiy" stuck off East Antarctica awaiting rescue on December 30. (AFP/Andrew Peacock, Footloosefotography.com)

An Afghan man pushes his bicycle along a snow-covered road in Kabul. (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)

A young girl enjoys the festive atmosphere in Sarajevo before the New Year's holiday. (RFE/RL /Midhit Poturovic)

A girl stands by a doll depicting former Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi and sloganed "Viktor, it's dangerous, that's the end!" during an opposition rally at Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's well-protected country home, about 15 kilometers from Kyiv on December 29. (AFP/Sergei Supinsky)