It’s never been easier to keep up with what’s going on in the world. The news is everywhere – in our Facebook feeds, on the morning commute, during that lazy half hour before you switch off the TV and go to bed. But the tide of global affairs is often more upsetting than uplifting and it can be tempting to bury our heads in the sand. As the saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words, so to offer a different perspective we've rounded up some of the most memorable images of the week's events, captured by the best photojournalists on the planet.
A keeper clad in a Santa Claus costume feeds Magellanic penguins in a water tank as part of Christmas events at Hakkeijima Sea Paradise amusement park in Yokohama, a suburb of Tokyo, on 5th December 2017.
Photo: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images
An aircraft flies in front of a full moon in Van, Turkey on 3rd December 2017.
Photo: Ozkan Bilgin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Nur Begum, who doesn't know her age but thinks she is between 14 and 16 years old, walks to her husband's house with her family on the day of her wedding to Rayeed Alam, 20, in a Bangladesh refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Rayeed came to Bangladesh with his family shortly after the military attacked his village on 25th August, shot people, burned houses and raped women. It took him three days to walk to the Bangladesh border. Rayeed's parents arranged the marriage because all of his sisters are already married and his mother needed someone to cook and look after her and her husband. Nur Begum said that her parents arranged the marriage for her and she had no choice in the matter. Early marriage is a common cultural practice within the Rohingya Muslim communities in Myanmar. As over 620,000 Rohingya have fled their homes into neighbouring Bangladesh since late August, food rations have reportedly been a major factor in the decision for families to marry off their children in the camps, while UN officials warned that Rohingya children, especially those who were unaccompanied, are at great risk of being trafficked or forced into marriages. An investigation by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) recently uncovered documented accounts of Rohingya girls as young as 11 getting married.
Photo: Allison Joyce/Getty Images
Indian Kashmiri villagers shout pro-independence slogans during a funeral procession for a local militant Yawar Bashir at Hablish village in south Kashmir's Kulgam district on 5th December 2017. Three militants and an Indian army soldier were killed in a gunfight that erupted after militants attacked an army patrol on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Bounigam area of Qazigund on 4th December. Militants were caught alive in injured condition, officials said.
Photo: TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images
Mumtaz Begum, 30, poses for a photo on 2nd December 2017 in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. She fled to Bangladesh from Tula Toli village in Myanmar after the military attacked on 25th August and burned homes. Everyone ran and hid but the military found them. They shot her husband in front of her and as he lay dying, she told him: "I have lived many years with you, if I made any mistakes, please forgive me." As he lay injured he asked the military for some water, and they responded by shooting him again, and he died. Then the military took her and five other women to a house, with some of their children. They started raping her and the other women and when the children screamed, they hit them in the head with machetes. They hit one of her sons, splitting his skull open, and he died. They also hit her daughter, but she survived and escaped the house. Afterwards, the military lit the house on fire. Mumtaz crawled through the flames as her clothes caught fire and the roof caved in, and was the only woman who managed to escape. The other five women burned to death. She hid in the forest until a group of people found her and carried her to the border and into Bangladesh. Mumtaz says: "I want justice and I want to tell the world all the things the military did. They raped and killed us. We want justice."
Photo: Allison Joyce/Getty Images
Demonstrators wearing black veils walk through Central Park while participating in a performance art protest during the 'Dream Killers' event in New York on Saturday 2nd December 2017. Activists gathered in New York to protest the Trump administration's decision earlier this year to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), or Dream Act.
Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Heavy smoke covers the seaside enclave of Mondos Beach beside the 101 Highway as flames reach the coast during the Thomas wildfire near Ventura, California on 6th December 2017. California motorists commuted past a blazing inferno on Wednesday as wind-whipped wildfires raged across the Los Angeles region, with flames triggering the closure of a major freeway and mandatory evacuations in an area dotted with mansions.
Photo: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Trent Zimmerman celebrates at Parliament House on 7th December 2017 in Canberra, Australia. The historic bill was passed on the voices and no count was made due to the overwhelming support for the bill on the final day of sitting for 2017. The legislation means same-sex couples will now be able to be legally married in Australia, after the country voted 'Yes' in the Marriage Law Postal Survey in November.
Photo: Michael Masters/Getty Images
A migrant keeps warm in a Red Cross blanket after arriving aboard a coastguard boat at Malaga's harbour on 7th December 2017, after an inflatable boat carrying 47 men, seven women and one child was rescued by the Spanish coastguard off the Spanish coast.
Photo: JORGE GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images
Residents react to the Thomas fire burning in the hills above La Conchita early on Thursday morning.
Photo: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesLike what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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