***keep_mailing*** Photos of the week

Photos of the week-1

Image 1 of 20: Hassan Mekki, a 32-year-old Sudanese migrant, shows scars on his back in Athens December 5, 2012. Mekki, who fled conflict in his country in hopes of a better life in Europe, said he was attacked by a group of men holding Greek flags and left with the deep wounds on his back, throat and neck in August 2012, about five months after he illegally entered Greece. Mekki was walking in Athens with a friend from Mauritania when black-shirted men on motorcycles holding Greek flags and shouting "Go home black" and other racists insults came up and knocked him out with a blow to the head. He was covered in blood when he regained consciousness and only later realized that his attackers, which he says were likely tied to the far-right Golden Dawn party, had left large gashes resembling an "X" across his back. "I don't have the right papers, so I can't go anywhere to ask for help," Mekki said. "I can't sleep. I'm scared, maybe they will follow me and my life is in danger now.

Image 2 of 20: Miguel Restrepo, 62, looks up from his sewer home in Medellin December 4, 2012. The former drug addict has been living in an abandoned sewer with his wife Maria Garcia and dog Blackie for 22 years. Their home, which is fitted with a kitchen, a fan, tv, a chair and a bed, is a 6 square meter wide and 1.4 meters high tunnel that leaks when it rains, and requires a manhole cover. 

Image 3 of 20: Palestinian Osama Hejazi, 12, stands in front of the rubble of a destroyed house in Gaza City December 1, 2012. Hejazi survived an Israeli air strike on his family's house in which his father and two younger brothers were killed during an eight-day conflict last month, Palestinian witnesses said. 

Image 4 of 20: A vendor sits next to a Coca Cola refrigerator amidst destroyed food stalls after Typhoon Bopha hit Compostela Valley, southern Philippines December 5, 2012. Blocked roads and severed communications in the southern Philippines frustrated rescuers on Wednesday as teams searched for hundreds of people missing after the strongest typhoon this year killed at least 283 people. 

Image 5 of 20: Tahera Begum, 25, who survived a devastating fire in a garment factory, lies inside her slum room in Savar November 30, 2012. Begum, an operator of Tazreen Fashions garment factory, escaped the fire which killed more than 100 workers on November 24. According to Begum's husband, she became mentally ill and lost her memory after escaping the fire.

Image 6 of 20: Government army FARDC soldiers use mobile phones to record a video in the town of Sake, some 27 km (17 miles) west of Goma December 3, 2012. 

Image 7 of 20: Members of Cais Sodre Cabaret company smoke before a celebration for its fifth anniversary at the Ritz night club in Lisbon December 2, 2012. Cais Sodre Cabaret is a company that is reintroducing the cabaret in Portugal since 2007. In Portugal, during the 20's and 30's, there were many clubs and cafes where people could enjoy of cabaret shows, but with the advent of the dictatorship the cabaret shows were disappearing. 

Image 9 of 20: Rescuers evacuate a child who survived flooding with her pregnant mother as they cross a river in New Bataan town, Compostela Valley, southern Philippines December 6, 2012. Rescuers found a six-months pregnant women from the other side of a river with her one-year-old son after escaping floods that swamped their house after Typhoon Bopha hit land on Tuesday in Compostela Valley. The death toll has risen to 332 on Thursday with hundreds missing, disaster officials said.

Image 10 of 20: Participants of 'Strut the Streets', an annual swimwear parade, look at a man pole dancing in central Sydney December 7, 2012. 'Strut the Streets' raises money to help aboriginal Australians to finish school at the same rate as every Australian child.

Image 11 of 20: Noor Jahan, 5, sleeps on chalk drawings she made as her mother begs for alms at a railway station in Mumbai December 7, 2012.

Image 12 of 20: A farmer from a Mennonite community is reflected in a Mexican map while standing inside a cheese store in Cuauhtemoc November 9, 2012. More than a century after Mennonite farmers left Russia for North America in search of new lands and religious freedom, hundreds of their descendants in Mexico are thinking about completing the circle. Shortage of farmland, drought and conflict with rivals have made some Mennonites in northern Mexico wonder if the best way of providing for their families is to go back to the plains of eastern Europe their ancestors left in the 19th century.

Image 14 of 20: An ancestral tomb, measuring 10 metres high and a surface area of 10 square metres, is seen on the construction site of a building in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, December 6, 2012. The grave, which is believed to have existed since 2004, has not been moved as the family of the deceased is waiting for an auspicious date to do so and a reason from the developer of choosing this site, according to the owner of tomb. The building is scheduled to be completed by April 2013.

Image 15 of 20: Palestinian security guards pray at a soccer stadium, which witnesses said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike during an eight-day conflict, in Gaza City December 4, 2012. 

Image 16 of 20: Syrian cross the border from Syrian town of Ras al-Ain to Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliufar province, after an air strike, December 3, 2012.

Image 17 of 20: A boy dances to celebrate government army FARDC soldiers' return to Goma December 3, 2012.

Image 18 of 20: A worker controls a tapping of a blast furnace at Europe's largest steel factory of Germany's industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG in the western German city of Duisburg December 6, 2012.

Image 19 of 20: Actors dressed as (L-R) Joseph and the Three Wise Men, part of a live-human nativity scene, stroll past the U.S. Capitol Building after demonstrating outside the nearby Supreme Court in Washington, December 5, 2012. The Christian Defense Coalition gathered with live actors and animals to demonstrate that such displays are protected by the First Amendment. The event was a reaction to other courts involvement in the banning of nativity scenes in some parts of the United States.

Image 20 of 20: A man walks past a protest against the level of homicide in Brazil by the non-governmental group Rio de Paz in Rio de Janeiro December 5, 2012. Some 500,000 beans were placed over red sheets by the group to represent the number of people killed over the last 10 years in Brazil, according to Rio de Paz.

 

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