MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli soldiers prepare tanks at an Israeli army deployment area near the Israel-Gaza Strip border, in preparation for a ground operation in the Palestinian coastal enclave on November 18. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel is ready to "significantly expand" its operation against fighters in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip as it entered its fifth day.
Hatem Moussa/AP
US President Barack Obama tours the reclining Buddha at the Wat Pho Royal Monastery in Bangkok on November 18. Obama kicked off a three-country Asia tour with a visit to Thailand on Sunday, using his first post-election trek overseas to try to show he is serious about shifting America's strategic focus eastwards.
JASON REED/REUTERS
Smoke rises during an explosion from an Israeli forces strike in Gaza City on November 17. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations by fighters to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.
ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images
An election scrutineer counts a ballot at a polling station during the national presidential, parliamentary and local elections in Sierra Leone, seen as a test of the country's post-war recovery, on November 17. It is the west African nation's third election since the end of a brutal civil war.
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People attend a demonstration against the same-sex marriage on November 17 in Lyon, France. France's Socialist government on November 7 adopted a draft law to authorise gay marriage and adoption despite fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and the right-wing opposition.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
A Syrian rebel takes position in the town of Ras al-Ain near the border with Turkey on November 16. France raised the prospect of providing Syria's rebels with defensive weapons as Turkey joined it and the Gulf Arab states in recognising the newly unified opposition while fighting raged inside Syria.
STR/EPA
Egyptians inspect the site where a train collided with a school bus in southern Egypt in Assiut Province, about 350 kilometres south of Cairo, on November 17. According to media reports, at least 47 people including including 44 children were killed during the accident. Transport Minister Rashad al-Mateeni and the chief of the state-run rail authority, Mustafa Qenawi, resigned following the accident.
Heng Sinith/AP
Cambodian security personnel patrol at Phnom Penh International Airport as the 21st of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit is held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Chinese Vice president Xi Jinping emerged as the head of the newly reshuffled seven-member Communist Party of China Politburo Standing Committee, the nation's top decision making body at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on November 15.