Nasser Nasser/AP
Egyptian election workers count ballots at the end of the second round of a referendum on a disputed constitution drafted by supporters of President Mohammed Morsi at a polling station in Giza on December 22. Egypt's constitution headed toward likely approval in a final round of voting on Saturday, but the deep divisions it has opened up threaten to fuel continued turmoil.
AHMAD MASOOD/REUTERS
Demonstrators shout slogans while standing on lamp posts during a protest rally near the presidential palace in New Delhi, India on December 22. Indian police used batons, tear gas and water cannon to turn back thousands of people marching on the presidential palace on Saturday in intensifying protests against the gang-rape of a woman.
SRDJAN SUKI/EPA
The predicted Mayan apocalypse on December 21 failed to materialise. Above, people meditate at a "shrine" at Serbia's Mount Rtanj. The pyramid-shaped mountain was believed by some to be a source of unusual electromagnetic waves that could shield it from the possible doomsday.
JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images
Riot police guard a supermarket in Argentina's Buenos Aires province on December 21. Two people died Friday and two more were seriously injured as mobs looted supermarkets in Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city, an official said. A series of lootings have taken place in five other cities since Thursday, leaving close to 100 people injured and 300 detained.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images
South Korea elected its first woman president on December 19, with voters handing a slim but historic victory to conservative candidate Park Geun-Hye, daughter of the country's former military ruler.
Anjum Naveed/AP
Pakistani health workers take part in a rally to condemn the killing of their colleagues in Islamabad on December 22. Officials say gunmen have killed a woman working on UN-backed polio vaccination efforts and her driver in Pakistan, and similar attacks across the country killed several female polio workers a day earlier.
SERGEY DOLZHENKO/EPA
More than 80 people have died as a protracted cold snap grips Ukraine. Snow and temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius are forecast to continue. Above, exhaust fumes from a Ukrainian heating plant rise in the air over an apartment block in Kiev.
OSSERVATORE ROMANO/REUTERS
Pope Benedict XVI talks with former butler Paolo Gabriele during a private audience at the Vatican. The Pope has pardoned Gabriele, who was convicted in October of leaking sensitive documents that alleged corruption in the Holy See, the Vatican said on Saturday.