Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A Pakistani man is shaved by a street barber on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Policemen wait to screen guests at the entrance to the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore during meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Ministers from the 27-member group--which also includes the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union--were expected to discuss a joint civilian-military disaster relief exercise, among other measures.

At the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa, children from the Bertrams Junior School eat birthday cake during a joint celebration of school's 90th anniversary and Mandela's 90th birthday. The former president urged the wealthy to share with the less fortunate. He also said he regretted not being able to spend more time with his family during the antiapartheid struggle, which led to his imprisonment for nearly three decades.

Karnit Goldwasser, wife of killed Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser, mourns to the sound of gunshots fired by the honor guard during her husband's funeral in the northern Israeli border town of Nahariya. The bodies of Goldwasser and fellow Israeli soldier Eldad Regev were returned to Israel as part of a prisoner exchange deal with the Lebanese Islamic group Hezbollah, two years and four days after the prisoners were captured in a cross-border raid that led to the 2006 Lebanese war.

Fireworks light up the sky over Beijing's Olympic National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, which begin on August 8.

President Bush conducts a news conference, his first since April, at the White House in Washington. Bush said the nation's economy continues to grow, although slowly, but admitted, "It's been a difficult time for many American families."

Family and friends lean past a barrier to welcome approximately 300 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team as they return to Fort Bragg Sunday in Fayetteville, N.C. The unit's area of operations spanned western, central, and southern Iraq, over the course of a 13-month deployment.

A demonstrator tries to evade tear gas fired by Israeli border police during a demonstration against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah. The village has sued two Canadian construction companies for their involvement in building a nearby Jewish settlement, which Palestinians claim violates international law.

Moroccan conjoined twins al-Safa and al-Marwa lie on a hospital bed at the National Guard's King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. An operation to separate the twin girls will take place on July 12.

Ten-year-old Yang Qin, who lost her right leg, tries to stand still at the Sichuan Province Orthopedic Center in Chengdu, China. Since the deadly 7.9-magnitude earthquake on May 12, which took the lives of more than 69,000 people, efforts have been made to provide care and rehabilitation to the thousands of children who lost limbs. Nearly 7,000 classrooms collapsed in the quake, crushing to death almost 10,000 children and teachers under the debris.