The week in pictures

March 13 — A jockey spurs his cows during Pacu Jawi practice in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra Province, Indonesia.  

March 14 — Russians marked the end of winter with the traditional Maslenitsa festival. Maslenitsa is celebrated during the last week before the Christian festival of Lent. It began as a pagan ritual and has since been absorbed into the Russian Orthodox Christian tradition.

March 15 — The Chinese capital, Beijing, was shrouded in thick brown dust on Monday due to strong winds blowing in from the Gobi desert and parts of northwestern China, in what the weather bureau has called the biggest sandstorm in a decade.

March 15 — Students stop a bus at the University of Johannesburg’s campus during a protest against the exclusion of students with historical debt.

March 15 — Police officers detain Ugandan opposition leader  Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known as Bobi Wine, centre, during an antigovernment demonstration in Kampala, Uganda.

March 16 — DA leader John Steenhuisen and DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone celebrate in the National Assembly after parliament passed the party’s motion to institute an inquiry into public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.

March 16 — Protesters prepare Molotov cocktails behind a barricade in Yangon, Mynamar. Since the military seized power on February 1, hundreds of thousands across Myanmar have protested the overthrow of the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

March 16 — US defence secretary Lloyd Austin elbow bumps with Japan’s defence minister Nobuo Kishi as foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi and secretary of state Antony Blinken watch, at the Iikura guest house in Tokyo, Japan. On his first international trip since taking over as the US’s top civilian military leader, Austin said their alliance can “outmatch any competitor”.

March 17 — The funeral procession of King Goodwill Zwelithini makes its way to his ancestral home and final resting place at KwaNongoma, KwaZulu-Natal.

March 18 — A vendor sells copies of newspapers in traffic after the death of Tanzania President John Magufuli in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Magufuli died only five months after he won a second term in a disputed election.

March 18 — A carnival float in front of the Cologne Cathedral protests against sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the German city. The float reads “11 years of brutal honest reconnaissance of sexual abuse”.