The week in pictures

October 24 — People protest for the rights of workers in Istanbul on Sunday. The Turkish lira weakened more than 1% to a record low of 9.74/$ after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he had ordered the expulsion of the ambassadors of the US and other Western countries. It was 9.54/$ on Thursday.

October 24 — People watch a flock of sheep during the annual parade on the streets of Madrid, as shepherds demand to exercise their right to use traditional migration routes for their livestock from northern Spain to winter grazing pasture land in southern Spain. 

October 25 — Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, poses with a photo of his wife in London on Monday. He has embarked on a second hunger strike, demanding that the UK government do more to secure the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who the BBC reports has been held in Iran for five years on spying charges and recently lost her appeal against a second prison sentence. Ratcliffe says his wife has grown “increasingly distraught”.

October 25 — A child gestures in front of a burning road barricade during a military coup in Khartoum, Sudan. The army killed at least seven protesters and injured scores when it fired on protesters, reports said. The AU has suspended the country’s membership until it returns to civilian rule. 

October 25 — The Cumbre Vieja volcano continues to erupt, as seen from El Paso, on the Canary Island of La Palma, Spain.

October 25 — Participant Norbert Dopf from Austria arrives for the German Moustache and Beard Championships 2021 at Pullman City  theme park in Eging am See, Germany.

October 25 — ANC supporters protest over power cuts and housing shortages during a campaign visit by party president Cyril Ramaphosa at a public meeting in Orange Farm.

October 26 — Graça Machel, former first lady of Mozambique and SA, speaks during the opening session of the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia said it had signed five memoranda of understanding as part of initiative to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

October 26 — Activist Steve Bray demonstrates outside the gates of Downing Street in London, Britain, after MPs voted in parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas.

October 26 — People hold umbrellas while crossing the street during an early season storm, in New York, the US. The weather system brought heavy rains, strong winds and a threat of flash floods. Elsewhere, it knocked out power to more than 400,000 people in Massachusetts and tens of thousands in Rhode Island and Maine.

October 27 — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, right, and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak visit Fourpure Brewery in London. Earlier, Sunak presented the government’s budget, and how to “deliver a stronger economy for the British people”, to the House of Commons. He said the UK economy had not been hit as hard by the Covid-19 pandemic as expected and promised more money for schools, to cut business rates by 50% and lower the price of beer.

October 28 — An EFF poster at an informal settlement in Zandspruit near Johannesburg. The increase in the number of informal houses near the city has raised concern over adequate service delivery.

October 28 — Liquor trader associations and consumers picket outside the offices of the Gauteng Liquor Board in Johannesburg. The group protested against the impending unilateral cancellation of some shebeen permits by the board on October 30.

October 28 — ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba donates masks to hawkers in Dube during  election campaigning in Soweto. He told supporters ActionSA is ready to take over Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

October 28 — Members of the EFF took their campaign to Robben Island, Cape Town, on Thursday. Opinion surveys have shown the party is likely to gain support among voters in the municipal election on November 1. 

October 28 —  New York City fire department union members, municipal workers and others demonstrate during a protest against the city’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates in New York, the US.