The week in pictures

December 5 — Residents join a demonstration against Shell’s plans to start seismic surveys to explore petroleum systems off the country’s Wild Coast at Mzamba Beach, Sigidi.

December 5  — A man dressed like an astronaut to promote a Nasa Space Exhibition waits for a metro train in Istanbul, Turkey.

December 5 — A motorcyclist rings a bell as he drives during “Santa Clauses on motorbikes”, a parade aimed to fund Christmas packages and hot meals for children in need, in Gdansk, Poland.

December 5 — Demonstrators stand next to an alpaca during a protest against the Belgian government’s widened restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19 and the Omicron variant, in Brussels.

December 5 — A man stands amid damaged houses covered by volcanic ash from Mount Semeru in Lumajang, East Java province, Indonesia.

December 6 — President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses a session at the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security, in the Senegalese capital on Monday. Ramaphosa hit out at Western countries’ travel restrictions and hoarding of vaccines, saying their behaviour was selfish.

December 6 — A man wields an outsize broom during a protest against corruption in front of Austria’s chancellery ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of a new government in Vienna on Monday after months of scandal-tainted turmoil.

December 6 — Protesters march against Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment, in Yangon, Myanmar. A court in military-ruled Myanmar jailed the deposed leader for two years on Monday on charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions.

December 7 — President Cyril Ramaphosa and Senegal’s Macky Sall visit Gorée Island, which is a Unesco heritage site, where many of the millions of kidnapped Africans passed through from the 1500s to the 1800s en route to slavery in other parts of the world.

December 7 — An activist dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags from the board game Monopoly stands in front of a sign reading “Demilitarize everything”. He was taking in a street blockade protest calling on Congress to enact progressive legislation, in Washington on Tuesday.

December 8 — Organisations hold a prayer service at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town on Wednesday for victims of violence against women and children and for those who lost their lives in their communities. The Financial Mail reports that 13,815 women over the age of 18 were murdered in SA between 2015 and 2020, which averages 2,763 a year, or seven a day.

December 8 — The Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts and Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Maezawa, a billionaire who regularly gives out money on Twitter to attract followers, is planning to do the same from space. The Soyuz is taking him to the International Space Station for a 12-day trip.  

December 8 —  New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz bows to applause from parliamentarians before he took his oath of office during a ceremony at the Bundestag  in Berlin, Germany. The new federal coalition government took office with a new chancellor and cabinet, officially succeeding Angela Merkel. 

December 8 — Lawyer Arthur Orson Louissaint, an unlikely fashion icon, poses for a portrait in  Manhattan, New York, the US.

December 8 — US President Joe Biden waves to children while entering Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington, the US.

December 9 — A bride searches for her Covid-19 vaccination certificate on her mobile phone to show it to a healthcare worker at her wedding in Ahmadabad on Thursday during a campaign by Indian authorities to check vaccine passports at social gatherings.

December 9 — Plastic bags, untreated waste and litter along the banks of the Jukskei River in Johannesburg. Concerns have been raised that the heavily polluted waterway is a health and environment risk.