The best photos of the week: from an Arabian sunset to a night sky in Brazil

The most striking pictures from around the world

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  Sailors participate in the annual long-distance dhow sailing race, known as al-Gaffal, near Sir Abu Nuair island towards the Gulf emirate of Dubai, on June 3, 2022. - Around Sir Bu Nair, a teardrop-shaped island roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) away from both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, 118 teams are racing dhows, the sailboats that have plied waters around the Arabian peninsula for centuries. (Photo by Karim SAHIB / AFP)

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  Smoke from a wildfire in the Sierra Bermeja range in Malaga. About 2,000 people were moved from the area of southern Spain, which was badly hit by wildfires just nine months ago. AFP

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  A Buddhist nun collapses after inhaling tear gas during a protest outside police headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka. AP Photo

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  The gutted remains of cars lie along a road during heavy fighting at the front line in Severodonetsk, Luhansk region, Ukraine. AP Photo

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  Pilgrims on the way to the shrine of El Rocio in Villamanrique, Spain, during the annual pilgrimage in which hundreds of thousands of devotees of the Virgin del Rocio converge on the shrine. AP Photo

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  A man wades along a flooded street in Havana. On Friday remnants of Hurricane Agatha were causing intense and persistent rains in the western and central provinces of Cuba. AFP

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  Queen Elizabeth II and Paddington Bear having cream tea at Buckingham Palace in a film that was shown at BBC's 'Platinum Party at the Palace'. Reuters

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  Houses covered in ash after the eruption of Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon province, Philippines. Reuters

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  Yemeni boys on a hot day in Sanaa, Yemen, where the meteorological service has warned of a heatwave and dry weather in most parts of the country. EPA

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  People wait to buy kerosene during a fuel shortage in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Protests have rocked the country for weeks over the alleged failure of government to address the worsening economic crisis. EPA

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  Palestinian children at sunset in Gaza City. AFP

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  Shepherds guide their sheep across a dry field in the countryside near Tabqa in Raqqa governorate. Syria is among the countries most vulnerable and poorly prepared for climate change, which is expected to worsen, posing a further threat to the wheat harvests that are an essential income source for a war-battered population. The trend is most evident in Syria's once-fertile north-east where wheat fields are drying to a crisp because of drought and low rainfall. AFP

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  Competitors during the third stage of the 74th Criterium du Dauphine cycle race, 169 kilometres between Saint-Paulien and Chastreix-Sancy, France. AFP

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  Pilgrims and people dressed in Second French Empire uniforms take part in the Marche Sainte-Rolende in Gerpinnes, Belgium. The event is part of about 15 folkloric marches in Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse recognised as intangible cultural heritage by Unesco. The march of Sainte-Rolende, a religious and secular event, is the biggest, starting at 2.30am with a religious service and involving more than 3,000 pilgrims striding 35km through seven villages. EPA

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  Iraqi security forces disperse protesters during a demonstration against the government’s employment policy near the parliament building in Baghdad's Green Zone. The unemployment rate among young people in Iraq is 40 per cent and a third of its population of more than 40 million people suffers from poverty. AFP

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  Fish vendor Somporn Thathom at her stall as a passenger train passes through the Mae Klong railway market in Samut Songkhram province, about 80 kilometres south-west of Bangkok. Six times a day at the market, customers and tourists scramble into nooks and crannies while vendors calmly move their woven baskets of goods away from the tracks and close their umbrellas. AFP

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  A participant in the XIV International Ballet Competition warms up backstage at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. AP Photo

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  'Black Chapel' by US artist Theaster Gates, at the Serpentine Pavilion 2022, in Hyde Park, London. The structure 'references the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the beehive kilns of the Western United States' as well as 'traditional African structures, such as the Musgum mud huts of Cameroon, and the Kasubi Tombs of Kampala, Uganda', according to the the Serpentine Gallery's website. It can be visited free from June 10 to October 16, 2022. EPA

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  Logger Egbontoluwa Marigi, 61, paddles his logs from the flooded forest floor to the river in Ipare, Nigeria. 'During the time of our forefathers we had big trees, but sadly what we have now are just small trees and we don't even allow them to mature before we cut them,' Marigi said. Reuters

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  A building in the central business district of Beijing, China, where, according to the latest economic update by the World Bank, China's growth normalisation is being disrupted by several Covid-19 outbreaks. The bank predicts economic growth to slow to 4.3 per cent in 2022 before rebounding to 5.2 per cent in 2023. EPA

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  The National Gun Violence Memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC. The memorial displays '45,000 flowers, representing the number of Americans who die from gun violence each year'. EPA

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  A canoeist braves the polluted waters of the Yamuna River on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India. AFP

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  The Peloton streams through Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire on stage three of The Women's Tour, from Tewkesbury to Gloucester. PA

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  Jaabar Citadel (Qalaat Jaabar) in Lake Assad reservoir in Raqa province, Syria. The ancient lake-side fortress, once used by extremists to launch attacks, is slowly regaining its status as a popular cultural destination, attracting visitors from all over war-torn Syria. AFP

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  People join hands to form a human chain along Leme beach during an event to promote cleaner beaches and marine environments in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. AFP

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  A convoy of Syrian fighters backed by Turkey parade with their weapons in the countryside near the north-west city of Afrin, in the rebel-held part of Aleppo province. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed threats of a military offensive in north Syria, which he said would target Kurdish 'terrorists'. AFP

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  Volunteers clean debris near a damaged shopping mall after night shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine. One person was killed and three were wounded by shelling the previous day, according to the city's mayor. EPA

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  Art from the air? Tracks from an agricultural vehicle in a field near Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary. EPA

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  President Joe Biden and his wife Jill share a brief dance between greeting delegations at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. AP Photo

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  Nightfall over the Manicore river in Amazonas state in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil. AFP

More from The National:

Friday's best photos: from a wildfire in Spain to sunset in Gaza

Thursday's best photos: from dinosaurs in Thailand to pollution in India

Wednesday's best photos: from dhow racing in the UAE to cycling in France

Tuesday's best photos: from a US gun-control rally to heatwaves in Yemen and India

Monday's best photos: from Vivid Sydney to Wales celebrating World Cup qualification

Sunday's best photos: from Queen Elizabeth with Paddington to a Spanish pilgrimage

Saturday's best photos: from a dhow race in Dubai to a tropical storm in Cuba