The Best Pictures of the Week, July 15 – July 22

July 15, 2011. Preparing for their dual wedding ceremony, Iranian brothers Javad, left, and Mehdi Jafari pose with their brides-to-be—Maryam Sadeghi and Zahra Abolghasemi—before donning their own formal dress in Ghalehsar, a village about 220 miles (360 km) northeast of Tehran.

July 16, 2011. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (L) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton look out the window during a meeting at Sait Halim Yalisi in Istanbul. The United States is concerned about media freedom and free speech in Turkey amid the arrest of dozens of journalists and Internet restrictions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

July 16, 2011. A woman pays a visit to the Caylee Anthony memorial located at the site in Orlando where the 2-year-old child’s remains were found in December 2008. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, was acquitted of murder charges on July 5 and has been released from prison, sparking a nationwide outcry.

July 17, 2011. A child lies on a piece of 3D pavement artwork featuring a shark as she poses for a photograph for her family inside a shopping mall in Fuzhou, Fujian province.

July 15, 2011. A girl dressed like Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi poses for a photo in the rebel-held Benghazi, Libya. More than 30 nations, including the United States, declared that Libyan leader Gaddafi's regime is no longer legitimate and formally recognized Libya's main opposition group as the legitimate government until a new interim authority is created.

July 18, 2011. Libyan rebel cadets train to become freedom fighters in Kabaw's military academy in Libya's western mountains. Since the outbreak of the revolution, rebel fighters in many of the western mountain towns have been developing a military structure which is often supervised by defecting Gaddafi army commanders.

July 15, 2011. A Muslim bows during Friday prayers in rebel-controlled Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. and more than 30 other nations declared that Muammar Gaddafi’s regime lacked legitimacy, recognizing the Transitional National Council—the country’s main opposition group—as the legitimate government.

July 17, 2011. Hundreds of thousands of bees cover Lv Kongjiang during the “bee man” contest in China’s Hunan province. Competitors were weighed wearing only goggles, shorts and bees. Clothed in 50 lb. (22 kg) of bees, Lv was the runner-up to Wang Dalin, who won the contest covered in 57 lb. (26 kg) of the buzzing insects.

July 15, 2011. Police officers beat a protester in Amman. Demonstrations calling for political reform that drew in as many as 1,000 people resulted in more than a dozen hurt in the Jordanian capital.

July 18, 2011. A pool of colored water shot from a water cannon reflects a group of Indian policemen, who also used batons as they attempted to subdue government employees staging a protest in Srinagar, Kashmir. The demonstrators—who numbered in the hundreds—had taken to the streets to demand a pay raise.

July 18, 2011. During a press preview, visitors to the Sony showroom in Tokyo reach toward an image of a whale shark in a film about the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. Sony plans to screen the film through the end of August.

July 22, 2011. A diver wearing a chef uniform performs with sardines as part of summer vacation events at an Coex Aquarium in Seoul, South Korea.

July 20, 2011. Spain's Andrea Fuentes competes in the final of the solo free synchronized swimming competition in the FINA World Championships at the indoor stadium of the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai. She won silver.

July 18, 2011. Synchronized swimmers from the Colombian national team make a splash at the sport’s world championships in Shanghai.

July 17, 2011. Vadim Kaptur and Timofei Hordeichik of Belarus compete in the men's 10m Platform Synchro preliminary round during Day Two of the 14th FINA World Championships at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai, China.

July 15, 2011. After raiding a 300-acre (120 hectare) marijuana plantation near San Quintín—the largest ever discovered in Mexico—soldiers carry the plants to be destroyed. The enormous field is more than four times the size of the previous record discovery by Mexican authorities, a ranch in northern Chihuahua state in 1984.

July 21, 2011. An explosive expert removes a suicide vest from a dead attacker in suburbs of Peshawar, Pakistan. The man was shot dead by militia volunteers when he failed to detonate his suicide vest in an attempt to kill the militia chief.

16 July, 2011. A woman waits for water in the village of Barmil, north-eastern Kenya. Reports state that an estimated 10 million people have been affected in East Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century.

July 20, 2011. Carcasses of livestock are seen in Athibohol, Kenya. The constant state of drought has been worsened by the failure of the April rains—weathermen foresee a severe drought through October.

July 21, 2011. People stand near water containers in Wajir. A wide swathe of east Africa, including Kenya and Ethiopia, has been hit by years of severe drought and the United Nations says two regions of southern Somalia are suffering the worst famine for 20 years.

July 20, 2011. An illegal ivory stockpile goes up in smoke at the Tsavo National Park, approximately 350 kilometers southeast from Nairobi. Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki ignited nearly five tons of ivory stockpiled in the country since being seized in Singapore nearly a decade ago. Some 335 tusks and 42,553 pieces of ivory carvings were destroyed at the Manyani wildlife rangers training institution in eastern Kenya.

July 17, 2011. A woman hides her face as other festival-goers spray mud at her after she infringed a game rule in a mud ring during the 14th Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km (118 miles) southwest of Seoul. Around 2 to 3 million domestic and international tourists visit the beach during the festival each year to enjoy mud activities such as mud slides, mud wrestling and mud massages. The festival runs from July 16-24 this year.

July 16, 2011. Firefighters battle the fire at the Dalian Petrochemical Company of PetroChina in Dalian, Liaoning Province of China. The fire, caused by leak in a distillation device, was put out five hours later, with no reported casualties.

July 19, 2011. Indian laborers fit loud-speakers on a pole at the Brigade Parade grounds ahead of the mass rally organized by the ruling Indian political party Trinamool Congress to celebrate their historic win in the recently concluded state election in Kolkata. The Indian state of West Bengal said goodbye to three decades of uninterrupted rule by the world's longest-serving, democratically elected communist government.

July 18, 2011. U.S. Army Specialist Blair Brown and Air Force Staff Sergeant David Miguel fire a 60mm mortar during a fire fight between Taliban fighters and Afghan and U.S. soldiers from Alpha company, 2nd battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, in Combat Outpost Pirtle King in Kunar province, Afghanistan.

July 19, 2011. Medals and a photograph are placed on the coffin of one the seven French soldiers killed in Afghanistan over four days last week during a funeral service. 70 French soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. President Nicolas Sarkozy has said all French troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014.

July 17, 2011. Children look on as a firefighting aircraft drops flame retardant over a forest fire near Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. The forest fire in Jerusalem forced the evacuation of visitors and workers from Yad Vashem as firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control, a police spokesman said.

July 20, 2011. Britain's Queen Elizabeth lays a wreath at the Armed Forces Memorial after a service of thanksgiving at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, central England.

July 19, 2011. A leopard attacks a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara on the outskirts of Siliguri. Six people were mauled by the leopard after the feline strayed into the village area before it was caught by forestry department officials. Forest officials made several attempt to tranquilize the full grown leopard that was wandering through a part of the densely populated city when curious crowds startled the animal, a wildlife official said.

July 21, 2011. U.S. Marine Sgt. Jerry Saunders, 25, of Winston-Salem, N.C., right, passes down a gun to Staff Sgt. Charles Frangis, 41, of Great Falls Va., both with the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines based in Camp Lejeune, N.C. The Marines came down from a rooftop after the homeowner asked them to leave for fear of being shot at by the Taliban during a mission searching for insurgents in the village of Siraqula in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

July 20, 2011. Bathers beat the midday heat at the Devil's Pool in Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia.

July 21, 2011. Space shuttle Atlantis (STS-135) touches down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), completing its 13-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Overall, Atlantis spent 307 days in space and traveled nearly 126 million miles during its 33 flights. Atlantis, the fourth orbiter built, launched on its first mission on Oct. 3, 1985.

July 21, 2011. Soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army's honor guard battalions are reflected in puddles of water as they wait for a welcome ceremony at a military base in Beijing, China.

July 18, 2011. An Indian farmer walks with his ploughing tools and cattle in a paddy field on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. The annual monsoon season from June to October brings rains that are vital to agriculture in India.