Photos of the fortnight (April 25- May 8)

Published: May 8, 2015

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A resident carries a mattress through an area damaged by lahar (hot or cold mixture of water and rock fragments flowing down the slopes of a volcano) from the Calbuco volcano at Correntoso near Chamiza in Chile. Ash from the volcano, which first erupted on April 22 without warning, reached as far as southern Brazil and prompted some airlines to cancel flights to the capital cities of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay

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An elderly protester is blocked by a barricade of policemen during an April 24 rally in central Seoul, South Korea. According to the Korean Federation of Trade Unions, about 260,000 workers took part in the demonstration, including about 60,000 government employees and 10,000 teachers. They were protesting the government's push to cut pensions and ease rules for firing employees

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Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis (centre) gestures to tax officers (not pictured) demonstrating over pay issues outside the ministry's building in Athens on April 30. Greece’s left-wing government offered its biggest concessions so far in a race to remove roadblocks in crunch talks with lenders on a cash-for-reforms package on the same day

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A child walks barefoot after getting off a tug boat in the Sicilian harbour of Pozzallo on May 4. Italy’s coast guard said nearly 5,800 migrants were rescued from boats off the coast of Libya and 10 bodies were recovered in less than 48 hours in one of the biggest rescue operations this year. Desperate Libyans trying to escape ISIS killers have been flocking to Europe in search of a better life

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A child rescued from Boko Haram in Sambisa forest is attended to at a clinic at the Internally Displaced People's camp in Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria on May 3. Hundreds of traumatised Nigerian women and children rescued from Boko Haram Islamists have been released into the care of authorities at a refugee camp in the eastern town of Yola, an army spokesman said

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A man carries a self-portrait painted by Australian death row prisoner Myuran Sukumaran as he leaves Wijayapura port in Cilacap, Central Java province, Indonesia, on April 27. Australia made a last-minute plea for a stay in the execution of two Australian drug traffickers in Indonesia, asking for investigation into reports that their trial had been tainted by corruption. Sukumaran was executed alongside seven others by the Indonesian firing squad after almost 10 years on death row

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A masked protester runs away from a water cannon’s jet during clashes with police in Okmeydanı, Istanbul, on May 1. Istanbul went into a security lockdown on Friday as thousands of police manned barricades and closed streets to stop May Day rallies at Taksim Square, a symbolic point for protests

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A steel rolling gate, part of the last set of locks on the Pacific side, being installed as part of the Panama Canal Expansion Project in Panama City on April 28

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Russian servicemen at a Victory parade rehearsal in Moscow's Red Square on May 4. Russia will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II on May 9

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather celebrate the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba'Omer in Bnei Brak, located in the Dan Metropolitan region east of Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 6. The holiday, which marks the end of a plague in the Middle Ages that killed thousands of people, is celebrated by lighting bonfires across the country

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Youngsters run through a forest covered in bluebells near Marlborough in southern England on May 4. The Savernake Forest and West Woods, managed by the Forestry Commission and replanted in the 1930s to 1950s with beech trees, provide one of the most spectacular sites in Britain for seeing bluebells at this time of year

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Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (left) plays table tennis with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates during the Berkshire annual meeting weekend in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3. More than 40,000 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders poured into Omaha this weekend to celebrate Buffett's 50th anniversary of running the company, at what the world's third-richest person calls Woodstock for Capitalists

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Exit polls results are projected on the side of the BBC headquarters after voting closed in Britain’s general election on May 8. By Friday evening, the Conservatives, led by incumbent Prime Minister David Cameron, was leading the poll results

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US President Barack Obama (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on April 27. Abe was on a week-long visit to the US

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Bollywood actor Salman Khan (right) leaves his house for the court in Mumbai on May 6, 2015. He was sentenced to five years in prison for killing a man in a hit-and-run accident. The sentence was, however, suspended by the Bombay High Court on May 8. The actor will have to apply for a fresh bail and will continue to be a free man till the final verdict