Photo: Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi/Reuters

A cultural procession of villagers and an elephant proceed to a temple to offer a part of their cinnamon crop to pagan gods in Hikkaduwa. Dancing to traditional drums behind an elephant draped in purple, Sri Lankan cinnamon growers are offering part of their crop to pagan gods in thanks at a steady recovery from the 2004 tsunami.

Photo: REUTERS

A rotor of a generator is installed at the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, Hubei province.

Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

Kawana Jasper and her mother talk to a man before the New Orleans City Council holds a meeting about tearing down public housing buildings in New Orleans.

Photo: HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN / AP

Muslim pilgrims pray on a rocky hill called the Mountain of Mercy, on the Plain of Arafat near Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Photo: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

A girl poses with a sheep in Algiers ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

Photo: Thierry Roge/Reuters

Belgian riot police detain a Greenpeace activist after protesters built a wall blocking access to the European Council building in Brussels.

Photo: Mario Tama/AFP/Getty Images

Jack Halterman, a homeless man, stands Sunday beneath Interstate 10 where over 100 homeless people sleep each night in New Orleans, La. Affordable housing stocks have dwindled with rents rising 45 per cent and homelessness has more than doubled to almost 12,000 individuals in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Photo: Arko Datta/Reuters

Pyres burn Sunday at a cremation ground on the banks of river Ganges in the northern Indian city of Varanasi. Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi and having their remains scattered in the Ganges allows their soul to escape a cycle of death and rebirth, attaining ‘moksha’ or salvation.

Photo: HO/Cpl. Ralph Merry/AFP/Getty Images

Iraqi soldiers parade Sunday following the signing of a memorandum of understanding during a handover ceremony in the southern city of Basra. Iraq formally took over security control of the southern oil province of Basra from British forces paving the way for Britain to sharply reduce its nearly 5,000-strong troop presence.

Photo: Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images

Volunteers struggle to clean up the South Korean coast near Taean after an offshore oil spill.