Athens went into security lockdown for a landmark visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose austerity measures have made her a much-hated figure in Greece. Thousands of police fanned out across the capital, creating a large safety zone for Merkel's meetings with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and President Carolos Papoulias. Merkel expressed sympathy for the suffering of the Greek people, but continued to support the austerity measures being implemented as part of a bailout plan.
Above, a protester holds a poster of Merkel featuring a Hitler moustache near the Greek parliament in Athens during a demonstration against her visit on Oct. 9.
Malala Yousafzai , a 14-year-old Pakistani child activist, was shot in the head by the Taliban and airlifted to the country's top military hospital for specialist treatment. She is still in a critical condition, officials said. The shooting of Yousafzai on a school bus in the Swat Valley has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.
Above, a Pakistani demonstrator lights a candle during a protest against the assassination attempt on Oct. 11.
Russian appeals court ordered today the release of one member of anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich (seated above on the far left), after giving her a suspended term but ordered two others, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, to serve two years in a prison camp. Above, the three imprisoned members of Pussy Riot sit in a glass-walled cage in a court in Moscow on Oct. 10.
Rebels cut off the highway linking Damascus with Syria's second city Aleppo, choking the flow of government troops to battlefields in the north. Here, a Syrian opposition fighter stands near a post in Aleppo on Oct. 11. His tatoo reads, "You are the love."
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut Spain's credit rating down to BBB- after spending cuts and tax increases failed to ease the country's debt and reduce high unemployment levels. Above, a protester shouts slogans during a demonstration by students protesting against education cuts at Puerta del Sol on Oct. 11 in Madrid.
Amid rising secularism in Europe, the Vatican celebrated the 50th anniversary of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In this photo, Catholics stand in front of St. Peter's basilica during a torch-lit procession on Oct. 11.
U.S. General John Allen will take over as NATO supreme commander and be replaced as head of alliance forces in Afghanistan by Joseph Dunford, currently the U.S. Marine Corps deputy commander. Dunford will assume command of the 68,000 U.S. troops who make up the bulk of the coalition force as the Afghan army takes on increasing responsibility for security and NATO ends its combat mission in 2014. Above, a U.S. Army soldier operating takes a position during a patrol near Baraki Barak base in Logar Province on Oct. 10.
In Bali, hundreds of foreign and local family members, friends, and the general public gathered to remember the victims of the 2002 Kuta nightclub bombings that killed 202 people. Above, candles burn in front of the site of the Sari Club during a memorial ceremony held in front of the memorial at Jalan Legian on Oct.12.
Above, Palestinian women from the Al-Sweity family harvest olive trees in their grove on Oct. 11. The grove is located near Israel's controversial separation barrier in the occupied West Bank village of Deir Samet, near Hebron. The Palestinian family was granted a two-day permit by the Israeli army to harvest its olive trees.
Farmers harvest rice in a field on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam, on Oct. 11.
A festival-goer feeds seagulls during day seven of the 17th Busan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea on Oct. 10.
Here, a Maori grimaces at the 64th Frankfurt Book Fair -- the world's largest -- on Oct. 9.
