A customer shops at an Alibaba rural service centre in Jinjia Village, Tonglu, Zhejiang province, China, July 20, 2015. E-commerce growth in the countryside now outpaces that in major cities, though fewer than one tenth of online purchases made on Alibaba platforms were shipped to rural areas in the first quarter of this year. Alibaba estimates the potential market at 460 billion yuan ($74 billion) by next year. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

One of only three active female blimp pilots in the world, Kristen Arambula guides her passengers towards the Goodyear blimp “Spirit of America” in Carson, California August 5, 2015. Christened in 2002, the air ship is being retired after 8,000 flights and replaced with a newer more modern version named the “Spirit of Innovation” in September. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

Though finger painting is normally associated with tempera paint and messy classroom art projects, Iris Scott is quickly changing what "finger painting" brings to mind. Wearing surgical gloves and painting with high grade oils, Iris achieves a whirlwind of crisscrossing color strokes and a vibrant impressionistic style. Since 2009, when Iris first began finger painting in Taiwan, her artistic career has caught her by surprise. Grateful for a new global market of online art collectors, Iris has shipped to Dubai, Ireland, and all over the USA.

A file photograph dated 07 January 2006 and released by Greenpeace, showing the Yushin Maru, a factory ship in a Japanese whaling fleet, injuring a whale with it's first harpoon attempt. A UN court in The Hague on 31 March 2014 halted Japan's much-criticized whaling programme, ruling that it contravenes a 1986 moratorium on whale hunting. Japan must end its 'research whaling' programme, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said. Japan said the programme was for scientific research and permitted under international conventions. Australia had brought the case to the ICJ in 2010, charging that Japan was breaching international law by killing hundreds of whales every year for commercial purposes. Japan was “deeply disappointed” by the ruling, an unnamed government official was quoted by the Kyodo News agency as saying. But the official said Japan would stand by the ruling. (Photo by Kate Davison/EPA)