With a presence in nearly every city and town across Iran, the paramilitary Basij volunteer corps has an ever-increasing influence on life in the Islamic Republic. Authorities created the Basij, which means mobilization in Persian, just after the country's 1979 Islamic Republic. It is part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. Photo: In this Thursday, August 22, 2013 photo, a female member of the Basij paramilitary militia aims a rifle as a trainer looks over her shoulder in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A boat, center, is surrounded by Japan Cost Guard's patrol boats after some activists descended from the boat on Uotsuri Island, one of the islands of Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, in East China Sea Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Regional tensions flared on the emotional anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender as activists from China and South Korea used Wednesday's occasion to press rival territorial claims, prompting 14 arrests by Japanese authorities. The 14 people had traveled by boat from Hong Kong to the disputed islands controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. (Photo by Yomiuri Shimbun/Masataka Morita/AP Photo)

Colombian police help carry people's household belongings across the Tachira River from Venezuela, top, to Colombia, on the border that separates San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela from Villa del Rosario, Colombia, Tuesday, August 25, 2015, during a mass exodus of Colombians. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro vowed to extend a crackdown on illegal migrants from neighboring Colombia he blames for rampant crime and widespread shortages, while authorities across the border struggled to attend to droves of returning deportees. (Photo by Eliecer Mantilla/AP Photo)

In a photo taken on June 5, 2017 a traffic security officer stands on duty at an intersection in Pyongyang. Officially known as traffic security officers but universally referred to as traffic ladies, they are chosen for their looks in a society that remains traditionalist in many respects. They must leave the role if they marry, and have a finite shelf-life, with compulsory retirement looming at just 26. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

“The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSR, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster)”. – Wikipedia (Photos by Alexandr Strannik, August 1986; Source: LiveJournal)

In this Wednesday, May 13, 2015 photo, a Nepalese laborer carries a load of bricks at a brick factory in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Almost 745,600 buildings and homes have been damaged or destroyed, including at least 87,700 in the capital, according to Nepal's emergency authority. Engineers say only 40 percent of Kathmandu's damaged buildings as habitable. (Photo by Bernat Amangue/AP Photo)

A Muslim woman takes a picture of a man in the water of the Mediterranean sea in Tel Aviv during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan July 19, 2015. Thousands of Palestinians used permits given by the Israeli authorities allowing many to enjoy the beaches along Israel's Mediterranean shoreline during the Eid al-Fitr holiday. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

An Afghan refugee family stands by trucks loaded with their belongings as they wait to go back to Afghanistan with others, at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office on the outskirts of Peshawar February 13, 2015. Afghan immigrants ordered out of Pakistan in what officials say is a bid to root out militants are, some analysts say, scapegoats being used to distract attention from the authorities' failure to end violence. (Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)