Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

Xie Guobiao (C), 11, tied to a pillar with a rope, cries as his grandmother (L) and younger sister look on at his home in Daohui village of Lishui, Zhejiang province May 7, 2014. Xie was diagnosed as mentally handicapped when he was young, but the family was not able to provide him with sufficient medical treatment because of poverty. At the age of six, Xie started to sneak out of his home when others were not looking, climbing on top of houses and smashing windows. Xie's family had to pay over 10,000 yuan ($1,606) in compensation to others for the damage he caused. Since then, the family has had to tie Xie up with a rope both at home and in public, they said. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)

An injured boy who is undergoing surgery, after he was injured in what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, rests inside a field hospital in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria December 5, 2015. Douma in Syria, an area controlled by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, has been shelled continuously for the past three years. The injured are taken to basements and shelters transformed into field hospitals run by medical staff who have stayed in the battered neighbourhood of Damascus. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

Artist Pyotr Pavlensky sits on the wall enclosing the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry after he cut off a part of his earlobe during his protest action titled “Segregation” in Moscow October 19, 2014. Pavlensky protested against the usage of forensic psychiatry for politically motivated purposes. He cut off his earlobe to demonstrate how authorities could “cut off” an unwanted individual from society by using psychiatric and medical diagnosis to forcefully send a person to a penitentiary hospital, according to Pavlensky. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

Now celebrating its 40th year, Nikon Small World is widely regarded as the leading forum to recognize proficiency and photographic excellence of photography taken under the microscope. To select the winners, competition judges analyzed entries from all over the world covering subjects ranging from chemical compounds to up-close-and-personal looks at biological specimens. The 2014 winners will be revealed on October 30th. In 2014, the competition received over 1,200 entries from more than 79 countries around the world. (Photo by Dr. Igor Robert Siwanowicz/Nikon Small World 2014)

A fisherman is seen standing on a cliff edge at Cape Bank in La Perouse on February 20, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. The practice of fishing from rock platforms, cliffs and rocky outcrops is notoriously dangerous with many anglers per year being washed into the ocean by dangerous surf or unexpected large waves. Angling is often reported as the sport having the highest mortality rate on average due to fishermen drowning with rocking fishing contributing to a high number of these deaths. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Sandra van den Broek from Netherlands creates the cutest character bento for her children’s. She’ll start by sketching the meal and prepares it with scissors, knives and toothpicks. Although you wouldn’t say, it usually takes Sandra only one hour to make a meal. She likes to make something practical, something for everyone to be able to follow. And if you look closely, you can see that it wouldn’t be too hard to make these bentos yourself.

Two holy men with a decorative faces and headdresses, taken in Kathmandu, Nepal. Wandering through the cities and forests of Nepal are the holy men, or Sadhus, who have left all materialistic pleasures behind to live a life devoted to God. Their appearances vary from brightly coloured face paints, and decorations, to minimalistic practical clothing, but they all represent the fundamental values and meanings of Hinduism. Danish photographer Jan Moeller Hansen visited the ancient capital city of Kathmandu between 2013 and 2016 and documented the mysterious holy wanderers. (Photo by Jan Moeller Hansen/Barcroft Images)