This picture taken on January 26, 2016 shows a monkey sitting on a bench during rehearsal at a monkey training school in a zoo in Dongying, eastern China's Shandong province. Shows featuring performing simians, popular in China and throughout Asia, are expecting a boost in the Lunar New Year of the monkey, which begins on February 8. But they are facing a growing backlash from Chinese people concerned about animal welfare. (Photo by Wang Zhao/AFP Photo)

Workers carry a rope line to fasten a decommissioned ship at the Alang shipyard in the western Indian state of Gujarat, March 27, 2015. The European Union plans to impose strict new rules on how companies scrap old tankers and cruise liners, run aground and dismantled on beaches in South Asia. However the practice in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, hazardous for humans and the environment, will still be hard to stop. European, Turkish and Chinese recyclers are set to benefit from the revamped standards. Depending on raw material prices, ship owners can make up to $500 per tonne of steel from an Indian yard, compared with $300 in China and just $150 in Europe. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

The shoemaker in Turkey, the potato seller in Vietnam, and the weaver in Bolivia are among the billions of low-income entrepreneurs who make the world go round. They are also the type of people who can benefit significantly from microfinance. Every year, the Consultative Group To Assist The Poor (or CGAP) hosts a photo contest asking entrants to submit photos based around the idea of microfinance.The purpose of the contest is to give amateur and professional photographers a chance to show the different ways that poor households manage their financial lives and make their lives better through financial inclusion. Photo: South Asia Regional Winner – “Bricks Worker”, Bangladesh. A private enterprise worker is working at a brick field. These small businesses are creating new job opportunities for many poor people. (Photo by Moksumul Haque)

With the humpback calving season drawing to a close, here’s a look at some of Rita Kluge’s distinctive marine photos from the south Pacific. The Sydney-based photographer fell in love with whales after witnessing southern rights from the New South Wales coastline as they travelled to and from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic. She has since been to Tonga, where humpbacks breed and calf in winter months, to photograph them in the water. (Photo by Rita Kluge/The Guardian)

“A happy camper has shown he has the world at his feet by capturing a series of breath-taking mountain views from his tent. Russian Photographer Oleg Grigoriev, 35, travels with little more than a tent and his camera taking snaps of the mountainous terrain of central Asia and Eastern parts of Europe. The adventurous lawyer, who lives in Ukraine, started camping in remote mountainous areas in 2007 but only came up with the concept of photographing views from his tent after a memorable trip to the Fann Mountains of Tajikistan”. – Caters News

The battleship USS Iowa fires its 16-inch guns during duty in the Persian Gulf on December 16, 1987. In 1943, the Iowa ferried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran Conference, where post-WW II leaders divided up the world. The ship fought battles from the South Pacific to Korea and escorted convoys through the Persian Gulf. Forty-seven sailors died atop its deck when an explosion ripped through a gun turret. Now, the new port for the retired USS Iowa just might be the home of California's annual asparagus festival, the gritty agriculture port town of Stockton on the San Joaquin River, about 80 miles inland from San Francisco. (Photo by Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

Beachgoers are hit by a wave in La Libertad May 3, 2015. El Salvador emergency authorities declared a green alert along the pacific coats due to a large swell that affected the Salvadoran coast and originated from the extra-tropical storms that formed in New Zealand and the Southern hemisphere, according to El Salvador's ministry of environment and natural resources. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

A man rides his bicycle as a wave crashes at La Libertad malecon on May 13, 2015. El Salvador emergency authorities has declared an orange alert along the Pacific coast due to a large swell that affected the Salvadoran coast. The swell originated from the extra-tropical storms that formed in New Zealand and the Southern hemisphere, according to El Salvador's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)