Greek actress Xanthi Georgiou, playing the role of the High Priestess, lights up the torch during the flame lighting ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the Ancient Olympia archeological site, birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece on October 18, 2021. The Olympic flame will once again be lit in an empty stadium on Ovtober 18, 2021, as it starts its truncated journey to Beijing for the Winter Games in February. Like the ceremony in March 2020 to light the flame for Tokyo, and like those Games, which were put back a year, Monday's ceremony is a victim of coronavirus restrictions. (Photo by Aris Messinis/AFP Photo)

The combination of Venezuela's sky-rocketing prices and chronic product shortages have left many struggling to put regular food on their tables and maintain a balanced diet. According to one recent study, 87 percent of Venezuelans say their income is now insufficient to purchase their food needs. Here: All the food available in the house of Antonia Torres and her family, is pictured at their home in Caracas, Venezuela April 22, 2016. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/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)

A staff of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games holds a placard reading “Mask on” as USA's players react after their defeat in the women's gold medal match of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games ice hockey competition between Canada and USA, at the Wukesong Sports Centre in Beijing on February 17, 2022. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

Christmas party goers seen on December 14, 2018 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Revellers hit the bars as they partied hard on the second-to-last Friday before Christmas. (Photo by Mercury Press)

A boatman rests on his boat in the flooded Ganges river under the Shastri bridge at Daraganj Ghat, in Allahabad, India on August 22, 2019. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

Ruchaya Nillakan (L) and Nuttimon Sanyamast (C), same-sеx couple, attend their marriage registration event at Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok on January 23, 2025. A high-profile gay couple married in Thailand on January 23 as the kingdom's same-sеx marriage law went into effect, an AFP journalist saw, among the first of hundreds expected to do so. (Photo by Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP Photo)