Feb. 22, 2013. An employee wears a panda suit while talking to a woman at a panda-themed hotel at the foot of Emei Mountain in Emeishan, southwest China’s Sichuan province. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

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Feb. 20, 2013. Indonesian men put a chain onto a young pig-tailed macaque as it is displayed for sale in Padang Pariaman, West Sumatra, Indonesia. (Photo: Rivo Andries—AP)

Feb. 20, 2013. A model gets made up backstage during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Madrid, Spain. (Photo: Juan Medina—Reuters)

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Jan. 26, 2013. An Egyptian soccer fan holds a smoke flare above his head in celebration after learning that 21 fans of the Al Masry football club, involved in a football stadium massacre last year, were sentence to death, in Cairo, Egypt. (Photo: Ed Giles—Getty Images)

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Jan. 27, 2013. Relatives wait to identify victims killed in the Kiss night club fire, at the municipal gymnasium in Santa Maria, Brazil. (Photo: Jefferson Bernards—AFP/Getty Images)

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Photograph by Liu Dawei—Xinhua/Landov

Jan. 30, 2013. Feeders hold koalas as they pose for group photos at Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province. 

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Jan. 11, 2013. An employee wearing a panda costume slides down from an ice sculpture during the Harbin International Ice and Snow World festival in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. (Photo: Sheng Li—Reuters)

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Jan. 4, 2013. Tammy Holmes and her grandchildren take refuge under a jetty as a wildfire rages near-by in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, Australia. (Photo: Tim Holme—AP/Holmes Family)

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Dec. 30, 2012. A boy watches men dig graves for future casualties of Syria’s civil conflict at Sheikh Saeed cemetery in Azaz city, north of Aleppo, Syria. (Ahmed Jadallah—Reuters)

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Nov. 14, 2012. A man holds a flare as thousands of people from France and Belgium demonstrate during an anti-austerity protest in Lille, France. (photo: Philippe Huguen—AFP/Getty Images)

From escalating violence in the Gaza Strip and austerity riots in Europe to the flooding of Venice and murmurations of starlings in Scotland, TIME presents the best images of the week.

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