Week In Pictures: 27/07/2012

Week In Pictures: 27/07/2012

From incredible scenes in the wild to death-defying stunts in the sky, 

this week provided more than its fair share of astounding images.

Faithful Muslims offer first Friday Prayer of the Holy Month of Ramadan-ul-Mubarak at Memon Mosque in Karachi. 

Ramadan is the Muslim month of fasting, in which Muslims refrain from dawn until sunset from eating, drinking, and sexual relations.

 

2.This brave lioness risked her own life by taking on a lurking crocodile so that the rest of her pride could cross a river in safety. 

The plucky big cat's terrifying tussle with the scaly reptile in the Okavango Delta of Botswana was caught on camera by wildlife 

photographer Pia Dierickx. Amazingly, the lioness emerged from the scuffle with nothing more than a cut lip (Picture: Rex)

 

3. Greenland's surface ice cover melted this month over a larger area than ever detected in more than 30 years of satellite observations, 

Nasa revealed this week. The picture on the left shows Greenland's ice sheet on 8 July, the picture on right taken four days later shows 

the extent of the ice melt (Picture: DiGirolamo/Jesse Allen/NASA)

 

4. Britain was certainly feeling the heat this week as summer finally visited our shores. 

In this picture an African elephant at West Midlands Safari Park, Bewdley, is cooled down 

by head of elephants Andy Plumb (Picture: SWNS)

 

5. We're licked: Ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar also needed to cool off. 

They got some relief from the hot weather at West Midlands Safari Park, Bewdley, 

by eating ice lollies (Picture: SWNS)

 

6. The heat was also on U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney when he was forced to backtrack this week after making 

unflattering comments about the London Olympics. A visit aimed at boosting Romney's foreign policy credentials turned into 

a public relations mess after he said on Wednesday there were "disconcerting" reports about London's preparations and a lack of 

Olympic spirit. But he later struck a far more diplomatic tone after his meeting with David Cameron, amid fierce criticism in the 

the British press.

 

7. If Romney hasn't quite found the right voice yet, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez certainly feels he has. 

The eccentric leader is pictured here singing during an election rally in Caracas (Picture: Reuters)

 

8. Not so well known for high jinks is North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un. Nevertheless he cracked a rare smile this week 

when he went on a ride with other high-level officials during the opening ceremony of the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground 

on Rungna Islet. It was revealed this week that Kim was married to Ri Sol-ju - a singer who had been recently spotted 

accompanying the leader on a number of official visits (Picture: Reuters)

 

9. An altogether more spectacular ride here - this was the astonishing moment an adrenaline junkie became the first man ever to skydive - 

holding an Olympic torch. Chris McCann, 50, (R) leapt 15,000ft out of a plane above Peterborough, Cambs, on Tuesday afternoon, 

brandishing an official torch. The beacon had earlier been carried through Norwich by official torch bearer James Colley, 23, (L) 

who jumped alongside Chris. They plummeted in free fall for one minute before deploying their parachutes and it then took five 

more minutes to reach the ground (Picture: Masons)

 

10. Another high impact image from above - this stunning Nasa photo puts the 'art' into 'earth' thanks to its incredible resemblance 

to a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece. The satellite image shows massive congregations of green phytoplankton swirling in the dark water 

around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. It has nicknamed the picture 'Van Gogh From Space' because of its similarity to '

The Starry Night', the 1888 work by the famous Dutch artist. The photograph, taken 400 miles above Earth on July 13, 2005, 

was this week named the greatest photograph taken by the Landsat Program (Picture: SWNS)

 

11. Also hitting the heights this week was little Sofya Dickson, from Loughborough. The three-year-old has been dubbed 'Spider Girl' 

since her father uploaded a hilarious video of her climbing up the inside of a door frame. In just a week, nearly 300,000 people from 

across the world have viewed Sofya's cheeky antics. Dad Peter said: "Who knows, she could become a future Olympic gymnast." 

(Picture: SWNS)

 

12. In India, Muslims pray at the Jama mosque on the first Friday of Ramadan in New Delhi (Picture: AP)

 

13. Also in India, a boy tries to hit a shuttlecock as he plays in a slum alley in Mumbai (Picture: Reuters)