The 20 photographs of the week

The cleared democracy protests in Hong Kong, the reaction to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in the US, the aftermath of typhoon Hagupit, the ongoing civil war in Syria – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week.

Some of these photographs contain graphic content 

An undercover police officer, caught posing as a protester against police violence in Oakland, California, points his gun at the crowd after his partner is attacked. Police said more than 100 protesters marched in neighbouring Berkeley over the grand jury decisions not to indict white officers for the deaths of two unarmed black men

Photograph: Noah Berger/Reuters 

 

n another photograph by Noah Berger in Berkeley, protesters block interstate 80 in reaction to the grand jury decisions

Photograph: Noah Berger/Reuters 

 

The demonstrations also continued in New York. Here, a man protests in falling snow following a news conference where members of Justice League NYC presented a list of demands at City Hall. The league, made up of juvenile and criminal justice advocates, artists and experts, and formerly incarcerated individuals, issued the demands in response to the failure of a Staten Island grand jury to indict white police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner

Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters 

 

Pro-democracy protesters gather at the Occupy Central protest site in the Admiralty district, Hong Kong. The authorities urged the protesters to pack up their tents, saying it could not promise that there would be no ‘confrontations’

Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters 

 

Hong Kong police clear debris from the main pro-democracy protest camp in the Admiralty district. The police began dismantling the site on 11 December, clearing away tents and barricades after more than two months of rallies

Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty

 

The barricades that were set up by pro-democracy protesters are stockpiled on the main road in Admiralty district, allowing traffic to pass through the heart of Hong Kong for the first time in more than two months

Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP 

 

In Bangladesh, a woman searches the riverside in Dhaka for any plastic she can sell for recycling. Around a third of the city’s 15 million residents live in poverty

Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty 

 

A Filipino man carries a plastic sheet from his house after strong waves caused by typhoon Hagupit battered a coastal village in Legazpi. Residents began trickling back to their homes when local authorities reported the typhoon had passed. Nearly 900,000 people had moved out of their homes into shelters. View more images from the typhoon here

Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP 

 

A Qantas Airways Boeing 737-800 flies through storm clouds above Sydney after the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning

Photograph: David Gray/Reuters 

 

Smoke spews from Mount Sinabung in Karo, Indonesia, as the volcano continues to intermittently erupt. Residents who lived in the danger zones around the volcano were relocated following the deadly eruptions that killed 17 people in February

Photograph: Sutanta Aditya/AFP/Getty 

 

Photographer Abd Doumany continued his strong reportage from war-torn Syria this week. Here, an injured boy is treated at a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma, following two reported air strikes by government forces. The rebel bastion of Douma has been under government siege for more than a year, with residents facing dwindling food and medical supplies

Photograph: Abd Doumany/AFP/Getty 

  

In another photograph by Abd Doumany, a young Syrian man takes part in final training before being sent to the frontline along with rebel fighters from the Jaysh al-Islam brigades in eastern al-Ghouta, a rebel-held region outside Damascus

Photograph: Abd Doumany/AFP/Getty 

  

A Donetsk People’s Republic soldier is photographed at the damaged Savur Mogila monument near the city of Snizhnee in eastern Ukraine. The monument honours Red Army troops who fell during the second world war

Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty 

 

Policemen run to escort taxi driver Shiv Kumar Yadav outside court in New Delhi, India. The Uber driver is on trial for allegedly raping a female passenger

Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters 

 

In Mexico, farmer Agustin Gomez Perez sets himself alight in protest outside the Chiapas state legislature in Tuxtla Gutierrez. Perez was demanding the release of his father, indigenous leader Florentino Gomez Giron, who was arrested last year on charges stemming from a series of demonstrations in 2011 that turned violent. Agustin was taken to a hospital, where his stepmother, Araceli Diaz, said he was in a serious but stable condition

Photograph: Carlos Diaz Vazquez/Cuartoscuro/AP

 

Riot police clash with masked youths occupying the labour centre in Thessaloniki, Greece. Police fired teargas to disperse protesters, who hurled petrol bombs and set light to banks. The violence broke out during marches marking the sixth anniversary of the fatal police shooting of unarmed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens

Photograph: Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters 

 

In a photograph by Siegfried Modola, a regular contributor to 20 photographs, a man holds a girl as she tries to escape an arranged marriage in Baringo County, Kenya. As Pokot tradition dictates, the future husband arrived at the girl’s family home with the last settled dowry of livestock and a group of men to collect her. She was unaware of the marriage arrangements that her father had made as her family said she might have run away from home

Photograph: Siegfried Modola/Reuters 

 

A horse stands against the wind as snow falls on Black Mountain in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Weather warnings had been issued for freezing temperatures across Britain as a cold front approached bringing high winds and gales

Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty 

 

George Mwangi, left, and Joel Warvare Karinga search for their belongings after surviving an attack by al-Shabaab militants that left 36 non-Muslim workers dead at a quarry near the town of Mandera at the Kenya-Somalia border

Photograph: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters 

 

In the final photograph this week, Turkish football fans use their mobile phones to illuminate the Ataturk Olympic stadium after the floodlights failed during the Europa League match between Besiktas and Tottenham Hotspur in Istanbul

Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA