The week in photos

This is the week that was, in pictures.

THE WEEK HAS ended on a harrowing note for the people of Japan and others caught up in natural disasters around the globe.

We have recorded the devastation of Friday’s events in a separate slideshow, which you can view by clicking here.

The following is a selection of other striking images from the week, some poignant, some witty – and some which are just simply beautiful:

The week in photos

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Dude. The party's over.
One reveller doesn't want to go home as city trucks clean up the French Quarter of New Orleans after Mardi Gras. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Big brother on wheels
A police man on a segway questions a delegate of the National People's Congress who was performing exercises on Tiananmen Square outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Making the wheels go round
Newly-installed independent TD Micheal Healy-Rae outside Government Buildings as Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs Jimmy Deenihan (right) is interviewed shortly before the first new Dail meeting in Dublin. (PA Images/Julien Behal)
Someone to watch over me
Illegal migrants rest before waiting to jump into a train northbound at a migrant shelter in Ixtepec, in the state of Oaxaca, southern Mexico. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Fishy circumstances
A worker gathers dead sardines floating on the surface at King Harbour marina in Redondo Beach, California. They perished in a huge, unexplained die-off. (AP Photo/Noaki Schwartz)
Happy families
Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore with Darragh O'Neill, 4, as they announced they were going to form a coalition government. (PA Images/Niall Carson).
Night light
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, fill the sky above the Takotna, Alaska checkpoint during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bob Hallinen)
Ash tag
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Ash Wednesday in Rome with some colleagues. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Fighting for Bieber's sole
Poppet Justin Bieber caused pre-teen fever when he played a gig in Dublin this week. Meanwhile, he donated this autographed trainer of his to his former school, Stratford Northwestern Secondary School in Stratford, Ontario. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley)
Retiring
The Dalai Lama announced that he is going to focus his energies on being a spiritual leader for Tibet, and retire as political head of the exiled Tibetan movement. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
Mind reader
A real human brain suspended in liquid with a to-scale skeleton, central nervous system and human silhouette carved into acrylic, at a science exhibition in Bristol, England. The display has approval by the Human Tissue Authority including full and personal consent from the donor. (Ben Birchall/PA Wire)
Smart State
Enda Kenny enjoys his first day behind the Taoiseach's desk in government buildings, keeping on top of the news with his internet connection and - could it be? - yes, his Aertel monitor. (Pic: Stephen Kilkenny)
Lava lamp
The US Geological Survey captured this stunning image of the Kamoamoa eruption on Tuesday in Hawaii. (AP Photo/US Geological Survey)
Who's a hot dog?
An owner holds a hot dog away from its canine pal at Britain's annual Crufts dog show at the NEC Arena in Birmingham. (AP Photo/Simon Dawson)
Champion pancake tos... er, flippers
Prince William looks on as Kate Middleton flips a pancake on their first joint official engagement to Northern Ireland. (PA Images/Peter Morrison)
The grass is greener
Skiers crowd a slope next to a green meadow in the Lofer skiing resort in the Austrian province of Salzburg. (AP Photo/ Kerstin Joensson)
Mercury revs up
A NASA Messenger probe took this image of the pockmarked southern hemisphere of Mercury. (AP Photo/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Praying for strength
Religious images cover a wall above a student who holds a hunger strike outside the UN offices in Caracas, Venezuela, to demand the government an increase in the university budgets. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)