Surfing dogs, soapbox races and Invictus Games: The week in pictures

Brandy the Pug rides a wave during the Surf City Surf Dog contest in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Saturday. The annual event draws pooches from around the globe. Competitors are evaluated on confidence, length of ride and overall ability. 

It's official

Prince Harry made his first official public appearance with his actress girlfriend, Meghan Markle, at the wheelchair tennis event during the Invictus Games in Toronto on Monday. The two have been dating for a year. 

Flying colours

The British Royal Air Force's aerobatic team, the Red Arrows, performs manoeuvres during celebrations marking Saudi Arabia's National Day, in Jeddah on Monday.

Rohingya refugees

Some 60 per cent of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are children. Exhausted parents carried children on journeys from Myanmar on foot that lasted as long as two weeks. Almost all of the 480,000 refugees depend on aid in already-poor Bangladesh and live in makeshift tent camps.

Puerto Rico after Maria

Irma Maldanado nuzzles Sussury her parrot in what is left of her home after Hurricane Maria passed through on Wednesday in Corozal, Puerto Rico. The island suffered widespread damage to the electrical, gas and water infrastructure as well as agriculture.

Soapbox races

Competitors race their homemade vehicle during the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Sunday. Participants dress up in outrageous costumes and crash their soapboxes into hay bales at the bottom of steep hills.

Iron resolve

Members of the Special Warfare Command give a demonstration of their skills in the traditional Korean martial art of taekwondo ahead of a celebration marking the 69th anniversary of Korea Armed Forces Day, in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on Monday. 

Education protest

A demonstrator in Santiago, Chile, is detained during a rally to get the government to make changes to the education system, on Wednesday.

Precious memory

Justina Escamilla, 88, holds her wedding dress inside her destroyed home after an earthquake in San Juan Pilcaya, Mexico, on Monday. She returned to her house to retrieve her dress during the earthquake.

Toronto Invictus Games

Players from New Zealand and Canada compete in their wheelchair rugby match during the Invictus Games in Toronto, on Wednesday. The Invictus Games are an international sporting event for wounded, ill and injured servicemen and women, both those currently serving and veterans. 

Open wide

An ostrich reacts inside an enclosure at an ostrich farm near the town of Chekhov, some 75 kilometres south of Moscow, on Saturday.

Health-care protest

U.S. Capitol Police remove a protester from the U.S. Senate committee on finance hearing on the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson Proposal on reforming health care on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Monday. The Senate dropped the bill the next day.

Unclean fun

People fight for the ball as they take part in a mud football match during a festival for celebrating harvest in a village in Jinhua, China, on Saturday.

Cheeky

A visitor to the International London Tattoo Convention takes a break outside the venue on Saturday. The event celebrates body art and attracts prominent tattoo artists from around the globe.

Vote for independence

A woman casts her vote at a polling station during the Kurdish independence referendum in Kirkuk, Iraq on Monday. An overwhelming 92 per cent of voters were in favour of creating an independent state.

Remembering Stalin's victims

An elderly Russian woman, a granddaughter of a Stalin-era victim, touches her head to the name of her grandfather, engraved on the memorial wall at the Butovo shooting range outside Moscow, on Wednesday. The Memory Garden memorial is dedicated to the 20,762 people executed during Stalin's political terror in 1937-38.