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In today’s pictures, a woman cries during a festival in India, a Siberian tiger goes for a swim in Germany, Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas, and more.

by Sophia Jones

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  A Free Syrian Army fighter in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, Aug. 21.

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  Courtesy of James Lawler Duggan

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  A Free Syrian Army fighter dodges sniper fire in the Salah Al Din neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 22.

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  Courtesy of James Lawler Duggan

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  Free Syrian Army fighters exchange fire with regime forces in the Salah Al Din neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 22.

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  Free Syrian Army fighters take cover from a Syrian attack helicopter in the Sakhour neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 23.

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  A Syrian civilian shows marks of torture after his release from regime forces in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 23.

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  Courtesy of James Lawler Duggan

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  Free Syrian Army fighters take position in the Salah Al Din neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 22.

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  Free Syrian Army fighters exchange fire with regime forces in the Salah Al Din neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 22.

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  Young Syrians run for cover as a Free Syrian Army fighter returns sniper fire in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 21.

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  Free Syrian Army fighters take cover from helicopter fire in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 21.

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  A Free Syrian Army fighter climbs through a damaged wall during fighting in the Saif Dawla neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 24.

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When the Arab Spring broke out two years ago, photojournalist James Lawler Duggan grabbed his camera. As waves of protests pulsed through the Middle East, Duggan, on a leave of absence from the Corcoran School of Art, followed conflict through Bahrain, Libya, Egypt and finally into Syria.

This past August, he crossed the Turkish border and made his way to Aleppo to capture images of Free Syrian Army rebel fighters. Working for Agence-France Press, his photos were distributed all over the world.

As helicopters fired rockets and regime tanks rolled through abandoned neighborhoods, Duggan, 25, set out to document what he says gives meaning to his own life: the human extreme.

Courtesy of James Lawler Duggan

Photojournalist James Lawler Duggan.

His work represents a delicate balance between accessing risk, taking meaningful photos and dealing with the aftershock of seeing such extreme violence.

"Photographing something graphic spares you the trauma of it," he explains. "The focus on capturing the frame affords you a callus. But it catches up to you later."

Unarmed, Duggan put faith in the Free Syrian Army fighters who were guiding him — while also trying not to become too emotionally attached to them, a survival technique in its own rite.

"I never broke down crying in Syria," he says, looking down at a photograph of a man with crimson torture scars on his back. "But I have since I came home."

The photo, taken in a Free Syrian Army safe house, shows a man who had just been tortured by Assad regime forces. It is perhaps Duggan's most widely published photo.

Courtesy of James Lawler Duggan

A Syrian civilian shows marks of torture after his release from regime forces in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Aug. 23.

Minutes before the photo was taken, Duggan explains, two civilian men walked into the room, one looking clearly roughed up. The other man at first seemed unharmed, but when he took off his shirt, Duggan clicked his camera. "At the moment, it wasn't clear the power the photo would have," he says.

In a way, the shot could symbolize how the war is everywhere in Syria — even if it seems hidden.

Photographers in war zones often have to be in the line of fire in order to capture it. While Duggan says he doesn't take unnecessary risks, he acknowledges the incredible dangers of "bang-bang photography," referring to a group of photographers who documented apartheid and violence in South Africa in the early '90s. Looking back, he says he can think of numerous occasions where he jumped headfirst into a potentially deadly situation.

"It's fashionable for conflict photographers to tell each other to be safe and not to take unnecessary risks, but at the end of the day, we're all trying to get closer and push the envelope. I spent two of my nine lives in Syria," he admits.

This month, he (along with this blogger) will be participating in RISC — Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues — a course that gives freelance journalists medical training for life-threatening situations. The program was set up by Sebastian Junger, a friend of photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed during the conflict in Libya.

"I'm honored to get this opportunity," Duggan says — adding that all freelancers should prepare for the realities of combat.

He says he constantly thinks about the impact of his career on friends and family. "I wear a flak jacket for my mother, not my editor or anyone else. My mother."

You can see more of James Lawler Duggan's work on his website.

Sophia Jones is an intern with NPR News.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Photos from Bahrain, England, West Bank and Indonesia.

In the last week of June, at an airfield outside Moscow, Russia laid out a smorgasbord of military hardware—including everything from tanks to anti-aircraft batteries—and invited some of the most militaristic nations in the world do some pleasant summer shopping. Meat was grilled in barbecue pits, comely models stood around in mini-skirts, ’80s music and obnoxious techno pounded through the speakers, and once a day, a choreographer from the Bolshoi Theater staged a “tank ballet” of twirling war machines that was grandiloquently titled, “Unconquerable and Legendary.”

Welcome to the deceptively titled Forum for Technologies in Machine Building, the biennial Russian arms bazaar that President Vladimir Putin inaugurated in 2010. Delegations from Iran, Bahrain, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, among many others, attended the expo this year, and spent their time ogling cruise missiles, climbing into armored jeeps and trying out the most famous—and most deadly—Russian weapon of them all: the Kalashnikov assault rifle, which is thought to hold the stomach-turning honor of having killed more people than any other weapon in the history of man.

On the afternoon of June 28, TIME followed around the delegation to the arms bazaar from Syria, who, like many of the participants, would not legally be able to buy their weapons in the West (the TIME magazine story is available to subscribers here). For the past 16 months, Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have brutally tried to crush a homegrown rebellion, which has already cost around 15,000 lives, including thousands of women and children. The U.S. and Europe have responded by banning weapons sales to Syria, and along with their allies in the Arab world, they have pushed for an international arms embargo against Assad’s government. But Russia, the world’s second largest arms dealer after the U.S., has used its veto power in the U.N. to block these sanctions. With around $4 billion in weapons contracts to fulfill for its Syrian clients, Russia has continued supplying arms to Damascus, which gets nearly all of its weapons from Russia.

It was impossible to tell what, if anything, the Syrians came to the Moscow arms bazaar to purchase. Such deals would be signed behind closed doors, and both sides declined to comment. Colonel Isam Ibrahim As’saadi, the military attache at the Syrian embassy in Moscow, chaperoned the three officials in town from Damascus, and they would only say that they came to Moscow especially to attend the fair. The items that seemed to interest them most that day were armored military vehicles, trucks equipped with roof-mounted rocket launchers and brand new Kalashnikov assault rifles. Andrei Vishnyakov, the head of marketing for Izhmash, the company that created the AK-47, spent more than an hour selling them on the virtues of the firm’s new sniper rifles and machine guns. Before handing the head of the Syrian delegation a silencer-equipped AK-104, Vishnyakov said: “This weapon is perfect for close-quarters combat, house to house.” The Syrian official then lifted the gun’s sight to his eye and pointed it across the crowded pavilion, no doubt wondering how useful it could be back home.

Simon Shuster is TIME’s Moscow reporter.

Yuri Kozyrev is a contract photographer for TIME and was named the 2011 Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year International competition.

China, the most populous country and the second-largest economy in the world, is a vast, dynamic nation that continues to grow and evolve in the 21st century. In this, the latest entry in a semi-regular series on China, we find images of tremendous variety, including astronauts, nomadic herders, replica European villages, pole dancers, RV enthusiasts, traditional farmers, and inventors. This collection is only a small view of the people and places in China over the past several weeks. [47 photos]

Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut, waves during a departure ceremony at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu province, on June 16, 2012. China sent its first woman taikonaut into outer space this week, prompting a surge of national pride as the rising power takes its latest step towards putting a space station in orbit within the decade. Liu, a 33-year-old fighter pilot, joined two other taikonauts aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft when it lifted off from a remote Gobi Desert launch site. (Reuters/Jason Lee)

In today’s pictures, Merck employees protest in Geneva, the U.S. Army celebrates 237 years, disgraced financier R. Allen Stanford is sentenced in Houston, and more.

Richard Pyle, former Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press, recalls the star of "that great AP Saigon bureau," Horst Faas, and their work in Vietnam.

STAYING COOL: A boy cooled off with water from a hose on a hot day in Manila Tuesday. (Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters)

MOURNING A LOSS: A Shiite Muslim woman cried during the funeral of Salah Abbas, 36, whose body was found late last week after he was allegedly shot dead by security forces, in the Shiite village of Bilad Al-Qadim, Bahrain, Monday. (AFP/Getty Images)

LARGER THAN LIFE: North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun was shown on a giant screen during a concert on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean army in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday. (Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)

AWKWARD PHASE: A girl helped her boyfriend squeeze a pimple while standing on a street in downtown Shanghai Tuesday. (Aly Song/Reuters)

STILL SEARCHING: Bystanders looked at a billboard in Herat, Afghanistan, promising a reward for information leading to the recovery of former FBI agent Robert Levinson Tuesday. Mr. Levinson disappeared some five years ago in Iran. (Jalil Rezayee/European Pressphoto Agency)

LOOKING BACK: People laid flowers at a memorial Tuesday in Yerevan, Armenia, to people killed by Ottoman Turks during World War I, marking the 97th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. (Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images)

STORM CLOUDS GATHER: Dark clouds hung over cranes at a construction site in Munich Tuesday. (Stephan Jansen/AFP/Getty Images)

TRAPPED MINERS: Clothing used by miners dried on a rock wall Tuesday outside the entrance of the Cabeza de Negro gold and copper mine in Yauca del Rosario, Peru. Authorities say nine miners trapped inside the mine since April 5 are being supplied with sports drinks, soup and food while emergency responders work to free them. (Martin Mejia/Associated Press)

EGG ON HER FACE: An egg cracked over a Sri Lankan army officer during a game at an event to celebrate the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday. The new year, which also marks the end of the harvest season, will be celebrated on April 13 and 14. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press)

TIGHT SPOT FOR A SWIM: A boy swam in a water reservoir to cool off as the temperature rose, while other children waited their turn on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

CARNIVAL ATMOSPHERE: A young girl played near a shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

BAHRAIN UNREST: A Shiite Muslim covered his face from tear gas fired by riot police after a demonstration in support of jailed activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and against U.S. support of the Bahrain government. The protest also called for the cancellation of a Formula One Grand Prix race — Bahrain’s premier international event. (AFP/Getty Images)

ON THEIR WAY: Indian Sikh Nihang, or religious Sikh warriors, raised their swords after boarding a train in Amritsar, India, Tuesday. Thousands of Indian Sikh pilgrims are expected in Pakistan at the birthplace of the founder of the Sikh faith for the Sikh New Year. (Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)

BACKSTROKE: A man swam in a river in Qionghai, on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, on Monday. (Ed Jones AFP/Getty Images)

HOT HANDS: An antigovernment protester threw a Molotov cocktail at riot police during clashes in the village of Salmabad, south of Manama, Bahrain, on Monday. (Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

BRUSHING IT OFF: A driver cleaned snow off his car in Qinhuangdao City, in Hebei province, China. A snowfall hit the city on Monday, the first day of the Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, holiday. (Wang Hanzhi/Xinhua/Zuma Press)

PLANE DOWN: A Russian passenger plane crashed into a snowy field in Siberia shortly after takeoff Monday, killing 31 of the 43 people on board, officials said. Here, a fragment of the ATR-72 airliner at the site of the crash, outside Tyumen, in western Siberia. (Handout/Russian Emergency Ministry/EPA)