Today in Pictures: Nov. 22

A policeman closes the gate from inside as people try to enter a bank in Ahmedabad, India, November 22, 2016. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in a surprise nighttime TV address that all 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, worth about $7.50 and $15, would be withdrawn immediately from circulation, a move designed to fight corruption and target people who have been dodging taxes by holding immense stockpiles of cash, known in India as \"black money.\" In a nation hobbled by corruption, and where less than 3 percent of people file tax returns, the plan at first earned widespread approval. But as the days ticked by, it became increasingly clear that the government was ill-prepared for a plan that suddenly pulled 86 percent of the country's money supply out of circulation.

People inspect a damaged building after strikes yesterday on the rebel held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria.

Residents walking on a street in the Aden district of Mosul are seen through the bullet-riddled windshield of an Iraqi Special Forces armored vehicle after troops almost entirely retook the area from Islamic State group jihadists. The fighting inside the city so far has focused on eastern neighborhoods, which elite counter-terrorism and army forces entered earlier this month. The Islamic State group has offered fierce resistance to defend its last remaining bastion in Iraq, the city where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate in June 2014.

Models pose for a photograph in a tunnel of lights at Kew Gardens in west London, Britain. The annual Christmas-illuminated night trail at the botanical gardens will open from Wednesday, November 23 until January 2, 2017.

An Afghan girl practice Taekwando, at a Gym in Kabul, Afghanistan. For nearly two decades during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, sports and games including boxing, soccer, volleyball, kite flying, and chess had been banned as immoral and unlawful. During the Taliban regime it was forbidden for women to participate in such sports and games. The Taliban's Islamist regime was toppled by a US-led campaign in late 2001.

President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the East Room of the White House.

An Iraqi man and his daughter gesture to soldiers from the Iraqi Special Forces patrolling a street in the Aden district of Mosul.

A child holds a rose as he walks through the refugee camp of Ritsona, about 53 miles north of Athens. Around 680 people are staying in new container houses as over 62,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece after a series of Balkan border closures.

An oil worker walks next to burning oil fields in Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq. For months, residents of the Iraqi town of Qayara have lived in the darkness from a cloud of toxic fumes released by oil fields lit by retreating Islamic State fighters.

Soldiers from paratrooper brigades take part in joint maneuvers held between UK, France, and Spain in Zaragoza, Spain. Paratroopers from the brigades practiced evacuating civilians from places in conflict.