“Sesame Street” has made its way to Afghanistan. Television executives in the country are hoping that the show — which enjoys popularity around the world – will help educate its young population.

Afghan children with “Sesame Street” characters Ernie and Grover. (Reuters / Omar Sobhani)

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At a celebrity-studded World AIDS Day event in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, President Barack Obama vowed to boost U.S. efforts to fight AIDS with a new target of providing treatment to 6 million people worldwide by 2013, up from an earlier goal of 4 million.

World AIDS Day was created in 1988 at the World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programmes in London, England, which brought together health ministers and delegates from 148 different countries.

A mural in the shape of a tree is seen with the names of people who have died at the Hillcrest Aids Center Trust care center, situated at Hillcrest, on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa. (Schalk van Zuydam/Associated Press)

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A white chocolate representation of the White House sits in the State Dining Room during a media tour of the holiday decorations at the White House in Washington, November 30, 2011. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

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Freeride skiers carve their way down a steep slope of crushed rocks in the western Austrian village of Haiming, about 28 miles west of Innsbruck on Nov. 30, 2011. (Dominic Ebenbichler/Reuters)

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A volunteer checks 25-Centavo coins to be lined up in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record held by the United States, at the Rizal Park in Manila, Philippines. More than three million coins are being lined up to stretch over 70 kilometers. Proceeds of the campaign will help build classrooms in the country, according to the Central Bank, one of the organizers. (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)

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An 85-meter high Christmas tree, said to be the world’s largest floating Christmas tree, according to the Guinness Book of Records, was unveiled at Rodrigo de Freitas Lake in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday evening. With the theme “A Gift for the Brazilian Family,” the floating Christmas tree was inaugurated for its 16th edition in the annual event, which is one of the three largest events in Rio de Janeiro, along with the Brazil Carnaval and New Year’s Eve.

Fireworks explode around a Christmas tree during its lighting ceremony at Rodrigo de Freitas Lake in Rio de Janeiro Nov. 26, 2011. (Reuters)

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The White House Christmas tree is delivered by horse-drawn carriage on Friday. (REUTERS/Yuri Gripas)

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Shoppers wait in line for a Target store to open on “Black Friday” in Torrington, Connecticut. The holiday shopping season was in full-swing on Thursday, with retailers hoping consumers will spend big despite worries about the fragile economy and their own precarious finances. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)

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A decorated Christmas tree is lighted up at a Christmas market on its opening day in Dortmund November 21, 2011. The Christmas tree of Dortmund is the largest in the world and is built with a scaffold, covered with 1,700 Norway spruces, 40,000 lights and is 45m (148 ft) high. (REUTERS/Ina Fassbender)

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Students embrace after dousing each other with foam at St. Andrews University in Scotland on Monday, Nov. 21. The tradition dates back to the early days of the university when new students would give senior students a pound of raisins out of gratitude for their help in adapting to university life, in exchange for a receipt written in Latin. Failure to do so could result in a dousing in the local fountain. Nowadays the raisins have been replaced with a bottle of wine and the dousing with foam. (David Moir / Reuters)

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