World | WPN World People News

The UK has been ranked as the second most innovative country in the world on 17 September 2015. The Global Innovation Index (GII) has placed the UK above the USA, Singapore and Germany for the third year running, recognising the UK’s standing in the field of innovation.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have swelled the ranks of those seeking refuge in Europe this year. Second only to Syrians, Afghans represent the next largest group – 13 percent – of those making the journey so far in 2015.

A street lined with rubble and destroyed buildings in the Old City area of Homs, Syria.

A Syrian woman cries in relief as she embraces her three young children after a very rough crossing of the Aegean from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos.

Refugees wait to take a bus in Hungary right after crossing the border from Serbia in order to go to the pre-registration center. Thousands of refugees fleeing war and persecution, mostly in Syria, cross this border every day.

Faj Attan neighbourhood in Sana’a, Yemen, is regularly hit by airstrikes. Most of the population has left.

Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Bernardino León.

A boat from Yemen docks at the port of Bossaso in the Puntland of Somalia, the main entry point for people arriving from Yemen.

A father cradling his sick child waits in the rain to board a bus to a police pre-registration centre in Hungary.

Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov.