World | WPN World People News

The world’s population grew to seven billion in 2011.

A building severely damaged by an airstrike in Aleppo City, Syria.

Officials in Jonglei state expressed hope that proposed talks between local leaders of the Murle community and rebel leader David Yau Yau will be the key to getting Yau Yau to lay down arms and hold peace talks with the government.

Syrian government forces are reported to be preparing for a major offensive on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo and its surroundings. In northern Syria, Islamist opposition fighters massed in a strategic town south of Aleppo.

Tanker trucks supply water to a housing complex in Adra, an industrial area northeast of Damascus, Syria.

The candidates for president of Iran are cut from strikingly similar cloth: all are men, have ties to Iran's supreme leader and appear far more like technocrats when compared to the maverick current president.

Two bombs have exploded near a police station in the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 14 people.

Hundreds of Turkish police in riot gear entered Istanbul's Taksim Square early, firing tear gas and a water cannon at a small number of anti-government protesters.

Libya's army chief has resigned after clashes between protesters and a government-aligned militia left 31 people dead in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made a rare visit to his country's autonomous Kurdish region to try to ease long-running disputes that have threatened national unity.