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The White House has announced a new definitive assessment that says chemical weapons have been used on a small scale by the Assad regime in Syria. President Barack Obama has made a decision to provide new assistance, including unspecified military aid, to the Syrian opposition forces.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued a "final warning" to protesters to leave Gezi Park in central Istanbul. Activists have said they will not leave the park until the government abandons plans to redevelop it. Erdogan has promised a local vote on its future.

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.