Mohammed Maqrif is elected president of Libya's national assembly on Thursday.

NASA said Wednesday that Curiosity rover has sent more remarkable images from Mars surface, including the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in Gale Crater.

A vivid scene of sandy plain on the rim of Gale Crater was faithfully captured by the latest Mars rover Curiosity as NASA published the first of a batch of color pictures the vehicle beamed back on Tuesday.

Australian scientists involved in the successful landing of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover on the Red Planet hailed the touchdown as "textbook" on Monday.

The World Food Programme has said it is sending a first shipment of emergency food aid to flood-hit areas of North Korea, where torrential rain has killed scores of people and inundated cropland.

India plans to send a satellite via an unmanned spacecraft to orbit Mars next year, joining a small group of nations already exploring the red planet, a government scientist said on Friday.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is stepping down as the U.N.-Arab League mediator in the 17-month-old Syria conflict at the end of the month, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in a statement on Thursday.

Prosecutors in Colorado have charged James Holmes with 24 counts of murder and 116 counts of attempted murder following one of the worst mass killings in US history.

The World Bank on Monday said it stood ready to help governments respond to a broad-based run-up in grain prices that has again put the world's poorest people at risk and could have lingering detrimental impacts for years.

RomanianPresident Traian Basescu holds The Democracy Torch as he addresses reporters athis electoral campaign headquarters in Bucharest July 29, 2012 (AFPPHOTO/DANIEL MIHAILESCU)

Nationwide flooding in North Korea this month has killed 88 people, state media said Saturday, in a dramatic increase from its previous death toll.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday ruled out new gun control laws, saying U.S. President Barack Obama will focus on other measures to reduce gun violence.

Fifty-three rescuers sent in to recover five trapped coal miners at a colliery in southwest China had to be pulled to safety Thursday after they too became stuck underground, state media said.