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A U.N. climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change.

South Africa struggled on Saturday to find a compromise deal that could save U.N. climate talks from collapse.

Syria is now in a state of civil war with more than 4,000 dead and increasing numbers of defecting soldiers taking up arms against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday.

A U.N. investigation released Monday accused Syrian forces of killing and torturing children and other crimes against humanity.

UNESCO voted overwhelmingly Monday to accept the Palestinian Authority as a member, setting the cultural agency on a confrontational path with the U.S. due to American law that prohibits funding of U.N. entities that grant state status to Palestinians.

It took only a dozen years for humanity to add another billion people to the planet, reaching the milestone of 7 billion Monday — give or take a few months. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011, as the "symbolic" date for hitting 7 billion, while acknowledging that it's impossible to know for sure the specific time or day. Using slightly different calculations, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 7-billion threshold will not be reached until March.

The United Nations' top human-rights official assailed the Syrian government Friday for a campaign of "ruthless repression and killings" and called for the international community to take steps to prevent the nation from plunging into "full-blown civil war."

Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Tuesday that threatened sanctions against Syria if it didn't immediately halt its military crackdown against civilians.

Resisting American pressure, President Mahmoud Abbas formally requested United Nations membership on Friday.

A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state.