The latest round of Syria peace talks are planned to begin on January 25 in Geneva but were at risk of being delayed partly because of a dispute over who will comprise the opposition delegation.

Five people were killed and two critically injured in a school shooting in a remote part of Saskatchewan on January 22 and a male suspect was in custody, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police said.

A winter storm that could bury parts of the U.S. Middle Atlantic region under nearly 3 feet (90 cm) of snow slammed into Washington on January 22, threatening the nation's capital with record accumulations as it barreled up the populous East Coast.

Israel confirmed on January 21 it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.

Nine people, including six policemen, were killed on January 21 in a Cairo suburb near the pyramids when a makeshift bomb went off as police prepared to raid a militant hideout, security sources said.

Four months of Russian air strikes in Syria are taking their toll on rebel forces, strengthening the hand of a defiant President Bashar al-Assad as the United Nations struggles to get peace talks off the ground.

Armed militants stormed a university in volatile northwestern Pakistan on January 20, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens a little more than a year after the massacre of 134 students at a school in the area, officials said.

Singapore, a wealthy multi-ethnic city state, arrested 27 Bangladeshi construction workers who supported Islamist groups including al Qaeda and Islamic State and deported 26 of them, the government said on January 20.

The United Nations' refugee agency will seek additional resources for Turkey, the world's largest host of refugees, and push for more resettlement, its head said on January 16, as the war in Syria is set to enter its sixth year.

Islamic state militants killed dozens of people execution style in attacks on government-held areas in Syria's city of Deir al-Zor on January 16, a source and a monitoring said.