Islamabad - A senior minister in Pakistan's troubled North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) on Wednesday narrowly escaped a gun and bomb attack that left six people, including the attackers, dead, a police official said.

Bashir Ahmad Balour was visiting the Namak Mandy area in provincial capital Peshawar, when his bodyguards saw two armed men approaching the minister.

The police opened fire on the suspects, who fled and forced their way into a nearby house.

New York  - The world population is expected to reach 7 billion by 2012, from the current 6.8 billion, with the additional population increase coming mostly in developing countries, the United Nations said Wednesday.

By 2050, the world population is projected to reach over 9 billion people based on an annual average gain of 78 million people. Most governments depend on UN studies in world population to map socioeconomic policy.

Rome  - The Vatican has admitted to "errors" in its handling of a decision to reinstate four ultra-nationalist bishops, including a failure to do internet research that might have raised alarm bells about some of the bishops' beliefs, an Italian newspaper reported Wednesday.

According to Rome-based daily Il Foglio, Pope Benedict XVI conceded the errors in the decision making process to revoke the excommunication of the bishops, one of whom embarrassed the church by denying the scale of the Holocaust.

Baghdad  - Iraq's Criminal Court Wednesday sentenced two half-brothers of former President Saddam Hussein to death for the execution of 42 merchants in 1992, and also jailed close Saddam advisor Tariq Aziz for his role in the executions.

The court sentenced Aziz and also Ali Hassan al-Majid - or "Chemical Ali" - to 15 years imprisonment each for their role in executing the 42 accused of breaking state price controls when Iraq was under UN sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Baghdad  - A roadside

Mexico City/Tijuana  - A Mexican Army raid on a 15th birthday party in Tijuana on the US border netted a diverse group of suspects including an alleged drug boss, police, the governor's former bodyguards and even apparently innocent waiters.

In total, some 60 people were arrested Sunday, including Angel Jacome Gamboa, a former police officer from Playas de Rosarito who allegedly works for a rising drug boss.