Relief supplies are getting to a larger number of survivors in the typhoon-stricken central Philippines, but there are still challenges.

Simone Orendain reports from Manila.

Aid workers say there are visible signs that food and water are getting to people in need in the hardest hit parts of the central provinces.  Sunday, the government said it delivered about 115,000 food packages the previous day, a significant jump from the 45,000 it passed out Friday.

Many of the packages filled with rice and canned goods have been going to Tacloban, the hard-hit city of 220,000, which has so far posted the most deaths.  People there had been suffering as trucks bearing food and water could not get through for days on roads clogged with debris.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino went to a relief goods warehouse in Tacloban Sunday and reassured victims there would be enough aid.  The president also visited the town in Eastern Samar province that took the very first lashings from Super Typhoon Haiyan.

Aquino spoke with the mayor and local officials in Guiuan on the Pacific coast.

He says, the government can rise up.  There are so many countries helping, the Philippines will be able to recover. 

Simone Orendain,VOA News Manila.

The Philippine government says the typhoon killed at least 3,974 people and left about 1,200 others missing.

Syria monitors say rebels bombed a government building near Damascus on Sunday, killing 31 people.
 
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the building was destroyed. A spokesman tells the French News Agency that three generals and a brigadier general are among the dead.

Several bomb attacks across Iraq have left as many as 20 people dead and more than 70 wounded.

The deadliest attacks Sunday struck in Baghdad, where a wave of evening bombings targeted civilians in Sunni and Shi'ite neighborhoods of the capital.

Most businesses and schools in Libya's capital Tripoli are closed for a three day strike to protest deadly violence by militias in Tripoli as the residents called for a strike to protest recent deadly violence by militias there.
 
Edward Yeranian has the details.
 
Libyan government television broadcast a warning Sunday to militiamen to put down their arms and to leave the country's security to the state after more than 40 demonstrators were killed by militiamen on Friday.
 
The capital was largely quiet Sunday, which is normally a day of work in the Arab world, after a three-day general strike was called to protest Friday's shootings.

The Libyan state news agency LANA reported the Misrata militiamen had abandoned their headquarters in the southern Tripoli district of Garghour.

Edward Yeranian from VOA News CAIRO.

The Libyan National Congress, or interim parliament, also moved to dissolve a pro-government militia known as the Revolutionary Operations Bureau, which has been a source of trouble and turmoil in the capital.

French President Francois Hollande says his government will maintain sanctions and pressure against Iran until he is certain that it has renounced a suspected nuclear weapons program.
 
Hollande made the pledge to Israeli leaders after arriving in Israel Sunday at the start of a three-day visit.

A Russian passenger airliner has crashed while trying to land in the city of Kazan, killing all 50 people aboard.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry says the Tatarstan Airlines flight from Moscow was making a second attempt to land late Sunday and exploded when it hit the runway, killing 44 passengers and six crew members.

There were no immediate indications of what may have caused the Boeing 737 to crash in Kazan, 720 kilometers east of Moscow.

Pakistan's government put former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason, which is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

The charges stemmed from November 2007 when the former president suspended the constitution and imposed a state of emergency in an attempt to prolong his rule.

Ayaz Gul has more.

The move effectively suspended and detained senior judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, although they were restored months later, after Musharraf stepped down from power.
 
Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan told reporters in Islamabad that on the instruction of the Supreme Court, a special commission investigated the former military ruler and its findings have prompted the government to launch the legal process.

He cited Article 6 of the country’s constitution that empowers the federal government alone to try anyone for subverting the fundamental law.  

Ayaz Gul VOA News ISLAMABAD.

Nobel prize winning British author Doris Lessing has died at the age of 94 in London.

Lessing became the oldest winner of the Nobel Prize in 2007, just short of her 88th birthday.