China's official Xinhua news agency is listing the Arab Spring uprisings as the top news event of 2011, closely followed by China's rise to become the world's second-largest economy.

Xinhua published its choices on its website Thursday in a year-end roundup of the top 10 news events of the past 12 months.

Economic issues figured highly on the list, with the European debt crisis and American budget problems placing third.

The agency also gave prominence to a pair of regional Asian stories, with Japan's March 11 earthquake in fourth place and the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ranked at number 10.

Ranking fifth was the U.S. Navy commando action against al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, believed to have been the kingpin of global terrorism.

Two stories from the continent of Africa also made the list, with South Sudan's recognition as an independent country ranking sixth and the Horn of Africa drought at number seven.

Not surprisingly for the world's most populous country, Xinhua's eighth-ranked story was the U.N. report that the world's population has now topped the 7 billion mark.

Rounding out the list was the worsening of the Iranian nuclear crisis in the ninth place.