INTERNATIONAL

Argentina’s outgoing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has made an emotional farewell speech to supporters in Buenos Aires. She urged people to take to the streets if they feel betrayed by the new centre-right government. Conservative Mauricio Macri, who won a run-off election last month, is due to be sworn in as president later. Mr Macri inherits problems including high ...

French police have identified the third attacker at the Bataclan during the Paris attacks, Prime Minister Manuel Valls says. Mr Valls did not name the man, but did not dispute reports naming him as French national Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23, from Strasbourg. Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan in last month’s attacks. All three gunmen who attacked the venue wearing ...

Venezuelan electoral authorities have confirmed that the opposition has won a key two-thirds majority, enabling it to challenge President Nicolas Maduro. The opposition said it would work to release jailed opposition leaders and address the country’s economic crisis. Mr Maduro has announced a cabinet reshuffle but vowed to veto any amnesty law for jailed politicians. The election result is the ...

Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric undermines US national security by boosting the Islamic State (IS) group, the Pentagon has warned. The leading Republican presidential candidate has said Muslims should be banned from entering the US, in the wake of the deadly California attacks. But Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said such talk “bolsters Isil’s narrative”, referring to IS. There has been ...

Pope Francis pushed opened the huge bronze Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome to launch the Catholic Church’s “Year of Mercy”. Tens of thousands attended a Mass in St Peter’s Square for the start of the Pope’s “revolution of tenderness”. It took place place amid tight security with extra police and soldiers deployed, and a no-fly zone imposed. ...

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has provoked condemnation from across the political spectrum, by saying Muslims should be banned from entering the US. Republicans, Democrats, Muslim leaders, the UN and foreign leaders criticised the call as dangerous and divisive. Mr Trump said many Muslims nursed a “hatred” towards America. He said they should be banned “until our country’s representatives can ...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a halt to Muslims entering the US, in the wake of the deadly California shootings. In a campaign statement, he said a “total and complete” shutdown should remain until the US authorities “can figure out” Muslim attitudes to the US. At a rally in South Carolina hours later, frontrunner Mr Trump repeated ...

A Vatican judge trying five people over the leaking of secret documents has agreed to let some of Pope Francis’s senior advisers be defence witnesses. Officials who could be called include his Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. Those on trial include two journalists who published books detailing alleged financial mismanagement at the Vatican, and three members of a papal commission ...

Schools in Beijing are to close and outdoor construction to stop after the Chinese capital issued its first “red alert” over smog levels. The red alert is the highest possible, and has not been used in the city before, the state-run Xinhua news agency says. Authorities expect more than three consecutive days of severe smog. Cars with odd and even ...

US President Barack Obama has made a rare Oval Office address after the San Bernardino shootings that left 14 dead. He said the killings were “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people”. But “freedom is more powerful than fear,” said President Obama, warning that falling prey to divisiveness in American society would play into the hands of extremists. ...