INTERNATIONAL

Belgium is on high alert after a major anti-terror raid in which two suspected Islamist militants were killed. The suspects were shot dead in the eastern town of Verviers after they opened fire on police with automatic weapons on Thursday evening. Officials say they had returned from Syria and planned imminent attacks on police targets. Another suspect was wounded before ...

Pope Francis is heading to the Philippines for a five-day visit keenly awaited by the nation’s 80 million Roman Catholics. The highlight will be a huge open air Mass in the capital, Manila, on Sunday. Other engagements include a visit to Tacloban to meet survivors of a devastating typhoon in November 2013. Security will be tight after failed attempts to ...

French President Francois Hollande has insisted Charlie Hebdo and its values will survive, after the new edition of the satirical weekly sold out in hours. “Charlie Hebdo is alive and will live on,” Mr Hollande said. Millions more copies of the magazine are being printed because of demand. It comes a week after Islamist gunmen murdered 12 people at its ...

The new edition of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has gone on sale, with a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. Three million copies are being printed – a week after Islamist gunmen murdered eight journalists at the magazine and four other people in Paris. The cartoon shows the Prophet weeping while holding a sign saying “Je ...

Huge crowds turned out in the Sri Lankan capital as Pope Francis celebrated a Mass at which he canonised the nation’s first saint. The Pope canonised 17th Century missionary Joseph Vaz at the sea-front service in Colombo. It is the first papal visit since the end of the war in 2009 that saw the army and rebels accused of atrocities. ...

A court in Egypt has overturned the convictions for embezzlement of former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons and ordered a retrial. Mr Mubarak was jailed for three years in May after being found guilty of fraudulently billing the government for $14m (£9.3m) of personal expenses. But the Court of Cassation found legal procedures were not followed properly. It ...

Funeral ceremonies have been held for seven of the people shot dead in last week’s attacks in Paris. At a ceremony in central Paris, President Francois Hollande honoured the three police officers who died. Four men killed at a kosher supermarket have been buried in Jerusalem. Last week’s three days of terror began with an attack on the satirical magazine ...

This week’s edition of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo will show a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign. Above the cartoon are the words “All is forgiven”. This comes after Islamist gunmen last week raided the magazine’s Paris office, killing 12 people. Meanwhile, French MPs will gather for the first time since the attack. In ...

Indonesian divers have retrieved the flight data recorder of crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501, say officials. The head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Bambang Soelistyo, said teams were still looking for the second device, its cockpit voice recorder. AirAsia flight QZ8501 disappeared in bad weather on 28 December with 162 people on board. The aircraft, which was flying from Surabaya ...

French President Francois Hollande is due to chair a crisis meeting with cabinet ministers on national security after last week’s deadly attacks. The meeting comes amid questions over how militants known to the authorities were able to launch the raids in Paris. The assault on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and separate attacks on police officers and a ...