FRANCE: Police have found bomb-making materials in a car park near Paris as part of an investigation into an “extremely dangerous terrorist cell” linked to an attack on a kosher grocery.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the discovery in Torcy, east of the capital, led authorities to invoke a rarely used legal clause to allow them to extend questioning of 12 suspects by a day – and possibly two.
RUSSIA: A Moscow appeals court has freed one of the jailed Pussy Riot members but upheld the two-year prison sentence for the two others.
All three women were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for an irreverent protest against president Vladimir Putin.
AMERICA: Barack Obama worked to hang on to his slim lead in the crucial battleground state of Ohio and bounce back from a disappointing debate performance that re-energised the campaign of Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Mr Romney was also in Ohio, intensifying his efforts to seize a Midwestern state that could decide the close race for the White House.
AMERICA: The Californian man behind the anti-Muslim film which sparked violence in the Middle East is expected to be asked by a judge in Los Angeles today whether he violated his probation for a 2010 bank fraud conviction.
Federal prosecutors claim that 55-year-old Mark Basseley Youssef has eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officer and using aliases.
PAKISTAN: Schools in Pakistan’s Swat Valley have closed in protest as anger erupted across the country over the Taliban attack on a 14-year-old activist famed for promoting girls’ education.
Malala Yousufzai was in the intensive care unit at a military hospital in Peshawar, recovering from surgery to remove a bullet from her neck a day after the attack.
PAKISTAN: A suspected US drone missile strike has killed five people in a militant haven in north-west Pakistan, near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said today.
Four missiles struck a house near Mir Ali town in North Waziristan, the Pakistani officials said.
AMERICA: A Philadelphia woman who calls herself the “Black Madam” is due in court today over the death of a London woman who died after having cosmetic surgery at an airport hotel.
Padge Windslowe is charged with killing 20-year-old Claudia Aderotimi.
AFGHANISTAN: Six policemen have been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.
Mohammad Ibrahim, the police chief in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, said the blast happened when the officers’ vehicle ran over a roadside bomb.
