A town in the south of France is holding a special church service to honour the heroic police officer and three other people killed in a gun rampage by an Islamic extremist.

The French police officer who swapped himself for a female supermarket employee being held hostage had already received a lifetime of accolades by the time he walked unarmed into the store under attack by an extremist gunman.

A blaze tore through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early yesterday, killing 232 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and panicked party-goers stampeded toward the exits.

A blaze tore through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early today, killing 232 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and panicked party-goers stampeded toward the exits.

Police in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people in the past six years, many execution-style, a report has claimed.