As investigators hunt for leads in Europe’s worst terror attack in a decade, the Paris prosecutor laid out how three teams of assailants managed to kill at least 129 people in and around one of the world’s most heavily policed capitals.

Foreign ministers from more than a dozen nations have begun a meeting in Vienna seeking a way to resolve the conflict in Syria.

Ireland has been urged to take in “several thousand” people fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe amid growing calls for urgent EU talks to address the escalating migrant crisis.

Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks plan to announce today that they have reached a historic deal capping nearly a decade of diplomacy that would curb Iran’s atomic programme in return for sanctions relief, two diplomats said yesterday.

A senior US official acknowledged that Iran nuclear talks will go past tomorrow’s target date, as Iran’s foreign minister prepared to head home Sunday for consultations before returning to push for a breakthrough.

An Indonesian court rejected a French national’s last-ditch appeal against the death sentence, making him the latest foreigner to face execution for drug offences and prompting a message of support for the prisoner from France.

The corruption charges engulfing soccer’s governing body have heaped shame and humiliation on the game, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said yesterday, although he flatly rejected calls to resign over the scandal.

FRANCE: The billionaire CEO of the Chinese conglomerate Tiens has given 6,400 of his best salespeople a holiday that started in Paris and ended with a parade on France’s Cote d’Azur.

With quiet moments of memory or military pomp, leaders and citizens across Europe marked 70 years since the Nazi defeat and the end of a war that ravaged the continent. However, the East-West alliance that vanquished Hitler is deeply divided today.

The foreign ministers of Iran and six world powers met in a final push for a preliminary nuclear accord before their deadline today as Tehran showed signs of backing away from previous compromise offers.

Iran’s president has proclaimed that a nuclear agreement is in reach, as a deadline looms for a preliminary accord.

Greek officials and the country’s creditors extended discussions through the weekend, as they raced to make progress ahead of the meeting of euro-area finance ministers in Brussels today.

There remain “quite a number of problems” in negotiations aimed at ending fighting in eastern Ukraine, according to the French foreign minister.

Russia sanctions to stay in place for now ‘to give peace a chance’

As a climate of fear takes hold across Europe, the authorities in France are concerned about a backlash against Muslims after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Elaine Ganley reports

US Secretary of State John Kerry is consulting with allies on how to overcome deep obstacles to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, three days before the deadline.

France’s National Assembly will vote on a largely symbolic resolution in favour of recognising a Palestinian state.

France and the US today stepped up demands for Iran to prove that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

World powers yesterday backed military measures to help defeat Islamic State fighters in Iraq, boosting Washington’s efforts to set up a coalition, but made no mention of the tougher diplomatic challenge next door in Syria.

France’s president has said there is “no time to lose” in the global push to combat extremists from the Islamic State group, as reconnaissance planes from his country stand ready for action.

France will join the US-led airstrikes targeting extremists in Iraq as part of an expanding international effort to combat the Islamic State group, Iraq’s new prime minister has said.

Ukraine called yesterday for full membership in Nato, its strongest plea yet for Western military help, after accusing Russia of sending in armoured columns that have driven back its forces on behalf of pro-Moscow rebels.

European leaders face calls to take direct action against the Islamic State, including in Syria, after the beheading of US journalist James Foley, but politicians are reluctant to take the lead after previous missteps in the region.

Iraq’s government has plunged into a political crisis at a time it is fighting advances by Islamic State militants.

US air strikes continued in Iraq yesterday as US Central Command said drones and jet aircraft hit Islamic State armed trucks and mortar positions near Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region.

There are fears today that scattered separatist violence may hamper an eventual investigation into what is the third major international aviation disaster in a week.

An army general in Burkina Faso who is involved in the search for the missing Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people, claims that a witness saw a plane coming down in Mali.

The Air Algerie flight that went missing over Mali has “probably crashed”, France’s foreign minister said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and fellow foreign ministers are attempting to advance troubled nuclear talks with Iran as a deadline looms for a pact meant to curb programmes Tehran could turn to making atomic arms.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has attacked plans to raise by more than five times hotel taxes paid by tourists, saying the move would be dangerous for tourism and France’s stumbling economy.

Barack Obama threatened US military strikes in Iraq yesterday against Sunni Islamist militants who have surged out of the north to menace Baghdad and want to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.

Islamic militants who prompted global outrage over the kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls have opened fire on a busy marketplace, killing hundreds in a new spasm of violence in Nigeria’s north-east.

French president Francois Hollande has approved a new Cabinet that includes his ex-companion Segolene Royal as minister of environment and energy.

Russia has set out demands for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, saying the former Soviet republic should be unified in a federation allowing wide autonomy to its various regions.

Russia has set out demands for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, saying the former Soviet republic should be unified in a federation allowing wide autonomy to its various regions.

Two Irish technology companies have signed deals worth a total of 3.5 million euro with major French partners.

France says European sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis could come as early as this week.

The Ukrainian presidency has said it has negotiated a deal intended to end violent battles between police and protesters that have killed scores and injured hundreds of people, but European mediators involved in the talks would not confirm a breakthrough.

A French priest kidnapped in Cameroon in mid-November has been set free, authorities have said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers of other major powers converged today to lend their weight to the Iran nuclear talks after envoys reported progress on key issues blocking an interim agreement to curb the Iranian programme in return for limited sanctions relief.

Iran’s president has said Tehran wants an international settlement over its nuclear programme but will never give up uranium enrichment.

France raised questions today about whether a proposed deal to temporarily curb Iran’s nuclear programme goes far enough, complicating negotiations with the Iranians and casting doubt on whether an agreement could be reached during the current round of negotiations in Switzerland.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said important gaps needed to be bridged in high-stakes talks with Iran on curbing its nuclear programme and he began talks with Tehran’s foreign minister to try to clinch an interim deal.