Belgium put the capital Brussels on maximum security alert on November 21, shutting the metro and warning people to avoid crowds because of a "serious and imminent" threat of coordinated, multiple attacks by militants.

The European Union will step up checks on its citizens traveling abroad, tighten gun control and collect more data on airline passengers, ministers agreed on November 20 in response to the Paris attacks a week ago.

A helicopter with seven people on board has crashed at Fox Glacier, a popular New Zealand tourism destination, the country’s search and rescue agency said on November 20.

Islamist militants killed 19 people in an attack on a top hotel in the capital of Mali on November 20 before Malian commandos stormed the building and rescued 170 people, many of them foreigners.

The suspected Islamic State mastermind of the Paris attacks was among those killed in a police raid north of the capital, France confirmed on November 19, bringing an end to the hunt for Europe's most wanted man.

Saudi Arabia will host a conference in mid-December aimed at unifying the Syrian opposition, Saudi-owned television station Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath said on November 19.

A Palestinian fatally stabbed two people in a Tel Aviv office building and three other people were killed in an attack in the occupied West Bank on November 19, Israeli police and the army said.

Islamic State militants released a video on November 19 threatening the White House with suicide bombings and car blasts and vowing to conduct more attacks on France.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has proposed talks with the Republic of Korea (RoK) to be held on Nov. 26 at the truce village on their militarized border, the North's KCNA news agency reported on November 20.

Islamic State's official magazine carried a photo on November 18 of a Schweppes drink it said was used to make an improvised bomb that brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board.