World

PARIS/BRUSSELS — Two of the attackers who brought carnage to Paris were French nationals living in Belgium, officials said on Sunday, as a row over Europe's refugee crisis reignited, with conservatives demanding an end to "the days of uncontrolled immigration".

Three militant cells staged the coordinated hits on Friday night at bars, a concert hall and football stadium, killing 129 people and injuring 352, including 99 who were in a serious condition, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.

French authorities said they found the bodies of seven killers but Daesh, which claimed responsibility as revenge for French military action in Syria and Iraq, said there were eight, raising questions over whether one was on the loose.

Prosecutors have said the slaughter involved a multinational group with links to the Middle East, Belgium and possibly Germany as well as home-grown French roots.

Belgian officials said two of the gunmen were French nationals living in Brussels and arrested seven people in the capital after two Belgian-registered cars were discovered in Paris, both suspected of being used by attackers.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said Belgium needed to do more to crack down on radicalisation.

“I do not want any preachers of hatred on Belgian soil! There is no place for them in Belgium,” Michel said on Twitter.

In Germany, Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere said there could be more would-be attackers out there and that Germany was a target country of the Daesh terror group just like France.

In a sign that at least one gunman might have escaped, a source close to the investigation said a Seat car believed to have been used by the attackers had been found in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil with three Kalashnikov rifles inside.

Museums and theatres remained closed in Paris for a second day on Sunday, with hundreds of soldiers and police patrolling the streets and metro stations after French President Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency.

Tourists near the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited sights in Paris, said they felt saddened and frightened.

“I think the whole of Europe should be scared, maybe the next one is in Germany, maybe the next one is in, I don’t know, Great Britain, I think the whole of Europe, the situation for the whole of Europe is very bad right now,” Austrian tourist Markus Herr said.

The first of the seven gunmen to be identified was named as Ismael Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old who lived in the city of Chartres, southwest of Paris.

French media said he was French-born and of Algerian descent. Molins said he had a security file for radicalisation and a criminal record but had never been in jail.

Mostefai’s father and brother and others believed to be close to him had been taken in for questioning, a judicial source said.

One attacker appears to have followed the route taken by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, crossing by boat from Turkey to the Greek Islands and seeking asylum in Serbia before heading north.

The Serbian government said the holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the gunmen had passed through the country last month.

It said his details were the same as those of a man who had registered in Greece on October 3, after landing on the island of Leros. They believe that another of the assailants may also have passed through Greece with Syrian refugees fleeing civil war.

The attacks have reignited a row within the European Union on how to handle the flood of asylum seekers from Syria and other countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Top Polish and Slovak officials have poured cold water on an EU plan to relocate asylum seekers across the bloc, saying the violence underlined the concerns of Europeans about taking in Muslim refugees.

But Juncker said EU states should not give in to base reactions. “The one responsible for the attacks in Paris... he is a criminal and not a refugee and not an asylum seeker,” he told a news conference on the sidelines of a G-20 summit of world leaders in Turkey.

Nevertheless, Bavarian allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a reversal of her “open-door” refugee policy, saying the attacks underlined the need for tougher measures to control the influx of migrants.

“The days of uncontrolled immigration and illegal entry can’t continue just like that. Paris changes everything,” Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder told Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Most asylum seekers entering Germany have done so through the southern state.

In Vienna, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari said his country’s intelligence services had shared information they had which indicated that France, the United States and Iran were among countries being targeted for attack.

At the G-20 summit, US President Barack Obama vowed to step up efforts to eliminate Daesh in Syria and prevent it from carrying out attacks like those in Paris, while European leaders urged Russia to focus its military efforts on the radical militants.

BELEK, Turkey — US President Barack Obama vowed on Sunday to step up efforts to eliminate the Daesh terror goup in Syria and prevent it from carrying out attacks like those in Paris, while European leaders urged Russia to focus its military efforts on the extremists.

Speaking at a G-20 leaders summit in Turkey, Obama described the killings in Paris claimed by Daesh as an attack on the civilised world and said the United States would work with France to hunt down those responsible.

The two-day summit brings Obama and fellow world leaders just 500km from Syria, where a 4-1/2-year conflict has transformed Daesh into a global security threat and spawned Europe's largest migration flows since World War II.

"The skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris just a day and a half ago," Obama said after meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"We will redouble our efforts, working with other members of the coalition, to bring about a peaceful transition in Syria and to eliminate Daesh as a force that can create so much pain and suffering for people in Paris, in Ankara, and in other parts of the globe," he added.

Obama and his Western allies now face the question of how the West should respond after Daesh again demonstrated it posed a threat far beyond its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

Washington already expects France to retaliate by taking on a larger role in the US-led coalition’s bombing campaign against Daesh.

“We’re confident that in the coming days and weeks, working with the French, we will be able intensify our strikes against ISIL [Daesh] in both Syria and Iraq to make clear there is no safe haven for these terrorists,” US Deputy National security adviser Ben Rhodes said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

But European Council President Donald Tusk said Russia too should focus its military operations on Daesh, rather than on the Syrian opposition battling President Bashar Assad, urging cooperation between Washington and Moscow.

“It should be our common aim to coordinate our actions against Daesh and for sure the cooperation between the United States and Russia is a crucial one,” he said.

Obama-Putin meeting

Russia joined the conflict a month and a half ago with air strikes in Syria, but has been targeting mainly areas where foreign-backed fighters are battling Assad, its ally, rather than Daesh, its critics say.

Turkey and Western allies, by contrast, want Assad out.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he welcomed the renewed sense of urgency to find a solution to the war in Syria after the Paris attacks, adding the world had a “rare moment” of diplomatic opportunity to end the violence.

Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin held an informal discussion, huddling together on the sidelines of a working lunch. It was not known what they talked about but a Russian official said they spoke for more than 30 minutes.

Obama is also seeking to coax other European and Middle Eastern countries into more tangible steps to show their military commitment and was expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. In a call last month, the two leaders affirmed the need to cooperate against Daesh.

Obama said he had also discussed in his meeting with Erdogan the progress made by foreign ministers in Vienna, who on Saturday outlined a plan for a political process in Syria leading to elections within two years, although differences over Assad’s fate still remained.

Migration concerns

The coordinated attacks by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris on Friday puts Obama and other leaders of the world’s major economies under increased pressure to find common cause.

It remains to be seen, however, whether Washington itself has an appetite for much deeper involvement after already stepping up air strikes and committing small numbers of special operations troops to northern Syria to advise opposition forces in the fight against Daesh.

The Paris carnage, in which 129 people were killed in attacks on a concert hall, restaurants, bars and a sports stadium, also poses a major challenge for Europe, with populist leaders rushing to demand an end to an influx of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa.

In a diplomatic coup for Europe and for Turkey, the G-20 leaders will agree that migration is a global problem that must be addressed in a coordinated way, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters, although it has yet to be accepted by all and is due to be published only on Monday.

Europe and Turkey, the most heavily hit by the crisis, had been pushing for the G-20 to recognise the issue as a global problem and help to deal with it financially, despite opposition from China, India and Russia. A million migrants from the Middle East and Africa are expected to come to Europe this year alone.

According to a separate statement due to be released later on Sunday, a draft of which was also seen by Reuters, they also agreed to step up border controls and aviation security in the wake of the Paris attacks, which they condemned as “heinous”.

The summit follows not only the Paris attacks but also comes two weeks after a suspected bomb attack on a Russian airliner killed 224 people in the Sinai Peninsula.

It also comes just over a month after two suspected Daesh suicide bombers blew themselves up in Ankara, killing more than 100 people in Turkey’s worst such attack.

BERLIN — Carefully shielding a lit candle against the cold pouring rain, Syrian refugee Ghaled, 22, had come to the French embassy in Berlin to pay tribute to victims of the Paris attacks.

"We are with them right now, just to help them with this crisis. What's happening to them is happening every day in Syria, 100 times per day for five years, so we know what that means," he told AFP. 

Ghaled was a student in dentistry in Damascus, but decided to leave the Syrian capital after seeing no end to the violence engulfing his homeland.

Like tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen, he first risked his life crossing the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat, before trekking for 17 days to get to Germany five months ago.

But just as he began looking forward to rebuilding his life with German language classes which he hopes would help him return to dentistry school one day, Friday's attacks that killed 129 people in Paris have raised fears of a backlash in Europe.

French police's discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one attacker in particular has sparked concerns that some of the assailants might have entered Europe as part of the huge influx of people fleeing Syria's civil war.

"It's a problem," said Ghaled, who urged against victimising his countrymen, saying the attackers "are not Syrians" and that the passport link was simply make-believe.

"I think it's a big lie because all the area is destroyed, and just the passport is still ok? That's silly, really silly," he said, suggesting that the passport was either fake or had been planted "because they hate refugees... so many people hate Syrians". 

Another Syrian refugee, William, 24, who had also arrived in Germany five months ago, was equally anxious.

"Many news speak about Syrians, police find Syrian passport. Of course I'm worried. It's not good," said the 24-year-old tourism student from the northern town of Hama.

"Syrians are not terrorists. we need life and peace for work," he said, adding that he wanted to return home once the war is over.

Mouhanad Dawood, who had reached the EU through Italy before eventually seeking asylum in Germany 11 months ago, said his host country has been "very welcoming".

"People here understand not everyone are terrorists, a lot of people are running from terrorists, especially from IS [Daesh]," said the trained architect.

But he conceded that he was "a little bit" afraid that attitudes could change. "I have my family here now, I want to start my life here."

To those who have doubts about Syrians after the French attacks, Dawood said: "A terrorist is a terrorist. It doesn't matter where they come from."

In Germany, where a debate had already been raging before Paris attacks over the influx of asylum seekers expected to top a million this year, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere came out quickly to counter any attempt at drawing a link between terrorists and migrants.

"I would like to make this urgent plea to avoid drawing such swift links to the situation surrounding refugees," de Maiziere said on Saturday following a crisis Cabinet meeting.

He said authorities would watch far-right extremists closely, noting there have already been in recent months "appalling scales of attacks against asylum seekers and asylum seeker shelters".

On Sunday, the interior minister confirmed that security would be stepped up at asylum seeker shelters.

'Bombs falling like rain' 

The anxiety was also palpable on social media among asylum seekers in Europe.

"Will yesterday night's attacks in Paris affect our lives as refugees?" asked one user on "Bus Stop for the Lost Ones", a Facebook page that is extremely popular among Arabic-speaking migrants taking the Balkan route to Europe. "Of course", replies another member.

"Curse the guy who blew himself up... Did he have to take his passport with him? He should have put it away somewhere and gone to hell," wrote Jalal Abazid on Facebook, a Syrian refugee in Germany.

In France, Ayham Al Khalaf, a Syrian journalist who fled from his home city Raqa soon after it fell under Daesh control, told AFP: "If some French people already mistrusted Arabs, now that hate will increase." 

"The situation will get harder for us here for sure."

But others who were still on the road and battling to enter the European Union are undeterred, saying any animosity that they might face from the Europeans could not be worse than the bomb shells that are falling daily at home.

Cradling a sick child in her arms as she queued up to be registered at Macedonia's border with Greece, Kalaham, a 32-year old who fled from the Syrian capital with her husband and child said: "I just wanted to leave Syria. I hope for better."

"I have no fear. It's chaos in Syria so it couldn't be worse."

Likewise, Malek Rozhdan, who is travelling with his wife Jusak and three children, said: "It's very very bad these days in Damascus, where we are coming from. Bombs are just falling like rain."

"Of course it's not good at all what had happened, but Europe is good for living... This I think is not going to influence our trip in any way."

YANGON — Myanmar's President Thein Sein on Sunday said historic polls won in a thumping landslide by Aung San Suu Kyi's party were the consequence of his government's reforms and vowed a smooth transition of power.

The former junta general, who shed his uniform to lead the country's quasi-civilian regime five years ago, said the November 8 polls were testament to the political and economic changes that have swept the former pariah state since the end of junta rule.

"The election is the result of our reform process and as we promised, we were able to hold it very successfully," he told a meeting of political parties in Yangon, in his first public appearance since the polls.

"We will hand this process [of reform] on to a new government," he said, adding "don't worry about the transition" in comments aimed at calming nerves in the country's first attempt at a democratic-style transition for decades.

Addressing representatives of nearly 90 political parties, many of which were trounced by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), the Myanmar leader said elections are the "duty" of a democratic nation.

He appeared sanguine about the resounding defeat of his army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which will slip into opposition in the next parliament — due to sit from February. 

"The winning party is responsible for carrying out its duty and other opposition parties should provide checks and balances. That is called democracy," he said.

Poll rout 

According to the latest official results released Sunday evening the NLD has won nearly 80 per cent of elected seats in the combined parliament so far, with only a few seats left to call.

The USDP has just 8 per cent while ethnic parties have around 11 per cent. 

Election commission head Tin Aye told reporters in Naypyidaw that officials had tried to run a "free and fair" vote. 

He added that out of 91 parties registered for the polls, only 11 would enter the legislature after the NLD rout. 

Thein Sein, a slight bespectacled 70-year-old, has steered the country's dramatic opening up after years of isolation, freeing political prisoners, unleashing a long-muzzled press and welcoming foreign investment.

On Sunday he listed tasks for the next government to tackle in the country, which still struggles with high poverty rates and poor education, infrastructure and healthcare after years of junta neglect.

These include national reconciliation, continuing efforts to end ethnic rebellions and pushing forward with development.

Key talks 

Both the president and army chief have agreed to talks with Suu Kyi in the coming days as the country's political big-hitters look to negotiate the transition.

Observers say it is imperative that Suu Kyi build friendly ties with the military elite, which retains significant political and economic power. 

Suu Kyi has already travelled to the capital Naypyidaw, where on Monday she will attend a last session of the old parliament, which will continue sitting as a caretaker legislature until January.

On Sunday she held talks with the parliament speaker Shwe Mann, a key USDP figure who was tipped as a favourite compromise candidate for president until he was ousted as head of his party by military-backed rivals, including Thein Sein in August.

"She comforted me about the election and congratulated me on accepting the results swiftly," the speaker, who lost his constituency in the polls, said in a post on his official Facebook page.

He said a more formal meeting between the two would take place on Thursday. 

PARIS — An angry President Francois Hollande on Saturday promised a "merciless" response to a wave of attacks by gunmen and bombers that killed 129 people across Paris, describing the assault claimed by the Daesh terror group as an act of war against France.

As a cross-border investigation gathered pace, prosecutors said the coordinated assault on restaurants, a concert hall and the national football stadium appeared to have been carried out by a multinational team with links to the Middle East and Belgium as well as home-grown French roots.

In the worst carnage, gunmen systematically killed at least 89 people at a rock concert by an American band at the Bataclan music hall before blowing themselves up as anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault, officials said.

Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, including a double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a football game.

The mass bloodshed came as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks, raising questions about how such a complex operation, which prosecutors said involved three separate teams, could go undetected.

It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.

Hollande said the attacks were organised from abroad by Daesh, with internal help. 

Investigators were focusing on to what extent the militants were from France or from abroad.

Three people were arrested in Belgium as part of an anti-terrorism probe centred on a Belgian hired car found near the site of one of the Paris attacks, Belgian prosecutors said.

Sources close to the inquiry said one of the dead gunmen was French with ties to militants and had been under surveillance by security services.

The holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one suicide bombers passed through the Greek island of Leros in October, a Greek minister said.

A Greek police source said the man had arrived in Leros with 69 refugees, where he was registered and had his fingerprints taken. Police declined to give his name.

If confirmed, the infiltration of a militant to carry out attacks in Europe into the flow of refugees could have far-reaching political consequences.

Refugee fallout

The attacks fuelled a debate raging in Europe about how to handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees and other migrants propelled by civil war in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

In a sign of potential divisions ahead, Poland said that the attacks meant it could not now take its share of migrants under a European Union relocation plan. Many of the migrants currently flooding into Europe are refugees from Syria.

The carnage on the streets of the French capital follow recent attacks claimed by Daesh on a Russian passenger plane killing 224 people and bombings in Lebanon in which 43 died, all linked to the war in Syria.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France had no intention of halting its air strikes. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged world leaders gathered for a summit in Turkey on Saturday to prioritise the fight against terrorism, saying the Paris attacks showed the time for words was now over.

Hollande cancelled his attendance at the G20 summit after declaring the first nationwide state of emergency since 1945. France will be represented by its foreign and finance ministers.

“Faced with war, the country must take appropriate action,” the president said in a solemn address after an emergency meeting of security chiefs. He announced three days of national mourning.

Flags flew at half-mast, cinemas theatres and other places of entertainment were closed, although schools and universities will reopen as normal on Monday.

“France will be merciless towards these barbarians from Daesh,” Hollande said.

Speaking after peace talks on Syria in Vienna, US Secretary of State John Kerry said “we are witnessing a kind of medieval and modern fascism at the same time”.

In its claim of responsibility, Daesh said the attacks were a response to France’s military campaign.

It also distributed an undated video in which a bearded militant warned in Arabic: “As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear travelling to the market.”

The Paris public prosecutor said 129 people were killed and 352 wounded, of whom 99 remain in a critical condition. Six attackers blew themselves up and one was shot by police. There may have been an eighth attacker, but this was not confirmed.

Relatives and friends scoured Paris hospitals on Saturday in search of people missing since Friday evening and believed to have gone to the Bataclan concert hall. Some anguished next of kin said their relatives were neither on the confirmed death toll nor among the wounded registered in hospitals.

State of emergency

Hollande temporarily reimposed border controls as part of the state of emergency to stop perpetrators escaping or new attackers entering the country.

Local sports events in Paris were suspended, stores closed, the rock band U2 cancelled a concert, and schools, universities and municipal buildings stayed.

However, France said a global climate change summit in Paris at the end of the month would go ahead amid heightened security.

Emergency services were mobilised, police leave was cancelled, 1,500 army reinforcements were drafted into the Paris region and hospitals recalled staff to cope with casualties.

Sylvestre, a young man who was at the Stade de France when bombs went off there, said he was saved by his cellular phone, which he was holding to his ear when a metal bolt hit it.

World leaders responded to deadly attacks in Paris with defiant pledges of solidarity. From Barack Obama to Vladimir Putin and across Europe and the Middle East, leaders expressed their condolences.

France ordered increased security at its sites abroad. Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands tightened security measures.

British police said the evacuation of London’s Gatwick Airport on Saturday was connected to the discovery of a possible firearm in a bin and a 41-year-old man from France was arrested.

Julien Pearce, a journalist from Europe 1 radio, was inside the Bataclan when the shooting began.

In a television interview, Pearce said several young individuals armed with rifles entered the hall during a performance by Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal and started “blindly shooting at the crowd”.

“There were bodies everywhere,” he said.

The gunmen shot their victims in the back, finishing some off at point-blank range before reloading and firing again, Pearce said, after escaping into the street by a stage door, carrying a wounded girl on his shoulder.

SEOUL — Police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday as they clashed with anti-government demonstrators who marched through Seoul in the largest protest in South Korea's capital in more than seven years, leaving a protester critically injured.

About 70,000 people marched from various locations in Seoul to an area near City Hall, according to police. The demonstration stretched into the night, and police detained at least a dozen people. It was not clear how many people were injured.

The marches, organised by labour, civic and farmers' groups, brought together protesters with a diverse set of grievances against the government of conservative President Park Geun-hye, including her business-friendly labour policies and a decision to require middle and high schools to use only state-issued history textbooks starting in 2017.

Baek Nam-gi, a 69-year-old farmer, remained unconscious at a hospital after he fell down and hit the back of his head as police doused him with water cannons near City Hall, said Cho Byung-ok, secretary general of the Korea Peasants League, an activist group that represents farmers.

Television footage showed Baek lying motionless as other demonstrators struggled to drag him away, as police continued to fire water cannons at them from atop police buses.

Doctors told Baek's family that his condition was too fragile to attempt emergency surgery, Cho said. An official at Seoul National University Hospital said she couldn't comment on Baek's condition due to privacy rules.

Demonstrators, many of them masked, carried banners and chanted "Park Geun-hye, step down" and "No to layoffs" as they occupied a major downtown street. Some of them clashed with police, who created tight perimeters with their buses to block them.

Protesters tried to move some of the buses by pulling ropes they had tied to the vehicles, and police, wearing helmets and body armor, responded by firing tear gas and water cannons at them.

Police also fired water cannons from above a portable wall nearby to disperse marchers who were trying to advance. Some protesters fought back by hitting police officers camped on the top of the buses with poles. Others smashed the windows of the buses with sticks or spray-painted anti-government slogans on them.

Police detained at least 12 people for allegedly violent behavior, according to an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules. Police said they could not immediately confirm the number of people injured in the clashes.

Earlier in the day, members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an umbrella labour union, clashed with police who unsuccessfully tried to detain KCTU President Han Sang-goon during a news conference. A Seoul court had issued an arrest warrant for Han over a failed court appearance, after he was indicted for his involvement in organising a May protest that turned violent.

"If lawmakers try to pass the [government's] bill that will make labour conditions worse, we will respond with a general strike and that will probably be in early December," said Han, moments before police moved in and forced him to flee inside a building as his colleagues blocked the officers.

Police said the crowd was the largest at a demonstration in Seoul since May 2008, when about 100,000 people poured onto the streets to protest the government's decision to resume US beef imports amid lingering mad cow fears.

Labour groups have been denouncing government attempts to change labor laws to allow larger freedom for companies in laying off workers, which policy makers say would be critical in improving a bleak job market for young people.

Critics say that the state-issued history textbooks, which have not been written yet, would be politically driven and might attempt to whitewash the brutal dictatorships that preceded South Korea's bloody transition toward democracy in the 1980s.

President Park is the daughter of slain military dictator Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea in the 1960s and '70s, and whose legacy as a successful economic strategist is marred by records of severe oppression.

In May, South Korean police detained more than 40 people when protests over the government's labour policies and the handling of a year-old ferry disaster spiraled into violence, leaving several demonstrators and police injured and many police buses damaged.

PARIS — The Eiffel Tower was closed, the Champs-Elysees was lifeless and museums, markets and schools were shuttered on Saturday as Paris reeled after the bloodiest terror attack in French history.

A city famed for its glamour and bustling streets seemed garbed in mourning as Parisians struggled with the shock of the multiple attacks that claimed scores of lives.

"All city facilities are closed today," Paris City Hall said on its website, listing schools, museums, libraries, sports halls, swimming pools, tennis courts, food markets and district town halls.

Only civil registration offices, to record marriages, will be open, it said, adding that security would be beefed up at district town halls. 

At noon, the city's main cinema chains said they too would close.

A line of people at least 100 metres long formed outside the city's main blood donation centre to offer their blood.

Outside a Cambodian restaurant where 12 people were killed, mourners placed flowers, a candle and the French tricolore.

On the national flag were written the defiant words "Fluctuat nec mergitur" — the Latin slogan of Paris, meaning "It is buffeted by the waves, yet remains afloat."

Fresh terror attack 

The closures came after simultaneous assaults on a concert hall, restaurants and the Stade de France stadium.

It was the second terror strike in less than 10 months. In January, 17 people were killed, including five of the cartoonists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in militant gun attacks. 

In the Place de la Bourse, a large square near the Paris Opera, traffic was unusually thin and pedestrians were few.

"People are worried," Jean-Louis Masson, 50, who lives locally, told an AFP reporter. 

"You can see that in the SMS messages that are going around. We were concerned for one of our children who was out last night, and we called to make sure she got home."

Masson's son, Adrien, 13, said he was a "bit worried. You get to be afraid that something could happen".

In a cafe, a man who gave his name as Luc, aged 46, said he was stupefied.

"I just don't understand. They keep telling us that they've thwarted attacks, that they've made arrests, and here you've got guys shooting at everyone in a concert hall in the centre of Paris.

"They're unable to protect this city, that's what it's about."

The street outside the Galeries Lafayette department store was empty, after the emporium — which initially declared it would remain open — closed its doors.

At the approach of the Christmas season, the store's glitzy windows are usually crowded by young Parisians, eager to watch automated puppets in scenes from popular tales. 

On Saturday, the puppets went through their movements without an audience as fairy music played in the background. A line of Star Wars stormtroopers stood grimly to attention, impressing no one.

At the Starbucks coffee house in the Boulevard Haussmann, a barista shrugged his shoulders. He and his colleague had seen three customers in an hour and a half.

"It's empty," he said. "Normally, we have five or six people here at any one time. They are often tourists who stay in hotels in the Opera district and want to save on the cost of breakfast."

Around the Champs-Elysees, Gucci, Zara and other brand stores were closed and cafe terraces were empty. 

At newspaper kiosks, dramatic headlines and pictures likened Paris to a combat zone, after militants attacked crowds and restaurants goers.

"War in the heart of Paris," the conservative daily Le Figaro said. "This time, it's war," Le Parisien said.

Police said all public demonstrations in the Paris area would be banned until Thursday, and the French secretary of state for sports issued instructions to regional sports federations to cancel matches this weekend.

Cancelled events include a European Champions Cup rugby match between Racing 92 and the Glasgow Warriors.

Tourist sites closed 

The Eiffel Tower, normally visited by up to 20,000 people a day, will be closed "until further notice", a spokeswoman told AFP.

Disneyland Paris, which is located on the eastern rim of the Paris region, said it would not open on Saturday "in light of the recent tragic events in France and in support of our community and the victims of these horrendous attacks".

The Paris Opera cancelled its concerts for Saturday, and the city's philharmonic orchestra said its venue would close all weekend.

Irish rock band U2 also called off a Paris concert planned for Saturday. The Palace of Versailles, the Louvre and other Paris museums opened early Saturday but then closed.

Paris' Bateaux-Mouches tourist boats, which provide excursions on the Seine, said it would maintain its schedule.

"We will have added security — searches and no large luggage allowed onboard, and we will have more security guards onboard," a switchboard operator said.

PARIS - Gunmen and bombers attacked restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium at locations across Paris on Friday, killing 127 people in a deadly rampage that President Francois Hollande was the work of Daesh terror group.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Daesh released an undated video in which a militant said France would not live peacefully as long it took part in US-led bombing raids against its fighters.

A Paris city hall official said four gunmen systematically slaughtered at least 87 young people at a rock concert at the Bataclan concert hall. Anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault on the building. The gunmen detonated explosive belts and dozens of shocked survivors were rescued, while bodies were still being removed on Saturday morning.

Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, the official said, including an apparent double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France national stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer international. Some 200 people were injured.

The coordinated assault came as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.

It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.

Hollande said the death toll stood at 127. Officials said eight assailants had died, seven of whom had blown themselves up with explosive belts at various locations, while one had been shot dead by police. It was not clear if all the attackers were accounted for.

"The terrorists, the murderers raked several cafe terraces with machine-gun fire before entering (the concert hall). There were many victims in terrible, atrocious conditions in several places," police prefect Michel Cadot told reporters.

After being whisked from the stadium near the blasts, Hollande declared a national state of emergency - the first since World War II. Border controls were temporarily reimposed to stop perpetrators escaping.

Local sports events were suspended, the rock band U2 cancelled a concert, the Paris metro railway was closed and schools, universities and municipal buildings were ordered to stay shut on Saturday. However some rail and air services were expected to run.

"This is a horror," the visibly shaken president said in a midnight television address to the nation before chairing an emergency cabinet meeting.

He later went to the scene of the bloodiest attack, the Bataclan music hall, and vowed that the government would wage a "merciless" fight against terrorism.

Sylvestre, a young man who was at the Stade de France when bombs went off there, said he was saved by his cellphone, which he was holding to his ear when debris hit it.

"This is the cell phone that took the hit, it's what saved me," he said. "Otherwise my head would have been blown to bits," he said, showing the phone with its screen smashed.

French newspapers spoke of "carnage" and "horror". Le Figaro's headline said: "War in the heart of Paris" on a black background with a picture of people on stretchers.

Emergency services were mobilised, police leave was cancelled, 1,500 army reinforcements were drafted into the Paris region and hospitals recalled staff to cope with the casualties.

Radio stations warned Parisians to stay at home and urged residents to give shelter to anyone caught out in the street. The hashtag #porteouverte (open door) started up on Twitter to offer people a place to stay.

The deadliest attack was on the Bataclan, a popular concert venue where the Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal was performing. The hall is near the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, target of a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen in January.

Some witnesses in the hall said they heard the gunmen shout “Islamic” chants and slogans condemning France's role in Syria.

HIGH ALERT

France has been on high alert ever since the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris in January killed 18 people.

Those attacks briefly united France in defence of freedom of speech, with a mass demonstration of more than a million people. But that unity has since broken down, with far-right populist Marine Le Pen gaining on both mainstream parties by blaming immigration and Islam for France's security problems.

It was not clear what political impact the latest attacks would have less than a month before regional elections in which Le Pen's National Front is set to make further advances.

The governing Socialist Party and the National Front suspended their election campaigns.

Hollande cancelled plans to travel to Turkey at the weekend for a G20 summit.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel led a global chorus of solidarity with France. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "despicable attacks" while the Vatican called the killings "mad terrorist violence".

Italy tightened security measures.

Julien Pearce, a journalist from Europe 1 radio, was inside the concert hall when the shooting began. In an eyewitness report posted on the station's website, Pearce said several very young individuals, who were not wearing masks, entered the hall during the concert, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and started "blindly shooting at the crowd".

"There were bodies everywhere," he said.

The gunmen shot their victims in the back, finishing some off at point-blank range before reloading their guns and firing again, Pearce said, after escaping into the street by a stage door, carrying a wounded girl on his shoulder.

Toon, a 22-year-old messenger who lives near the Bataclan, was going into the concert hall with two friends at around 10.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) when he saw three young men dressed in black and armed with machine guns. He stayed outside.

One of the gunmen began firing into the crowd. "People were falling like dominoes," he told Reuters. He saw people shot in the leg, shoulder and back, with several lying on the floor, apparently dead.

There was no immediate verifiable claim of responsibility but supporters of Islamic State said in Twitter messages that the group carried them out.

"The State of the caliphate hit the house of the cross," one tweet said.

Two explosions were heard near the Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, where the France-Germany soccer match was being played. A witness said one of the detonations blew people into the air outside a McDonald's restaurant opposite the stadium.

The match continued until the end, but panic broke out in the crowd as rumours of the attack spread, and spectators who were held in the stadium assembled on the pitch.

Police helicopters circled the stadium as Hollande was rushed back to the interior ministry to deal with the situation.

In central Paris, shooting erupted in mid-evening outside a Cambodian restaurant in the capital's 10th district.

Eighteen people were killed when a gunman opened fire on Friday night diners sitting at outdoor terraces in the popular Charonne area nearby in the 11th district.

The prosecutor mentioned five locations in close proximity where shootings took place around the same time.

The Paris carnage came within days of attacks claimed by Daesh militants on a Shi'ite Muslim district of southern Beirut, and a Russian tourist aircraft which crashed in Egypt.

Earlier on Friday, Kurdish fighters retook the Iraqi town of Sinjar from Daesh and the United States and Britain launched an air strike on a British Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John", but it was not certain if he had been killed.

VALLETTA — European Union and African leaders on Thursday ended an acrimonious summit by approving a 1.8-billion-euro plan to stem an unprecedented and politically explosive flow of migrants across the Mediterranean.

Two days of often sharp exchanges in Malta concluded with the adoption of a controversial scheme to accelerate the repatriation of failed asylum-seekers, despite openly-expressed misgivings on the African side.

In a reflection of the mood, Senegal President Macky Sall used the closing press conference to take a swipe at Western neo-colonialism, claiming African governments would have no need of aid if they could collect 60 billion euros lost through multinational tax avoidance and other "fraudulent" outflows.

In a nod to African fears of a "fortress Europe" drawing up the drawbridge, Thursday's deal calls for more opportunities for legal migration. But the only concrete step agreed was a scheme to expand scholarships for students and academics to come to Europe.

The action plan is to be underpinned by 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) of initial EU funding for an “Emergency Trust Fund” which will provide finance for development projects designed to address the root causes of migratory pressures including poverty, conflict, repressive governance and the unsafe conditions endured by the millions of people displaced across Africa.

The money is coming from the EU's collective budget and the bloc's 28 member states have been asked to match it with contributions of their own.

The national pledges to date however have totalled just 78.2 million euros, in an underwhelming response that officials in Brussels partly blame on populist pressure on governments to be seen taking a tough line on the migrant issue.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said the pressures on governments had left the bloc's border-free Schengen accords on the brink of collapse. "Saving Schengen is a race against time and we are determined to win that race," Tusk said.

Africans have accounted for some 140,000 of the roughly 800,000 migrants who have arrived in the EU by sea so far this year with far larger numbers now coming from Syria and other parts of the Middle East via Turkey and Greece.

Efforts to slow the rate of arrivals on that front will dominate a separate meeting of EU leaders in Valletta on Thursday afternoon, at which steps to improve cooperation with Turkey over the migrant issue will be reviewed.

Returning Africans, welcoming Syrians 

Sall said the deal with the EU did not offer anything like the money needed to address Africa's problems and accused the Europeans of exaggerating the scale of African migration to Europe and "putting too much emphasis on readmission [of illegal immigrants], perhaps because of public opinion".

"And I think there is also a fundamental, philosophical question: you cannot insist on Africans being readmitted to their countries of origin when you are welcoming Syrians and others," the Senegalese leader added. "The numbers of Africans migrating towards Europe are not as great as people say."

There was also grumbling about the outcome of the discussions from the EU's leading anti-migrant hawk, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"It's painful to admit but a few Greek ferryboat captains have been more effective in the struggle against migration than several rounds of meetings of 28 prime ministers," Orban said in a reference to recent moves by ferry skippers to stop transporting migrants from islands near Turkey to the Greek mainland.

British Home Secretary Theresa May insisted the talks had been constructive. "We have to be up to returning people to Africa but we also have to smash the criminal gangs [of traffickers] exploiting human misery."

Recent months have repeatedly seen national governments resort to unilateral action that undermines efforts to forge a united EU approach to the migrant question.

This week has already seen Slovenia erect a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia and Sweden decide to temporarily reimpose passport checks for people arriving from other countries in the Schengen area.

The Swedish move was seen as particularly significant in light of the country's long and generous tradition of welcoming more refugees in relation to its size than any other European state.

HONG KONG — As other diners in the McDonald's enjoyed their Big Macs past midnight early last month, no one noticed the middle-aged woman who appeared to be sleeping at her table.

The woman, wearing a grey coat and slippers, abruptly slumped over at about 1:20am, according to surveillance camera footage.

It wasn't until the next morning that a customer found the woman was cold and unresponsive. The police were called at 8:30am, about 24 hours after the woman first entered the restaurant, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

The death of the woman, identified by police as a 56-year-old surnamed Lai, has focused attention on the growing number of working poor and homeless people spending their nights in McDonald's.

Dubbed "McRefugees", they sleep in 24-hour branches of the fast food chain, which offer a clean, safe and free refuge found in few other places in the southern Chinese business hub. More than 120 of the company's 253 Hong Kong outlets operate around the clock.

In a statement, McDonald's Hong Kong said "we welcome all walks of life to visit our restaurants any time".

It added that it tries to be "accommodating and caring" to customers who stay a long time in restaurants "for their own respective reasons".

The phenomenon dates back to at least 2007 and has also been documented in Japan and mainland China. It appears to be particularly popular in Hong Kong, notorious for being one of the world's most expensive places to live because of sky-high rents.

At the same time, homelessness is a growing problem, with the number of street sleepers tracked by the government rising to 806 this year, more than double the amount since 2007, though social welfare groups say the actual number is likely higher.

One such person, Mary Seow, began sleeping in a McDonald's in the working-class Jordan district about two weeks ago after she noticed others doing it. Seow, who was preparing to doze off in a corner of the basement level restaurant, said she previously had been spending her nights in a park.

"Sometimes I'm quite sleepy and I don't feel shy about sleeping here," she said. "But sometimes I'm not sleepy and I feel quite shy. And I also ask myself why I have to end up in this way."

The 60-year-old widow, who arrived in Hong Kong two months ago, said she was swindled by mainland Chinese "friends" she met at a church in Singapore. They persuaded her to sell her house and go with them to invest the money in the mainland, where she spent five years depleting her funds, she said.

Now, she lives off her meager savings and some money from working as what is known as a "parallel trader", a person who carries diapers, baby formula, chocolate and other branded goods across the border to the mainland. She said she's not ready to go back to Singapore because she doesn't want to lose face with friends wondering where she's been.

As she prepared to nod off, three men across the room lay covered by blankets on padded vinyl benches. A staff member used tables to block the entrance to the restaurant section where Seow and the others were sleeping, before turning off its lights for the night.

Here's a gallery of images from Vincent Yu.