The armed attacker, who took people hostage in a supermarket in the Forest suburb of Brussels, has given himself up to the police, authorities have confirmed.

Eyewitnesses told local channel VRT that the hostage-taking unfolded at about 7 p.m. local time, in a Carrefour chain store, after what they claimed was a robbery attempt gone wrong. Those who managed to leave the supermarket said the suspect was armed with a knife, and forced shoppers to lie down on the floor.

Over the past several weeks, the police state has come out in full force as Native Americans fight to protect their water sources from the threat of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Mainstream media remained largely silent as federal, state and local authorities worked on behalf of Energy Transfer Partners to squash dissent.

Even prominent journalists found themselves targets of the State, charged with dubious "crimes" such as "inciting a riot" and "conspiracy to theft of services" - for doing nothing more than filming protests and the ensuing violent crackdowns.

The First Amendment is no obstacle when it comes to advancing the interests of the corporatocracy.

This was put on display again on October 15 when five Native American Water Protectors left a protest near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to pray on the shoulder of a public road.

In response to this peaceful behavior, 40 cops from at least eight departments in three different states - complete with riot gear, automatic rifles, an armored vehicle and even an LRAD acoustic weapon - swarmed the five praying, unarmed Native Americans.

Deric Baize had committed no crime and was in his own home when a belligerent cop, with a history of brutality, attacked him, tasered him in the back, kidnapped him and threw him in a cage for weeks — causing him to lose his job, his house, and his dignity. On Monday, that cop, deputy Matthew Corder with the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office, was sentenced to more than two years in jail for that fateful night.

The incident began in October of 2014 as Corder arrived in the neighborhood responding to an unrelated call and chose to park in front of Baize's driveway instead of on the shoulder. When Baize asked the deputy to move his car and not block the driveway, Corder, being the belligerent cop that he is — refused.

After Corder refused to move his vehicle, Baize told the officer to "F**k off." This response caused the deputy to snap and immediately resort to abusing his authority.

Without probable cause, or a warrant, or reason, Corder ordered Baise out of his home, who refused. So, Corder, drunk on power and anger, forced his way in and attacked the innocent man.

Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic - the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She's a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her "the element of light in a country full of shadow zones." She is the first lady of Syria.

Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East, possibly because, as the State Department's Web site says, "the Syrian government conducts intense physical and electronic surveillance of both Syrian citizens and foreign visitors." It's a secular country where women earn as much as men and the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings, but its shadow zones are deep and dark. Asma's husband, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president in 2000, after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, with a startling 97 percent of the vote. In Syria, power is hereditary. The country's alliances are murky. How close are they to Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah? There are souvenir Hezbollah ashtrays in the souk, and you can spot the Hamas leadership racing through the bar of the Four Seasons. Its number-one enmity is clear: Israel. But that might not always be the case. The United States has just posted its first ambassador there since 2005, Robert Ford.

Iraq is next door, Iran not far away. Lebanon's capital, Beirut, is 90 minutes by car from Damascus. Jordan is south, and next to it the region that Syrian maps label Palestine. There are nearly one million refugees from Iraq in Syria, and another half-million displaced Palestinians.

Protesters have taken to the streets of El Cajon, California, after the shooting of African-American man Alfred Olango by police and the removal of a memorial to the dead man. Officers have described the situation as "civil unrest."

Demonstrators gathered in the San Diego suburb at around 6pm on Monday, according to El Cajon Police. Footage posted on social media showed protesters gathered while police stood guard. Reports have claimed some of the protesters are armed, citing information obtained through a police scanner.

Some citizens told local news outlet NBC 7 that the demonstration was called because a memorial for Olango, set up near the restaurant where he was killed last month, was taken down on Sunday. Police are asking motorists to avoid Broadway and N. Mollison Avenue, where the protest is taking place.

Olango was shot and killed in the parking lot behind a restaurant by El Cajon officers Richard Gonsalves and Josh McDaniel on September 27. Police arrived at the scene following a 911 in which the person on the phone, reportedly Olango's sister call described the 38-year-old as "not acting like himself," while stressing that he was mentally ill and unarmed.

It took police 50 minutes to arrive at the scene. As an officer prepared a taser, Olango reportedly drew an object from his pocket and held it in both hands "like you would be holding a firearm," Police Chief Jeff Davis said. Police then opened fire, shooting Olango multiple times. It was later revealed that Olango was holding a cylindrical vape pen. Footage of the shooting was released by the El Cajon Police Department.

The 38-year-old's death led to days of protests in El Cajon, in which demonstrations ranged from peaceful to violent.

A Conservative MP's aide has been arrested on suspicion of rape inside his Parliamentary office. Sam Armstrong, chief of staff to South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay, was remanded in custody last week by police investigating an allegation of rape.

The 23-year-old is accused of taking a woman into Mackinlay's office after he and other Tory aide had been drinking in a taxpayer-subsidized bar within Parliament from late Thursday night to early Friday morning. Armstrong has been bailed pending further enquiries to a date in mid-January 2017.

"There were a group of Tory advisers and female guests drinking there all night. Some were very drunk indeed," an unnamed source told the Sun. The drinking session reportedly took place on the House of Lords' terrace - a publicly-subsidized bar that backs on to the River Thames. According to the Sun, Mackinlay's office was raided by police on Friday and sealed off as a potential crime scene.

The battle to close Australia's brutal island-based asylum centers is set to rage even harder as Amnesty International has come out with a scathing report on the torture of refugees and the government's complicity in deliberate torture and the purpose of its cover-up.

Australians and other countries and international institutions have all campaigned for the veil of secrecy to drop, as more compelling evidence of rampant human rights abuse kept coming in from the desolate tiny island state of Nauru. Previous reports by Amnesty and others have already detailed the scale of the misery faced by this most vulnerable group of people at the hands of their guards and the system.

Saturday's report, entitled Island of Despair, deals another blow to the system that keeps the island prisons running. It reveals systematic denial of health services, coupled with physical abuse and legal and psychological intimidation carried out by staff and companies hired by the Australian government to oversee the island facility. Children are particularly at risk, and "the extent to which child refugees are subjected to abuse on Nauru is chilling," the authors write, as they list particular cases of asylum-seeker children falling into deep psychological distress and bad health.

The organization documents numerous cases of self-harm and attempted suicides. This would often take place as a result of both treatment at the facility and the recycling of the stigma against asylum-seekers on the island, leading to their shunning by locals and peers.

As Donald Trump takes on the Republican establishment, Democrats and the mainstream media, he's telling supporters they're fighting against a "rigged" system, rife with voter fraud and those eager to protect the status quo. The left, predictably, says this type of talk is "dangerous" to the integrity of our electoral system, and then glibly asks for Mr. Trump to prove his voter fraud allegations.

This is where the left is wrong: The argument isn't whether voter fraud is real, but how widespread it is. Here's 10 examples documenting that voter fraud isn't a myth and how Mr. Trump's claims aren't just speculation.

1. Dead people voting in Colorado.

A CBS affiliate's evidence of voter fraud in Colorado in September sparked an immediate investigation by Secretary of State Wayne Williams. A report in Denver exposed multiple incidents in recent years where dead Coloradans were still voting. A dead World War II veteran named John Grosso voted in a 2006 primary election, and a woman named Sara Sosa who died in 2009 cast ballots in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Mrs. Sosa's husband Miguel died in 2008, but a vote was cast in his name one year later.

At least 25 inmates have reportedly been killed in a bloody Brazilian prison riot involving rival gangs on Sunday.

Rioting broke out at a northern facility known as the Agricultural Penitentiary of Monte Cristo, Roraima, when prisoners from one wing of the prison attacked rival inmates, according to news outlet Globo.

Seven people were reportedly beheaded and six others burned to death during the violence, which broke out during prison visiting hours as convicts were meeting with their relatives.

Robot journalists are set to start working at Britain and Ireland's national news agency.

Non-human hacks will be rolled out to cover sports, football and elections for the Press Association in the next few months.

The cybernetic scribes will be "more accurate" than flesh and blood journos in some cases, according to PA's editor in chief Pete Clifton.

Addressing the Society of Editors conference in Carlisle this morning, Mr Clifton said: "This won't be replacing any of our fantastic journalists, it will be more a case of offering an extra level when it comes to short market reports, election results and football reporting."