Freed Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt has been reunited with her two children at an airport in Bogota after six years of captivity. They flew to the Colombian capital from France with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Betancourt has dual French-Colombian citizenship. The international community has expressed relief over the freeing of the former Colombian presidential candidate and 14 others who were held for years by leftist guerrillas. European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso congratulated those who worked for her release while United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon called on the FARC rebel group to free some 700 more hostages it is holding. Betancourt and the 14 other hostages were rescued overnight by Colombian army commandos posing as FARC guerrillas. The rescue operation was completed without any shots being fired. 

Representatives of Turkey's ruling AK party have appeared before the country's highest court in Ankara in a bid to avoid their party being banned. Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya launched his case against the governing AK party in March, saying it should be banned for seeking to replace Turkey's secular system with Sharia law. Yalcinkaya also demanded that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 70 other party members should be barred from party politics for five years. The AK party, which has its roots in a now banned Islamist movement, has rejected all the charges and argued that the case was politically motivated and "fictional".

French judicial officals say Continental Airlines and two of its employees are to stand trial for manslaughter over the crash of an Air France Concorde that killed 113 people eight years ago. A former French civil aviation official and two former members of the Concorde programme are to be tried on the same charge. The Concorde crashed in a ball of fire shortly after takeoff from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000. All 109 people on board as well as four workers on the ground were killed. French investigators said the crash was caused by a piece of metal that had fallen onto the runway from a previous Continental Airlines flight. 

The European Central Bank has raised its main lending rate in the 15-nation eurozone by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25 percet in an attempt to control inflation. The move comes despite worries in some quarters that it could dampen growth. At a press conference in Frankfurt, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet tried to allay those fears saying that the fundamentals of Europe's economy ''are sound''. However, he warned that the uncertainty surrounding economic activity in the eurozone remains high.

Police in Indonesia say they have foiled a major attack targeting Westerners in the country. An anti-terror unit arrested 10 suspected Muslim militants and seized a large cache of high-powered bombs in Palembang on the island of Sumatra. Police say the suspects are connected to Malaysian extremist Noordin Mohammad Top, a hardline leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah Islamist group. Top is wanted for allegedly masterminding the 2002 Bali attacks that killed more than 200 people, mainly foreigners.

A United Nations appeals court in The Hague has overturned the conviction of a Bosnian Muslim commander for his role in war crimes committed in the town of Srebrenica. Naser Oric was convicted two years ago of failing to prevent the murder and torture of Serb captives during the first years of the 1992-95 war. The appeals judges said the original trial failed to establish that Oric had control over those who committed the criminal acts and ordered his immediate release. The crimes took place well before the 1995 Bosnian Serb massacre of nearly 8,000 Srebrenica Muslims.

The former Congolese rebel warlord and vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba has been transferred from Belgium to the custody of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. He faces four charges of war crimes and two charges of crimes against humanity. Bemba is blamed for leading Congolese rebels who waged a campaign of rape and torture in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003 during a coup attempt. He was arrested in Belgium in May on a warrant from the ICC.

Mauritania's government has resigned three days after deputies in parliament had filed for a no-confidence vote against it. The deputies had accused the government of failing to produce the required economic and social policy programme. They also called for a greater share of government posts for opposition Islamist and centre-left parties. The parliamentary no-confidence motion was a first in the Saharan state after a military junta handed over power to civilian democratic rule through elections last year. The president was now expected to name a new prime minister to form a new government.

Great Britain is to double its aid to Pakistan to some 600  million euros by 2011. The announcement was made by British Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander, who signed an agreement to this effect with the Pakistani government in Islamabad. The British aid programme, largely meant to eliminate poverty and improve the social sector, will also focus on development in Pakistan's tribal areas. About half the funds are to be spent on bringing around five million children to schools in the tribal belt. The area has been considered a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters launching cross-border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has said that France will build a second European pressurized reactor (EPR) as part of its plans to increase production of nuclear energy. Sarkozy did not specify when or where the new EPR, designed by French giant Areva, would be built. He defended the decision to step up French investment in nuclear power arguing that this was the best answer to soaring energy prices. France is already building an EPR in Flamanville which is due to come on stream in 2012. Nuclear power accounts for more than three quarters of France's electricity production.

The price of London's Brent crude oil has set a new record by rising above 146 dollars a barrel for the first time in Thursday trading. Oil prices have increased significantly since the US government announced on Wednesday that its crude stockpiles had fallen by more than expected last week.