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Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed a number of hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people including the attacker were killed.

When word of an EU ban on high-power vacuum cleaners hit Eurosceptic British tabloids in August, "Hoovergate" brought home a dilemma for the bloc that goes well beyond house-proud devotees of deep-pile English carpet.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before talks on Monday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry he would defy any U.N. move to "dictate" a timeframe for withdrawal from land Palestinians seek for a state.