Belgium on high alert after deadly anti-terror raid

Belgium is on high alert after a major anti-terror raid in which two suspected Islamist militants were killed.

According to Thierry Werts the suspects immediately started firing at the armed police officers''

Officials say they had returned from Syria and planned imminent attacks on police targets. Another suspect was wounded before being arrested.

Searches were also carried out overnight in the Brussels area.

'Bomb-making equipment'

After the operation, four Kalashnikovs, bomb-making equipment and police clothing were found, according to local media. Security forces remain in the Verviers area.

Police are expected to provide more details at a briefing on Friday.

Anti-terror raids also took place late on Thursday in the capital Brussels and surrounding towns, including Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Anderlecht and Schaerbeek.

Earlier that day, two suspected Islamists were arrested in the Brussels suburb of Zaventem, Belgian media reported.

Belgian officials say more than 300 people have left Belgium to fight with Islamic militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

'Just terrified'

Verviers is in the province of Liege, close to the German border, and has a population of about 56,000.

The incident comes a week after attacks in neighbouring France that killed 17 people. Belgian media has reported that some of the weapons used in those attacks were bought in Brussels.

New AIDS Vaccine in Capsule

The new AIDS vaccine comes in a capsule and it's made using a common cold virus called an adenovirus, genetically engineered with a tiny piece of the AIDS virus. 

It's only a very early stage experiment, meant to show the vaccine is safe. However, if it is, it could be a start not only towards a much-needed vaccine against the AIDS virus, but needle-free vaccines against many different infections.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center are testing it in their specially designed facility usually used to test live influenza vaccines. Volunteers to test this new vaccine that is needle-free are needed. You have to be willing to stay locked up in your room for 12 days.

The reason is that the adenovirus used to make the vaccine is "alive" - it can replicate and presumably will spread in the digestive tract. Tests in monkeys show it should be safe, but the researchers are taking extra care because this particular strain, called adenovirus 26, only lives well in humans.

It's been severely weakened, but so-called live vaccines tend to prompt a stronger immune response than "killed" vaccines.

According to Dr. Dan Barouch of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who helped design the vaccine,"We have a strong suspicion that it is going to be safe.  

The trial of this vaccine started Tuesday, and is being paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.