ANGELS & DEMONS

The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard returns to direct the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley

Church officials condemned The Da Vinci Code on its release in 2006, calling it "an offence against God" because it was based on the premise that Jesus married and fathered children. They banned the film-makers from shooting the sequel inside the Vatican, forcing director Ron Howard to reconstruct the settings in Los Angeles.

However, in its first pronouncement on the film, Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano described "Angels and Demons" as "harmless entertainment which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity".

While the "gigantic and smart commercial operation" is filled with inaccuracies and stereotyped characters, the camera work is "splendid", Howard's direction "dynamic and alluring" and the reconstruction of St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel is "magnificent".

Air France

"AIR FRANCE" Officials said they had "no hope" for Air France Flight 447 which dropped off the radar three hours and less than 200 miles into a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. As the Brazilian air force mounted a search and rescue operation for the Airbus 330-200k in the waters around the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, families of passengers gathered at a crisis centre in Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport awaiting news.

The flight left Rio at 7pm local time (11pm British time) and was due in Paris at 11.15am (10.15am BST).

It was 190 miles north east of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal when it was lost contact three hours and 20 minutes later.

Authorities began the operation around Fernando de Noronha, an idyllic holiday destination but they cautioned that the search area could be three times the size of Europe.

The company said the plane had probably been struck by lightning. An Airbus source described the failure as "catastrophic" suggesting a sudden and unexplained systems failure.

A source at the airline told Le Monde: "The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago.

"It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected."