Three people were killed and one badly injured in a shoot-out Saturday near the Jewish Museum in Brussels city center, Belga news agency said, quoting firefighters' emergency services.

"I am shocked by the murders committed at the Jewish museum, I am thinking of the victims I saw there and their families," Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Twitter.

Morocco has arrested four Europeans of Moroccan origin wanted in Belgium and the Netherlands in connection with armed attacks, attempted murders and jewelry thefts, state media reported.

The men were arrested by security forces acting on international arrest warrants issued by Brussels and The Hague, the state news agency MAP said on Saturday, quoting the interior ministry.

Several European countries met Thursday with officials from the United States, Turkey, Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia to discuss how to stop young Islamist fighters joining rebels in Syria.

The fear is that the young fighters become even more radicalized and return home with extensive military experience which can be put to terrorist ends, Belgian Interior Minister Joelle Milquet said.

Belgian authorities have banned a planned gathering Sunday of far-right figures including the French comic Dieudonne, after it was slammed by Jewish groups as an "anti-Semitic hatefest."

Citing security risks, the mayor of the Brussels district of Anderlecht banned both the meeting and any street protests connected to it, the Belga news agency reported.

A couple and a young boy were shot dead in an overnight attack near the eastern Belgian city of Liege, media reports said on Saturday.

The woman was seriously wounded in the attack near the local sports ground in Vise, and died early Saturday of her injuries, the Belga news agency said.

The mayor of a Belgian industrial town cut off ties with a sister city in southern France on Monday after the far right won its city hall in weekend local elections.

The far-right National Front will take control of about a dozen French towns after elections Sunday, including Beaucaire, a sun-soaked bullfighting town where 30-year-old Julien Sanchez, a party official, is to become the next mayor.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping began a three-day visit to Belgium Sunday on the last leg of his European tour that will include meeting the Belgian royals and seeing giant pandas ahead of an historic EU visit, the first ever by a Chinese president.

Xi was welcomed at the airport by Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and he is set to go to the royal palace in central Brussels to meet Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde.

Prince Laurent of Belgium, the naughty younger brother of King Philippe, has been placed in a medically-induced coma in a Brussels hospital, the palace said Tuesday.

The 50-year-old prince, 11th in line to the throne, was rushed to hospital a week ago suffering from pneumonia and has been "placed in an artificial coma to optimize the treatment", said palace spokesman Pierre-Emmanuel de Bauw.

A pro-Kremlin channel has aired a sensationalist report based on bugged phone calls and eavesdropped hotel meetings, accusing Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny of taking money from abroad and having contacts with the CIA.

The report was broadcast by the NTV channel, owned by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, late Wednesday, one day after President Vladimir Putin had warned over a "fifth column" in Russia after its taking of Crimea.

Kenya has deported three foreign men, accused of fighting alongside Somalia's Al-Qaida linked Shebab insurgents, to Belgium to face trial on terrorism charges, diplomatic sources said Friday.

The men, Belgian Mustapha Bouyabaren, Frenchman Rachid Benomari and Algerian Mohamed Said, were all jailed in July 2013 for a year for after pleading guilty to entering Kenya illegally.