AFP, LONDON: England’s High Court on Friday blocked a legal challenge to force the government to seek parliamentary approval before pulling out of the European Economic Area as a part of Brexit. The case had been brought by campaigners who wanted a “soft Brexit” that would keep Britain…

AFP, TOKYO: Any nuclear attack by North Korea would trigger an “effective and overwhelming” response, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said Friday as he sought to reassure Asian allies rattled by President Donald Trump’s isolationist rhetoric.Mattis spoke in the South Korean capital…

AFP, LUANDA: Veteran Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos announced Friday he will not run in August elections, signalling the end to 37 years in power and naming his defence minister as the candidate to succeed him.The autocratic 74-year-old has been the oil-rich country’s president since…

AFP, PARIS: A machete-wielding man who yelled “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) was shot and injured as he attacked security forces at the Louvre museum in Paris on Friday, police said. One soldier was injured in the assault by the knifeman who was shot five times and is alive…

Ibrahim Ali remembers his first church service well. The smell of the candles, the cheap plywood pews, and the hymn singing that sounded so foreign to him at the time, reports The telegraph. The 57-year-old Muslim Syrian never imagined that when he fled to neighbouring Lebanon to seek refuge from the…

AFP, SINGAPORE: A Beijing-based Saudi diplomat was sentenced in Singapore Friday to more than two years in jail and four strokes of a cane for molesting a hotel intern. Bander Yahya A Alzahrani, 39, was sentenced to 26 months and one week in prison after being convicted of “outraging modesty”,…

AFP, AVDIIVKA, Ukraine: Clashes between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed rebels left two more dead in a flashpoint town Friday and four others elsewhere…