Stockholm: Swedish prosecutors yesterday dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012, reports AFP. But British police said they would still arrest Assange if he tried to leave…

NABLUS: Israeli troops arrested two Palestinians overnight on suspicion of involvement in a clash that led to a settler shooting dead a Palestinian in…

TOKYO: Japan yesterday said it scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese vessel sailing in disputed waters launched a drone, the latest bout of tension in a longstanding territorial row, reports AFP. The two countries are at odds over a group of small uninhabited islands in the East China Sea administered…

ANKARA: Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for the owner and three employees of opposition daily Sozcu, state media reported yesterday, as the crackdown on opposition media widened, reports AFP. The owner, Burak Akbay, and the three others, including the executive in charge of the website, Mediha…

GAO, Mali: French President Emmanuel Macron arrived yesterday in conflict-torn Mali to visit French troops fighting jihadists on his first official trip outside Europe since taking power, reports AFP. At the end of his first week in office, Macron flew into Gao, a city in Mali's deeply-troubled…

THE HAGUE: Dutch lawmakers have voiced opposition to a proposal by Amsterdam's top police official to consider allowing female Muslim agents to wear headscarfs, reports AFP quoting Dutch media. At least six major political parties are against plans from Commissioner Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg to introduce…

GENEVA: A cholera outbreak in war-ravaged Yemen has killed 242 people, and left nearly 23,500 others sick in the past three weeks alone, the World Health Organization said yesterday, reports AFP. The UN health agency said that in the past day alone, 20 cholera deaths and 3,460 suspected cases had been…