YEMEN: Hundreds of Islamists demonstrated in Sana’a yesterday, urging state security forces to return to the streets and demanding that Shi’ite rebel militias leave the capital.

The protests followed agreement by political forces the previous day to a security deal in which Houthi rebels undertook to disarm their militia and withdraw from seized areas.

CHINA: Restrictions on foreign investment in 27 industries, from green tea to civil aeroplane engines, have been lifted in a special Shanghai free trade zone, Beijing said on Saturday.

The new rules represent a mix of concessions on the rules that apply elsewhere.

Some limits on industry investment by foreign companies in joint ventures with Chinese firms will go from 49 per cent to 51 per cent or greater.

UNITED STATES: Pro-Palestinian protesters succeeded again at the weekend in blocking an Israeli-owned freighter from unloading at Oakland, California.

International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman Craig Merrilees said that dockers had not unloaded the Zim Shanghai because of safety concerns raised by the presence of police and protesters.

PAKISTAN: A US drone strike in the town of Wana, South Waziristan, killed four suspected militants yesterday.

Pakistan’s army claimed to have largely cleared militants from South Waziristan in 2009 and is now engaged in North Waziristan.

MALI: UN chief Ban Ki Moon warned on Saturday that Mali’s security remained “extremely fragile” and that talks with armed separatists had proceeded slowly.

He condemned continuing attacks by terrorists on civilians and UN peacekeepers, 21 of whom have been killed since the Mali mission began in July 2013.

LIBERIA: Chief medical officer Bernice Dahn announced at the weekend that she was quarantining herself for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola.

Ms Dahn stressed that she did not have any Ebola symptoms but wanted to ensure that she was not infected.

The World Health Organisation says that 21 days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola, which has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa and is hitting Liberia especially hard.

FRANCE: Air France pilots ended a 14-day strike yesterday after grounding roughly half of the airline’s flights.

An spokesman for the SNPL union confirmed its belief that conditions were still not in place for proper dialogue between the pilots and Air France management to overcome problems leading to the strike.

On Wednesday the firm offered to scrap a central part of its plan to shift most European operations to low-cost carrier Transavia.

LIBYA: Government official Ageila Saleh Eissa pleaded with the international community at the weekend to help Libya stand up to Islamist-allied militias that have taken control of government buildings.

House of Representatives President Mr Eissa told the annual UN general assembly that it must impose sanctions or risk terrorist expansion throughout north Africa.

IRAQ: Following a car bomb explosion in Mahmoudiyah, police reported at least 10 people dead and 24 wounded yesterday.

The town about 20 miles south of Baghdad has a mixed Sunni-Shi’ite population.

In a separate attack in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi military convoy, killing two soldiers and wounding five.