Ramallah / AFP Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah re-elected him party head on Tuesday as the movement opened its first congress since 2009 with talk mounting of who will eventually succeed the 81-year-old. Abbas was re-elected by consensus, party spokesman Mahmud Abu al-Hija said, and was due to address the congress at 6:00 pm . Some 1,400 delegates were attending. …

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish prosecutors have demanded multiple life sentences for almost 50 alleged plotters in the failed July coup charged with conspiring to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at an Aegean holiday resort, state media said on Tuesday. Erdogan, who was staying at a hotel in the upmarket Marmaris resort with his family on the night of the July …

  Baghdad / AFP The Mosul battle in Iraq has seen the IS group increasingly resort to weaponised drones, which Western governments fear could lead to a new type of attack at home. France issued an internal note to its security forces last week warning that “this threat is to be taken into account nationwide” and ordering any drone be treated …