The Iranian government’s last-minute decision to ration monthly fuel allotments, as well as increase the price of gas, triggered protests and riots — a rarity in the Islamic republic — according to Iranian media reports.

Financier Ashraf Marwan, 62, the son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, had been named by Israeli officials as a source for the country’s intelligence service Mossad. Scotland Yard is treating his death in Carlton House Terrace as “unexplained”.

The Egyptian government announced plans on Thursday to ban all female circumcision, the widely-practised removal of the clitoris which just days ago cost the life of a 12-year-old girl.