Police were on patrol in Tehran on Thursday on alert for any more violent protests over the introduction of petrol rationing in Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer.

A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Somalia’s chaotic capital Mogadishu on Thursday, witnesses said, hours after two aid workers were shot dead in an overnight attack in the north of the country.

A possible rape charge against disgraced President Moshe Katsav has been dropped after he accepted a plea bargain for sexual offences on Thursday, in the worst scandal involving an Israeli leader.