By Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's High Court on Friday rejected an attempt to block Britain's exit from the European Union, saying that neither the province's parliament nor its laws could override a decision by the British government.

By Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels including jihadists counter-attacked the army and its allies on Friday aiming to break a weeks-long siege on eastern Aleppo, insurgents said. The assault, employing heavy shelling and suicide car bombs, was mainly focused on the city's western edge by rebels based in the countryside outside Aleppo.

By Saif Hameed and Maher Chmaytelli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite militias backed by Iran said on Friday they would soon join the fight against Islamic State on a new front west of Mosul, a move which could block any retreat by the jihadists into Syria but might alarm Turkey and the United States.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland holds parliamentary elections on Saturday, with polls showing the opposition led by the anti-establishment Pirate Party could topple the current center-right ruling coalition.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia is delaying peace talks with Marxist ELN rebels until they free a politician held captive for six months, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Thursday, as he struggles to salvage a peace deal with FARC guerrillas that was rejected in a plebiscite.

By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - Twenty-four countries and the European Union agreed on Friday to create the world's largest marine park in the Antarctic Ocean, covering a massive 1.55 million square km (600,000 square miles) of ocean.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Yemen's Houthi militia launched a ballistic missile toward Mecca on Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition intervening in Yemen's civil war said on Saudi state news agency SPA. Coalition forces destroyed the missile 65 km (40 miles) from the holy city without damage and retaliated against the launch site inside Yemen, the statement said.

By Sebastien Malo NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The World Bank has appointed its first adviser tasked with promoting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues in its development work.

By Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - Hailing "mighty Uncle Xi", Chinese people have taken to social media using an old imperial term to welcome President Xi Jinping's naming by the Communist Party as its "core", despite party efforts to limit his cult of personality.

By Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - In a curious convergence of events on the same day last week, four Venezuelan provincial courts issued identical rulings, state governors quickly hit Twitter to celebrate, then the election board emailed a short but bombshell statement.