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(Reuters) - Former Liverpool and Real Madrid defender Alvaro Arbeloa has decided to retire from professional football, the 34-year-old told a Spanish newspaper. The Spain international won the 2010 FIFA World Cup and two European Championships in 56 appearances for his country. Arbeloa signed a one-year contract at West Ham after being released from Madrid last August but made just four appearances for the London side.

Lee Hsien Yang has questioned the right of Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to have loaned the late Lee Kuan Yew’s personal items to the National Heritage Board (NHB) for an exhibition. “(The) personal items do not belong to the PMO and are not theirs to loan. Hsien Yang, the son of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, added that the “residual items” left by his late father’s estate should rightfully come under its executors - Hsien Yang and his sister Lee Wei Ling - and “not the beneficiaries or the PMO”.

Saudi security forces on Friday foiled a suicide attack on the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, cornering the would-be attacker in an apartment, where he blew himself up, the Interior Ministry said. In a statement read on state television, the ministry said that three cells had planned the attack on worshippers and security forces at the mosque as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan nears its climax. The trapped would-be suicide bomber exchanged fire with the security forces, then set off explosives when he was surrounded in a house in the central Mecca neighbourhood of Ajyad al-Masafi near the mosque that had been used as the base for the attack, the ministry said.

(Reuters) - Preston North End have signed midfielder Josh Harrop from Manchester United on a four-year contract, the English Championship team said on Friday. Harrop, 21, was the top scorer for United's reserve team with 10 goals in 25 appearances last season and made a memorable senior debut, scoring the opener in United's 2-0 win over Crystal Palace on the final day of the 2016-17 league campaign. "It's a new start for me to get things going in my career and I'm buzzing to get playing and to make an impact in the team," Harrop said on Preston's official website.

By Pamela Barbaglia LONDON (Reuters) - A group of four international investment funds offered to inject 1.6 billion euros (1.4 billion pounds) of fresh capital into two ailing Italian banks in Veneto at the end of May, sources told Reuters, but their plan was not pursued by Rome along with more recent approaches to be part of a rescue deal. Investment firms Sound Point Capital, Cerberus, Attestor and Varde submitted a rescue proposal for Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca on May 30, said the sources, who declined to be named as the matter is confidential.

Ivanka Trump must testify in a dispute with an Italian shoemaker over one of her company's shoe designs, a judge said Friday. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest rejected a request by the senior White ...

A North Korean soldier defected to the South after crossing the heavily fortified border, a defence ministry spokesman said on Saturday, the second soldier to defect this month. "A North Korean soldier defected to one of our Guard Posts at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday at the middle section of the border," the spokesman said, according to a report by the Yonhap news agency. "He has been taken into custody for questioning," he added There was no exchange of fire between the two sides when the North Korean soldier, a private, smuggled himself across the border to the south, the Yonhap report said.