According to the Interior Ministry, 67 people have been detained in Kuwait in connection with the recent shooting deaths of 23 people, including a Bangladeshi national who is suspected of being the head of the criminal network.
The ministry said it seized six factories and four more that were not yet operational in residential and industrial areas in a statement released late on Saturday.
A criminal group member from Nepal described the process for making and selling methanol to authorities.
Alcohol is not permitted in Kuwait, a Muslim country, but some are produced illegally in secret locations without proper supervision or safety standards, putting the consumer at risk of poisoning.
The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that there had been 160 cases of methanol poisoning linked to the contaminated beverages, with 23 deaths, primarily involving Asian nationals.
According to the ministry, at least 51 people needed immediate kidney transplants, and 31 needed mechanical ventilation.
Without naming a cause, the Embassy of India in Kuwait, which has the largest expatriate population in the nation, reported that about 40 Indian nationals had been taken into hospital in Kuwait over the past few days.
In a statement on X, it stated that “there have been some fatalities, some are in a critical condition while others are recovering.”
It is difficult to identify methanol, a toxic colorless alcohol found in industrial and home goods. Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, hyperventilation, and breathing issues are typical symptoms of poisoning that are delayed.
As part of its expanded operations, Israel’s military increased its airstrikes against Gaza City, forcing tens of thousands of frightened Palestinians to flee once more.
As a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that Israel’s plans to forcibly relocate Palestinians to southern Gaza would cause their suffering, Zeitoun, Sabra, Remal, and Tuffah have recently been the focus of Israeli bombardments.
Zeitoun has seen the evacuation of thousands of families, with days of constant strikes leaving the area devastated. An Israeli airstrike hit the Gaza City al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Sunday, killing at least seven people.
The Israeli military also stated on Sunday that the Palestinians who have been displaced repeatedly throughout the past 22 months of conflict, which has been referred to as a genocide by various human rights organizations, will receive tents and equipment to build shelters.
According to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, who was based in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, many people have been forced to leave their homes by the force of air raids and artillery fire.
“There are many families who have been sheltering in the Zeitoun neighborhood, which is a very densely populated area. When the intense air raids and artillery shelling began, residents were surprised. Some stayed, others did. Others began to move. Many were forced to flee as the violence grew, leaving behind everything, according to Khoudary, who described the situation as “hungry, devastated, and displaced yet again.”
“New wave of genocide”
Israel’s announcement last week, which has drawn international condemnation, led to Israel’s plans to expand its presence in Gaza City and relocate its residents to the south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and he claimed that, despite having been repeatedly bombed, civilians would be relocated to “safe zones.”
Nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million Palestinians are still internally displaced, and a sizable portion of them are currently starving. In Gaza, according to the ministry of health in Gaza, at least seven more Palestinians died from starvation in the city on Sunday, increasing the conflict’s death toll to 258, including 110 children, as a result of Israel’s ongoing siege of the area.
Nearly 62, 000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started in October 2023, compared to 38 of the total number killed by Israel on Sunday, bringing the total to almost 62, 000.
Hamas denounced Israel’s plan to establish tent camps in the south as a cover for widespread displacement.
The organization claimed in a statement that the measure constituted a “new wave of genocide and displacement” and that it was intended as “blatant deception intended to cover up a brutal crime that the occupation forces are preparing to execute.
After Israel’s most recent forced displacement order, Maram Humaid, Al Jazeera’s online correspondent from Gaza, posted on X, there was a sense of desperation in Gaza.
“The emotions that people in Gaza are currently experiencing cannot be adequately expressed.” Everyone is filled with fear, helplessness, and pain as they face a new wave of displacement and an Israeli ground operation, she posted.
The WhatsApp groups for “Family and Friends” are filled with sorrow and silent screams. God is aware of the extent of suffering people have endured. Our minds are nearly completely paralyzed by thought.
The Gaza Strip is visible as a crew of a Jordanian military aircraft prepares to drop aid into the country on August 17, 2025 [Alaa Al Sukhni/Reuters].
As more Israeli forces bombard them, Palestinians who are homeless and needy are frantically looking for food.
According to the UN, one in five children in Gaza are malnourished because so many people rely on charity kitchens for their only meal of the day.
Zeinab Nabahan, a refugee from the Jabalia refugee camp, told Al Jazeera, “I came at 6am to the charity kitchen to get food for my children, and if I don’t get any now, I have to come back in the evening for another chance.”
“My kids only eat rice and lentils in small amounts.” No breakfast or bread has been served to my children. They have been waiting for me to leave the charity kitchen with everything I can get.
Tayseer Naim, a different resident, claimed that he would not have survived if it hadn’t been for the charity kitchens and the God of the universe. We arrive at 8 am and stifle getting rice or lentils. We leave at noon and walk for about a kilometer without getting too bad.
“Man-made famine”
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, issued a warning on Sunday that Gaza is in “man-made famine” and called for a return to the UN-led distribution system.
In a post on X, Juliette Touma, the agency’s communications director, wrote that “we are very, very close to losing our collective humanity.”
She claimed that “deliberate attempts to replace the UN-coordinated humanitarian system through the politically motivated “GHF”” had contributed to the crisis.
She warned against the “brings dehumanization, chaos, and death” that Israel’s and the US’ alternative system constituted by a unified, UN-led coordination and distribution system. The abomination must end.
The World Food Programme (WFP) claims that despite its teams “doing everything,” the current supply levels in Gaza only reach 47% of the goal.
The UN agency claims that around 500,000 people are currently “brink of famine,” and that only a ceasefire would increase food assistance to the necessary levels.
Israel was purposefully starving Palestinians, according to the government media office in Gaza, by preventing access to essential products like meat, fish, dairy products, and frozen fruits and vegetables, including baby formula and nutritional supplements.
In a statement on Telegram, Israel claimed that it was engaged in “a complete crime of genocide” by “propagating a systematic policy of engineered starvation and slow killing against more than 2.4 million people in Gaza, including more than 1.2 million Palestinian children.”
It made the warning that at least 100 000 other children and patients are in a similar situation while more than 40 000 of their peers are suffering from severe malnutrition.
Aid workers are having a difficult time adjusting to the collapse of resources, according to Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza City.
“We’re attempting to do our best,” the statement read. We are a component of this social fabric. While Israel threatens to use its plans to forcefully evacuate Gaza City and enslave the rest of the country, we are connected to the people who live here. 1.1 million people live here, the majority of whom are elderly, women, children, and those with disabilities, according to Shawa.
Climate change-induced flash floods have killed at least 337 people in northwestern Pakistan, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, while dozens remain missing after the area was hit by flash floods in recent days.
In Kishtwar district, emergency teams continued rescue efforts on Sunday in the remote village of Chositi. At least 60 were killed and some 150 injured, about 50 of them critically.
Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for the emergency service, said 54 bodies were found after hours-long efforts in Buner, a mountainous district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday.
Suhail said several villagers remained missing. Search efforts focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains, carrying massive boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.
Cloudbursts also caused devastation in Indian-administered Kashmir. Flash floods were reported in two villages in the Kathua district, killing at least seven people and injuring five others overnight, officials said.
Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides between now and Tuesday, urging local administrations to remain on alert. Higher-than-normal monsoon rains have lashed the country since June 26 and killed more than 600.
Government criticism
Angry residents in Buner accused officials of failing to warn them to evacuate after torrential rain and cloudbursts triggered deadly flooding and landslides. There was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method in remote areas.
Mohammad Iqbal, a schoolteacher in Pir Baba village, told the Associated Press that the lack of a timely warning system caused casualties and forced many to flee their homes at the last moment.
“Survivors escaped with nothing,” he said. “If people had been informed earlier, lives could have been saved and residents could have moved to safer places.”
Emergency teams search amid debris of damaged houses following heavy rains and flooding in Buner, Pakistan [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]
The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted.
Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, told a news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change.
Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50 percent more rainfall than in the same period last year, he added. He warned that more intense weather could follow, with heavy rains forecast to continue this month.
Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director-general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said there was “no forecasting system anywhere in the world” that could predict the exact time and location of a cloudburst.
Idrees Mahsud, a disaster management official, said Pakistan’s early warning system used satellite imagery and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared through the media and community leaders. He said monsoon rains that once only swelled rivers now also triggered urban flooding.
Pakistan suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, particularly in the rugged northwest, where villages are often perched on steep slopes and riverbanks.
High-stakes summit in Alaska ends without ceasefire deal.
The much-anticipated summit between the leaders of Russia and United States concluded without a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Despite this, US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin say “great progress” was made at “constructive” talks in Alaska.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not invited. Instead, after a lengthy phone call with President Trump, he’s heading to the White House on Monday.
So, were ceasefire options discussed behind closed doors?
Could an end to the war finally be in sight?
And what does the summit mean for Russian-American relations?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Andrei Fedorov – Former deputy foreign minister of Russia
Thomas Pickering – Former US ambassador to Russia and the United Nations
In early August, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) exchanged fire with Syrian government forces near Manbij in Kurdish-majority northeastern Syria. The tensions in the north came just weeks after bloodshed in the south’s Suwayda governorate killed more than 1,400 people and displaced nearly 175,000. The violence between Druze and Sunni Bedouin groups continued for more than a week and has still not fully abated.
In March, groups loyal to former President Bashar al-Assad clashed with government forces and allied armed factions in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartus, dominated by the Alawite community. From 1,400 to 1,700 people were killed in the bloodshed, most of them civilians; 128,500 people were displaced.
The recurring violence has exposed the raw sectarianism that al-Assad once manipulated to maintain power. Now, in his absence, those divisions are metastasising, fuelled by a decade of unresolved grievances, land disputes and the proliferation of armed groups.
President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who took power after al-Assad’s ouster, has so far failed to build trust across all factions, as his main focus has been international normalisation and economic development. His Islamist leanings are causing alarm among minorities, including the Druze, Alawites, Christians and Kurds, who fear that his inability to rein in the various armed factions may result in more violence.
September’s elections may offer procedural legitimacy to al-Sharaa’s government, but without genuine security and reconciliation, they risk deepening the existing divides and reinforcing a power structure that benefits a select few at the expense of a truly unified nation.
Reconstruction and international recognition
Since coming to power, al-Sharaa has signalled that his national strategy is overwhelmingly focused on reconstruction and economic development. This is where his provisional government has concentrated its efforts.
In May, al-Sharaa spoke at an event in the country’s second biggest city, Aleppo, urging Syrians to join in the reconstruction effort. “Our war with the tyrants has ended, and our battle against poverty has begun,” he declared in his speech.
To unlock the economic potential of the country, al-Sharaa has sought to gain international recognition. With the help of Gulf states, the Syrian president has been able to achieve a major diplomatic victory: the lifting of sanctions and the removal of the armed group he headed, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, from the list of “foreign terrorist organisations” by the United States government.
US President Donald Trump’s administration also backed the potential integration of the SDF into the new security apparatus. From Washington’s perspective, engaging with the new authorities in Damascus can help reduce Iranian influence and prevent Syria from becoming a corridor for Hezbollah and other proxies. From al-Sharaa’s perspective this is a chance to secure international recognition and legitimacy.
Syria’s neighbour Turkiye is also an important player in al-Sharaa’s national strategy. It is providing noncombat military support – training, advice and technical assistance – to help rebuild Syria’s security infrastructure. It also is looking at a major role in the reconstruction effort.
This month, Turkiye began supplying Syria with natural gas, helping to address the country’s energy crisis in the north.
Meanwhile, Gulf states have pledged to invest heavily in Syria to help stabilise its economy. In July, Saudi Arabia announced $6.4bn in investments in real estate and infrastructure projects. Two weeks later, the Syrian government signed deals worth $14bn with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the fields of public transport and real estate.
However, many critics would argue that while economic support is essential for rebuilding, it cannot alone guarantee stability. The danger is that money and development may paper over deep-seated resentments and divisions that could reignite into future conflicts. The real challenge for the new Syrian government is to find a way to balance the urgent need for economic recovery with the equally crucial need to address people’s grievances.
Legislative elections
One way to address tensions is to gain public trust through a democratic electoral process. Al-Sharaa has called for national elections in September, but ordinary Syrians will not be able to cast their votes. That is because 140 of the 210 seats will be chosen by local electoral committees while 70 will be appointed directly by the president. There will be no seats filled by popular vote.
This format is a straightforward political calculation. It provides the new leadership with the assurance of a controlled outcome and avoids the challenges of organising a nationwide vote at a time when Damascus does not have full control over all territories and security cannot be guaranteed.
But this electoral process is likely to be met with mistrust from some Syrians, especially from minority communities, as they will see it as favouring the Sunni majority. Some may choose to boycott the elections, declare them illegitimate or find alternative ways to express their profound displeasure with a system that denies them a meaningful voice.
The US and the European Union will monitor the election carefully and will likely take a critical stance if it fails to establish a truly inclusive and representative parliament. This will likely complicate the new regime’s budding international relations and hinder its efforts to gain full diplomatic recognition and support.
The more pressing problem for Damascus will be that the elections will not help heal the country’s deep wounds at a time of continuing sectarian tensions. That is why Syria needs a nation-wide reconciliation process.
Justice and accountability
Syria’s interim government has yet to articulate a compelling vision for justice and accountability. War crimes under al-Assad – which include mass detentions, torture and chemical attacks – remain unaddressed. There have been promises to hold people accountable for sectarian massacres, but no concrete steps have been taken.
The absence of accountability is not just a moral failure. It’s a strategic one. Without a legal framework to hold perpetrators accountable, Syria’s wounds will fester.
Syria needs a new social contract, and the people will no longer tolerate the old foundations of impunity that defined the past regime.
The process of justice and accountability must be impartial and transparent. Given the deep-seated sectarian divisions and the decades of one-family rule by the al-Assad regime, which drew heavily on the Alawite minority, the new government cannot be the sole arbiter of justice. A national, state-led process could easily be accused of being a form of retribution against a particular sect or those associated with the old regime. To counter this perception and ensure fairness, Syria would greatly benefit from the assistance of the international community, particularly the United Nations.
An entity like the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) could be a powerful tool. Instead of focusing solely on punishment, a TRC would prioritise uncovering the truth about past crimes, including mass killings, torture and embezzlement.
This process could help Syria move away from a solely punitive justice system that purges rather than reconciles. It could help the new regime build public trust and establish a new social contract based on a shared vision rather than competing narratives. It could also help dampen demands for federalism, which risk weakening the country and undermining its security, stability and economic development.
Syria’s transition was never going to be easy. But the current trajectory – economic development undermined by potential sectarian fragmentation and militarised politics – risks turning post-Assad Syria into a failed state.
The international community can play a critical role, but its approach must evolve beyond merely applauding procedural milestones. It must support civil society and demand accountability for crimes past and present. Otherwise, Syria’s future will look hauntingly like its past with new leaders but the same old cycles of violence and instability.
According to Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a South Korea-based religious group, over 4,000 members of the church who recovered from COVID-19 are willing to donate plasma for developing a new treatment.
Mr. Man Hee Lee, founder of the Shincheonji Church, said that members of the church are advised to donate plasma voluntarily. “As Jesus sacrificed himself with his blood for life, we hope that the blood of people can bring positive effects on overcoming the current situation,” said Mr. Lee.
