authorities

Search ongoing for fourth suspect as prosecutor’s office says the accused hold positions in critical defence companies operating inside Turkiye.

Three executives of defence companies have been arrested by Turkish authorities on suspicion of spying for foreign powers, prosecutors say.

“An operation was carried out on November 25, 2025, to apprehend four individuals identified in connection with the conspiracy,” the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

“As a result of the operation, three individuals were apprehended, and an arrest warrant was issued for one individual due to being abroad.”

It said the suspects “hold executive positions within critical defence companies operating in our country”.

They are accused of trying to provide “biographical” information about employees to foreign countries.

According to the AFP news agency, the prosecutor’s office initially said the suspects worked for the intelligence services of the United Arab Emirates before deleting that statement and publishing a significantly revised version on X that did not mention the UAE.

Turkey’s defence exports swelled by 29 percent ($7.15bn) in 2024, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, driven notably by the success of its military drones.

More than 288,000 families in Gaza are enduring a shelter crisis as Israeli restrictions on humanitarian supplies worsen conditions for Palestinians displaced by the war, the territory’s Government Media Office says.

Local authorities said in a statement on Monday that heavy rainfall over recent days submerged tens of thousands of makeshift tents across Gaza, leaving Palestinians suffering under conditions that “no society can endure”.

The Government Media Office warned that Palestinians are facing “the most dangerous humanitarian disaster” since the war began with Israel “deliberately deepening the catastrophe” through its blockade of essential shelter materials.

“We strongly condemn this ongoing crime committed by the [Israeli] occupation against civilians,” it said.

“We hold the occupation fully responsible for the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced people who are facing the harshness of winter without safe shelter or basic services, and for its catastrophic crime of insisting on completely closing the crossings and preventing the entry of shelter supplies.”

The flooding began on Thursday when the first winter storm hit Gaza. The United Nations confirmed more than 13,000 households were affected within hours.

Conditions deteriorated over the following days as the rain continued, overwhelming the worn tents that have housed displaced families for nearly two years.

Many displacement camps sit at lower elevations than surrounding areas. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported on Monday that “some areas are completely submerged” after water rushed in from all sides.

Gaza authorities said the enclave requires 300,000 tents and mobile homes to provide basic shelter, a figure they have “clearly stated” for months.

However, Israel has prevented their entry despite a ceasefire that came into effect on October 10.

More than 80 percent of buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during the war, according to UN figures, forcing massive displacement.

Rights experts have said Israel’s campaign that turned most of Gaza into rubble amounts to genocide. Actions that constitute a genocide, according to the United Nations, include “deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

On Monday, the Government Media Office accused Israel of “continuing its policy of restriction and preventing the entry of tents, tarps and plastic covers” while keeping border crossings closed and “reneging on implementing the humanitarian protocol” it signed as part of the ceasefire.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries to Gaza, has repeatedly rejected allegations that it is restricting humanitarian supplies.

But Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), described the situation last week as “misery on top of misery” and warned that Gaza’s fragile shelters “quickly flood, soaking people’s belongings”.

UNRWA said it has enough supplies waiting in Jordan and Egypt to fill 6,000 trucks, including food to sustain Gaza’s entire population for three months. Yet Israeli restrictions mean only about half the required 500 to 600 aid trucks a day are entering the territory.

UNRWA has also said it cannot bring pens and notebooks into the territory under import rules imposed by Israeli authorities.

Aid groups warned in early November that about 260,000 Palestinian families, totalling nearly 1.5 million people, faced vulnerability as winter approached.

Natalie Boucly, a senior UNRWA official, said Israel is breaching international humanitarian law by maintaining restrictions. Boucly cited the Fourth Geneva Convention and a recent International Court of Justice ruling that found Israel must ensure Palestinians have “essential supplies of daily life”.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said during a visit to aid warehouses in Jordan this month that Israel has “no excuse” for delaying humanitarian supplies.

‘Aid restrictions are entirely political’

Professor Mukesh Kapila of the University of Manchester said the restrictions represent deliberate strategy rather than logistical problems.

“Accessing Gaza is one of the easiest regions where a humanitarian crisis is happening, so this is entirely a political act,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It is a deliberate Israeli strategy to keep up pressure on Hamas on the hostages and possibly disarmament, but it is compounding human suffering in Gaza.”

The Government Media Office statement called on United States President Donald Trump and mediator countries to the ceasefire to “take serious and immediate action to force the occupation to comply with what it signed” in the truce and humanitarian protocol.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 266 people have been killed since the truce began with Israeli forces carrying out strikes almost daily even in areas where troops were supposed to withdraw.

Nov. 17 (UPI) — Indian authorities have arrested a man whose vehicle was used in last week’s Red Fort car bombing attack that killed 10 people and injured 32 others.

In a statement Sunday, India’s National Investigation Agency said Amir Rashid Ali was arrested in Delhi by NIA agents in a massive search operation.

Authorities identified the accused as a resident of Pampore in Muslim-majority Kashmir, a disputed region under Hindu-majority India control.

The NIA accused Ali of conspiring with the alleged suicide bomber Umar Un Nabi in the attack, which occurred Nov. 10 near the tourist-heavy and crowded Red Fort in New Delhi.

Authorities and officials were initially reluctant to label the attack but have since said it was terror-related. Two days after the attack, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi passed a resolution stating it was “a heinous terrorist incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces.”

Authorities said the attack, which occurred at about 7 p.m. local time, was carried out with a Hyundai i20.

Nabi, a resident of Pulwama, in Kashmir, has been forensically identified as the deceased driver of the car, NIA said Sunday. He was identified as an assistant professor in general medicine at Al Falah University.

A vehicle belonging to Nabi has also been seized and is being examined for evidence.

Seventy-three people have so far been questioned, including those injured in the blast, the NIA said. The investigation is being conducted across multiple states.

Officials said the suspension related to broadcasts about an ongoing blockade that has caused major fuel shortages.

Mali’s media regulator has suspended French broadcasters LCI and TF1 over allegedly broadcasting false information on a fuel blockade imposed by an al-Qaeda linked armed group.

TF1 is a French commercial television station that broadcasts in several countries, and LCI, La Chaine Info, is a French free-to-air news channel that is also part of the TF1 group.

Mali’s High Authority for Communication (HAC) said in a letter to image distributors in Mali, dated November 13 and made public on Friday, that it had suspended TF1 and LCI, claiming the two private TV channels had made “unverified claims and falsehoods” in a broadcast on November 9.

“LCI and TF1 television services have been removed from your packages until further notice,” the document read.

The letter said the authority disputed three passages in broadcasts by the two channels, specifically that “the junta has banned the sale of fuel,” “[the regions of] Kayes and Nioro are completely under blockade,” and “the terrorists are now close to bringing down the capital [Bamako].”

The channels have not been accessible in Mali since Thursday evening, a journalist for the AFP news agency reported.

Since September, the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) group, linked to al-Qaeda and primarily operating in Mali, has imposed a blockade on fuel entering the landlocked country, by sealing off major highways used by tankers to transport fuel from neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast.

In recent weeks, fuel shortages caused by the blockade have created long lines at gas stations and further deteriorated the security situation in the country.

Several Western embassies, notably those of the United States and France, have asked their citizens to leave Mali.

Mali, alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, is governed by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens.

But the security situation in the Sahel has worsened since the militaries took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and civilians killed both by armed groups and government forces.

All three countries have withdrawn from regional and international organisations in recent months, while forming their own bloc known as the Alliance of Sahel States.

The three West African countries have also wound back defence cooperation with Western powers, most notably their former colonial ruler, France, in favour of closer ties with Russia, including Niger nationalising a uranium mine previously operated by French nuclear firm Orano.

Within the three countries, the military governments are fighting armed groups that control swaths of territory and have staged attacks on army posts.

Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups have accused the fighters, the military and partner forces of Burkina Faso and Mali of possible atrocities.

Cuba’s top epidemiologist warned nearly a third of the population has been impacted and swaths of workforce sickened.

Cuba is battling a wave of mosquito-borne illnesses, with the country’s top epidemiologist warning that nearly one-third of the population has been impacted, with large numbers of workers taken ill.

On Thursday, fumigators armed with fogging machines probed alleys and crowded buildings in parts of the capital Havana, among the hardest hit by mosquito-borne viruses including dengue and chikungunya, authorities said.

It comes after Francisco Duran, the national director of epidemiology at the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, described the situation in the Caribbean island nation as “acute”.

“We are working intensely, as we did with COVID-19,” Duran said, referring to ongoing research projects to find medications and vaccines to help tame the virus’s impacts.

Dengue fever has long plagued Cuba, but has grown worse as the government’s ability to fumigate, clean roadside rubbish and patch leaky pipes has been hampered by an ongoing economic crisis.

The once-rare chikungunya virus – which causes severe headache, rashes and joint pain which can linger months after infection, causing long-term disability – has also spread quickly in recent months.

Chikungunya, which is spread primarily by the Aedes mosquito species that also carries dengue and Zika, has no specific treatment.

Duran said Cuban health authorities are conducting two clinical trials to test the efficacy of Jusviza, an injectable drug used to control hyperinflammation, in treating chikungunya.

He continued that another trial is under way to evaluate rectal ozone therapy as a treatment for patients with joint pain following chikungunya’s acute phase. This form of treatment involves administering ozone gas through the rectum.

Outbreaks of chikungunya have infected almost 340,000 people globally so far in 2025, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), resulting in 145 deaths in at least 16 countries. In July, the World Health Organization issued an urgent call for action to prevent another epidemic of the virus.

Cuba’s healthcare system, once among the best in Latin America, has suffered under a decades-long economic embargo orchestrated by the United States, seeking to pressure Havana’s nominally communist government into making political and economic reforms.

Citizens in the impoverished island nation routinely suffer from severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine, while the poorest are often unable to purchase insect repellent.

The issue is exacerbated by frequent power outages, which leave Cubans with little choice but to open their windows and doors to ease the heat, inviting mosquitoes in and facilitating the spread of the disease.

“The blockade is a policy of collective punishment,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in late October, as the United Nations General Assembly again overwhelmingly called for an end to Washington’s embargo for a 33rd year.

“It flagrantly, massively and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans. It makes no distinction between social sectors or economic actors,” he said.

Officials have recovered the remains of all 20 people who were killed when a Turkish C-130 cargo plane crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border Tuesday.

Officials announced Thursday that Los Angeles County has automated the process of notifying law enforcement agencies when people who violate restraining orders fail to comply with judges’ orders to hand their guns over to authorities.

Previously, court clerks had to identify which of the county’s 88 law enforcement agencies to notify about a firearm relinquishment by looking up addresses for the accused, which could take multiple days, Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II of the L.A. County Superior Court said during a news conference.

Now, “notices are sent within minutes” to the appropriate agencies, Tapia said.

“This new system represents a step forward in ensuring timely, consistent and efficient communication between the court and law enforcement,” he said, “helping to remove firearms from individuals who are legally prohibited from possessing them.”

According to a news release, the court launched the platform, which the Judicial Council of California funded with a $4.12 million grant in conjunction with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, and the L.A. Police Department and city attorney’s office.

The court also rolled out a new portal for law enforcement that “streamlines interagency communications by providing justice partners with a centralized list of relevant cases for review” and allows agencies “to view all firearm relinquishment restraining order violations within their jurisdiction,” according to the release.

The new digital approach “represents a major enhancement in public safety,” Luna said.

“Each of those firearms,” he said, “represents a potential tragedy prevented or a domestic violence situation that did not escalate, a life that was not lost to gun violence.”