Human Rights Watch Monday accused the government in Damascus and Turkey of exacerbating Syria's deadly cholera outbreak by restricting aid and water-flow to the country's Kurdish-held northeast.

More than two dozen people were injured, including the head of Iraq's civil defense directorate, when a commercial building in the capital caught fire and then collapsed Sunday, authorities and the state news agency reported.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the civil defense director, Maj. Gen. Kadhim Bohan, and some firefighters were among those injured when the burning building collapsed.

Saudi Arabia said Monday an F-15S fighter jet crashed after suffering a technical fault, though its two pilots safely ejected.

The Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 was on a training mission around King Abdulaziz Air Base in the kingdom's Eastern Province, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported, citing a military statement.

Amnesty International's head has warned that the proceedings of COP27 in Egypt could be stained by the death of one of the country's leading rights activists from a hunger and water strike in prison if Egyptian authorities do not release him within days.

Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard said Egypt had no more than 72 hours to save the life of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is also a U.K. citizen.

More than 100 world leaders are about to discuss a worsening problem that scientists' call Earth's biggest challenge, yet observers say it will be hard to make progress given all that is happening in the world.

Nearly 50 heads of states or governments on Monday will take the stage in the first day of "high-level" international climate talks in Egypt with more to come in the following days. Much of the focus will be on national leaders telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters, culminating on Tuesday with a speech by Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif, whose country's summer flood caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people.

A fire broke out early Monday morning at a 35-story high-rise building in Dubai near the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.

It wasn't immediately clear if there were any injuries in the blaze at the apartment building, which had been extinguished by the time an Associated Press journalist reached the site.

The U.N.'s COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt after a year of extreme weather disasters that have fueled calls for wealthy industrialized nations to compensate poorer countries.

Pope Francis said Sunday he was praying for "suffering peoples of the Middle East", at the end of a Bahrain visit promoting dialogue with Islam.

In a final address before boarding a flight to Rome, he also urged congregants to pray "for Ukraine, which is suffering so much," and for an end to the war.

Syrian government forces shelled tent settlements housing families displaced by the country's conflict in the rebel-held northwest early Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, opposition war monitors and first responders said.

The shelling is the latest violation of a truce reached between Russia and Turkey in March 2020 that ended a Russian-backed government offensive on Idlib province that is the last major rebel-held stronghold in Syria.

One of the world's leading Islamic clerics has called for dialogue between the faith's two main currents to settle sectarian differences, in an address to religious leaders including Pope Francis.