KUWAIT: Kuwait is seeking to boost its collaborative efforts with the World Health Organization across various services, Health Minister Dr. Ahmed Al-Awadhi said on Monday.

Al-Awadhi met Dr. Hanan Balkhy, assistant director for antimicrobial resistance at the WHO, to discuss numerous areas of cooperation, the Kuwait News Agency reported.

He emphasized Kuwait’s capabilities in effectively addressing health challenges and implementing comprehensive strategies to handle medical emergencies.

BEIRUT: The Syrian state television channel said late on Monday that Israel had attacked targets on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

State TV did not give any more details about the targets of the attack but the semi-official newspaper, Al Watan, said on its website that “Damascus international airport was unaffected.

Israel has for years carried out attacks on what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar Assad in a civil war that started in 2011.

 

JERUSALEM: Arab local councils in Israel held a strike on Monday in protest at the finance minister’s freeze earlier this month on hundreds of millions of shekels to their municipalities, a decision that has prompted accusations of racism.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious government, suspended at least 200 million shekels ($52.75 million) of Arab municipal funds, saying that these could end up in the hands of what he called “criminal and terrorist elements.”

BEIRUT: Organ donation in Lebanon is relying on individual initiatives, although the issue still generates controversy among the public.

Former Health Minister Mohamed Jawad Khalife told Arab News: “The recommendation to donate organs is still rare in Lebanon, and this is due to the prevailing culture that considered this work to be taboo, even though religions do not prohibit it.”

Khalife founded the National Organization for Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplant in Lebanon during his ministry in 2005.

AMMAN: Jordanian Investment Minister Kholoud Saqqaf met the Cypriot ambassador to his country, Michalis Ioannou, on Monday to discuss a memorandum of understanding that was signed by Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides during an official visit to Jordan at the start of August.

The agreement focuses on efforts to enhance investment cooperation and establish a regulatory framework that will strengthen Jordanian-Cypriot business ties.