Following an ongoing investigation by a newly inaugurated anti-corruption committee, Saudi Arabia has dismissed some senior ministers and ordered the detention of over a dozen princes. According to Reuters News Agency, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire businessman who owns investment firm Kingdom Holding, was among those held. The report also identified some of the sacked ministers to include Prince Mitaab bin Abdullah, the head of the National Guard, and Adel Faqih, the economy minister.

The number of refugees in the world has skyrocketed from 42 million to almost 66 million since 2009, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday.

"The diminishing ability of the global community to prevent, contain and resolve conflicts is the cause of the increase," Filippo Grandi told the UN Security Council in New York.

Japanese police have arrested a 27-year-old man after finding nine dismembered bodies in his apartment. The suspect, named Takahiro Shiraishi, confessed to cutting up the bodies in a bathroom in his room in the city of Zama, 40 km south-west of Tokyo.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation Saturday, citing Iran’s “grip” on the country and threats to his life. “I announce my resignation from the post of prime minister,” he said in a speech broadcast from Saudi Arabia by the Al-Arabiya news network.

A 21 year old wife who was forced into an arranged marriage has been arrested by Pakistani police for allegedly killing 17 of her in-laws in a bid to poison the man she had been forced to marry in Pakistan. The suspect Aasia Bibi, 21 had two months into the marriage fled to her parents’ house, but was forcibly taken back to her husband.

Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 72 people including children, officials and witnesses said, according to Reuters. One bomber walked into a Shi‘ite Muslim mosque in the capital Kabul as people were praying on Friday night and detonated an explosive, one of the worshippers there, Mahmood Shah Husaini, said.