Portal:Current events/2025 August 23

August 23, 2025 (Saturday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Disasters and accidents

Seven students are killed and 28 others are injured in drownings on a school trip to the Abu Talat beach in Ajami, Alexandria, Egypt. (BBC News) (People)

Law and crime

Dharmasthala mass burial case
- Indian police arrest a man who recently alleged that he had been coerced into burying hundreds of bodies of women who were raped before being murdered from 1995 to 2014 at the Dharmasthala Temple in Dharmasthala, Karnataka, India. (BBC News)
Pork barrel scam
- The Sandiganbayan appellate court of the Philippines sentences Janet Lim-Napoles to 55 years in prison over the diversion of ₱7.55 million (US$133,600) in the Priority Development Assistance Fund involving Davao del Sur vice governor Marc Douglas Cagas IV. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Politics and elections

2025 Syrian parliamentary election
- The Syrian electoral commission announces that the upcoming parliamentary election will exclude the Al-Hasakah, Raqqa, and Suwayda governorates due to security concerns, with seats for those regions left vacant until conditions allow voting. (Reuters)
2025 Taiwanese referendum
- Taiwan's referendum on reopening the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung fails to meet the legal threshold for it to be binding, despite a majority voting in favor, leaving the facility closed as the government continues its shift toward renewable energy and liquefied natural gas. (Reuters)

Sports