The Taliban tightened the noose around northern Afghanistan yesterday, capturing three more provincial capitals as they take their fight to the cities after seizing much of the countryside in recent months.

Taliban fighters have seized key government buildings in the northeastern Afghan city of Kunduz, leaving government forces hanging onto control of the airport and their own base, a provincial assembly lawmaker said on Sunday.

The United States on Saturday condemned a thwarted plot to attack Myanmar's U.N. ambassador in New York, saying it fits a "disturbing pattern" of authoritarian leaders and their supporters seeking to persecute opponents around the world.

The Brunei diplomat appointed by a Southeast Asian regional bloc as its special envoy to Myanmar yesterday said he should be given full access to all parties when he visits the strife-torn country, where the military overthrew an elected government. 

The Taliban seized the stronghold of a notorious Afghan warlord yesterday, officials said, the second provincial capital to fall to the insurgents in under 24 hours. 

An Afghan Air Force pilot was killed by a bomb in a Kabul district on Saturday, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

The Taliban captured an Afghan provincial capital and assassinated the government’s top media officer in Kabul yesterday, dealing twin high-profile blows to the Western-backed administration. 

Taliban fighters on Friday assassinated the Afghanistan government's top media and information officer in the capital Kabul, an act condemned by the senior U.S. diplomat in the country as an affront to human rights and free speech.

The city of Zaranj in Afghanistan's Nimroz province fell to the Taliban on Friday, provincial police said, making it the first provincial capital the insurgents have captured as they step up offensives.

Dozens of people attacked a Hindu temple in central Pakistan over blasphemy allegations, police said yesterday, in the latest incident of religious-fueled violence targeting a minority group in the Islamic republic.

Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, who has refused to leave his post despite being fired after the February coup, has alerted the world body to a “reported massacre” by the military junta.

A Myanmar militia force fighting the army in a central part of the country and residents have found at least 40 bodies in jungle areas in recent weeks, including some showing signs of torture, said a militia member and Myanmar's U.N. envoy.

Pakistan deployed paramilitary forces in a central town on Thursday to check communal unrest after a mob ransacked and set fire to a Hindu temple.

Russia will deploy four Tu-22M3 supersonic strategic bombers in drills near the Afghan border in Uzbekistan, Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Thursday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday defied mounting pressure to quit, saying he retained majority support among lawmakers and would prove it when the southeast Asian nation’s parliament reconvened next month. 

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have appointed Brunei's second minister for foreign affairs, Erywan Yusof, as special envoy to Myanmar, the group said on Wednesday.

A powerful blast followed by sporadic gunfire hit Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Tuesday near the city's heavily fortified "Green Zone", an area home to government buildings and foreign embassies, police officials said.

More than 100 protesters have been charged under Thailand’s royal insult laws since last July, when rallies across the kingdom began demanding reforms to the unassailable monarchy, a lawyer representing the activists and an AFP tally showed yesterday.

The United States said that Myanmar’s junta was playing for time with a two-year election timeframe as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to encourage Asean to appoint an envoy. 

Myanmar’s neighbouring countries and international organisations need to act now to prevent Myanmar from becoming a regional epicenter of Covid-19 pandemic, experts suggested.