Myanmar troops killed several members of a local “defence force” in a day of clashes, the junta said yesterday, with local residents and media reporting at least 10 dead.

At least 20 people have been killed in fighting between militias and Myanmar's ruling military, a witness and local media said on Friday, in the worst violence since opponents of the junta called this week for a "people's defensive war".

Afghan staff of the United Nations are being increasingly subjected to harassment and intimidation since the Taliban came to power last month, the UN special envoy on Afghanistan Deborah Lyons said on Thursday.

The Taliban was businesslike, "professional" and cooperative in facilitating the latest evacuation of US nationals from Afghanistan, the White House said Thursday.

The Taliban have accused the US of violating the peace deal the two signed in 2020, for keeping its new interior minister Sirrajudin Haqqani on the US terror list.

The Taliban have promised a more inclusive government this time after seizing power. However top posts of new government have been handed to veteran leaders who played key roles in their notoriously brutal 1996-2001 rule. While much remains opaque, here is what is known about their policies on key issues so far:

Two Afghan journalists were beaten in police custody this week after covering a protest by women in Kabul where they were detained by the Taliban, their editor said.

Two hundred Americans and other foreigners who remain in Afghanistan are set to depart the war-ravaged country on charter flights from Kabul on Thursday after the new Taliban government agreed to their evacuation, a US official said.

Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled Kabul as Taliban forces reached the outskirts of the city last month, apologized on Wednesday for the abrupt fall of his government but denied that he had taken millions of dollars with him.

World powers yesterday urged the Taliban to act on their promises, saying they are monitoring developments in Afghanistan after the Islamist group announced a hardline interim government drawn exclusively from its inner echelons.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed on Wednesday to other humanitarian organisations to return to Afghanistan and for the World Bank to unlock funds to support the tottering healthcare system.

The European Union on Wednesday said the “caretaker” government unveiled by the Taliban in Afghanistan failed to honour vows from the new rulers to include different groups.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi said the United States and its allies have more of a duty to supply economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan than any other country, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

A video of the Taliban’s Minister of Education Sheikh Molvi Noorullah Munir went viral online, questioning the relevance of higher education.

Protesters have destroyed around a dozen military-owned communications towers in Myanmar, witnesses and reports said Wednesday, after the country's self-proclaimed shadow government issued a call for a "defensive war" against the junta.

The Taliban announced their new government yesterday, with a UN-blacklisted veteran of the hardline movement in the top role, after the group swept to power in a lightning offensive which toppled the US-backed president. 

The United Nations appealed for almost $200 million in extra funding for life-saving aid in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover sparked a host of new issues.

Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the first day of the Afghan school year, as professors and students wrestled with the Taliban’s restrictive new rules for the classroom.

Afghanistan: From Soviet occupation to Taliban takeover and US defeat

The Taliban named Mullah Hasan Akhund, an associate of the movement's late founder Mullah Omar, as the head of Afghanistan's new government on Tuesday, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the movement's political office, as deputy.