The Afghan government should engage with the Taliban to reach an inclusive settlement, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday as the militant group made rapid gains amid spiralling violence and worries of a refugee crisis.

The Taliban claimed control over two of Afghanistan's biggest cities on Thursday, according to media reports, as the United States and Britain said they would send thousands of troops to help evacuate their embassy staff.

An Indian rocket carrying a powerful earth observation satellite failed to fire fully yesterday, the state-run space agency said, in a setback for the country’s space programme,

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused the United States of seeing his country as useful only in the context of the “mess” it is leaving behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.

India’s opposition leaders yesterday held a protest march towards Vijay Chowk from Parliament against an abrupt end to the monsoon session and a repeal of the Centre’s three farm laws.

The Afghanistan government has made a power-sharing proposal to the Taliban in exchange for a halt in the escalating violence in the country, media reports said yesterday, as the insurgents seized the strategic cities of Ghazni, just 150 kilometres from Kabul, and Herat, the country’s third-largest city. 

The United States on Thursday urged U.S. citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately using available commercial flight options, a notice on the website of U.S. Embassy in Kabul said, amid a speedy Taliban advance across the country.

Amid rapid gains by the Taliban and after they took control of the 10th provincial capital of Afghanistan, the Ghani administration has offered them a share in power, Pakistani media ARY news reports quoting Afghan media.

A northeastern Indian state that has for years been a big transit point for illicit drugs originating in neighbouring Myanmar has launched a massive crackdown on the trade, seizing record amounts and arresting nearly 2,000 people since May.

The Taliban on Wednesday denied targeting and killing civilians during an offensive against Afghan government troops, calling for an independent investigation and seeking to assure Afghans that "no home or family shall face any threat from our side."

A powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck off the Philippines on Thursday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, as initial warnings about the risk of tsunamis were lifted and with no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan accused the United States of seeing his country as useful only in the context of the "mess" it is leaving behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.

China’s tighter social restrictions to fight its latest Covid-19 outbreak, now in its fourth week and involving more than a dozen cities, are hitting the services sector especially travel and hospitality in the world’s second-largest economy.

China will ban karaoke songs perceived to “endanger national security”, as state controls attempt to muzzle the mics of a KTV-obsessed nation.

Rescuers were working to clear tonnes of rocks and mud Wednesday after a landslide buried about 60 people in India’s Himalayan north, killing at least 10.

Taliban fighters could isolate Afghanistan's capital in 30 days and possibly take it over in 90, a U.S. defence official told Reuters on Wednesday citing U.S. intelligence, as militants took control of an eighth provincial Afghan capital.

China yesterday demanded Lithuania recall its envoy to Beijing, after Vilnius allowed Taiwan to set up an office under its own name in a move seen as provocative by the Chinese government.

Giant pumps whir deep underground at a plant in Singapore that helps transform sewage into water so clean it is fit for human consumption while reducing ocean pollution. 

Myanmar’s junta had “nothing to do” with an alleged plot to attack the country’s ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun, who has defied the military and backed the pro-democracy movement, state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said yesterday.

1966 - A treaty to end three years of hostilities between Malaysia and Indonesia was signed in Jakarta.