The UN said Friday it feared an even greater human rights catastrophe in Myanmar amid reports of thousands of troops massing in the north of the Southeast Asian country, which has been in chaos since a February coup.

A group of Afghan women urged the United Nations to block the Taliban from gaining a seat at the world body, calling for better representation for their country during a visit to the organisation’s New York headquarters on Thursday.

Myanmar has spiralled into civil war following a military coup, the outgoing UN special envoy on Myanmar said on Thursday, warning that the chance to return to democracy is disappearing and signalling that further targeted sanctions could be helpful.

Since Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Nargis Nayeel Sadat, 22, a business entrepreneur and women activist based in Kabul, is on the run along with her mother to save their lives after a Taliban court found her guilty. 

China's foreign ministry urged the United States on Friday to avoid sending any wrong signals to proponents of Taiwanese independence, after President Joe Biden said the United States would come to the Chinese-claimed island's defence.

The Taliban struck several journalists to prevent media coverage of a women’s rights protest in Kabul yesterday.

Nearly 200 people have died in floods and landslides in India and Nepal, officials said yesterday, with whole families buried in their homes and two young girls swept away as forecasters warned of yet more heavy rain.

But when we are faced with situations like the one that is currently occurring in Myanmar, then perhaps Asean should actually do some soul-searching.

India administered its one billionth Covid-19 vaccine dose yesterday as it fights its way back from a devastating surge in cases that brought the health system close to collapse, but cases surged in China and Russia.

Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi arrived in the Afghan capital yesterday for talks with his Taliban counterpart, his office said, as the militants seek a path out of international isolation.

India today reached a major milestone in its Covid-19 vaccination drive as the number of doses administered across the country crossed the 100 crore (one billion) mark.

India today came out with revised guidelines for international arrivals into the country with effect from October 25 under which mandatory RT-PCR report showing samples tested as negative is required for passengers to board an international flight to India.

Former Taliban fighter Mohammad Ishaq, who spent years battling Western troops and local forces in Afghanistan, lost his leg in combat and is now learning to walk with a new limb. Standing near him at a Kabul clinic is one of the soldiers he defeated.

A man from Kottayam district in the South Indian state of Kerala has moved a petition with a court expressing dissatisfaction over his Covid-19 certificate bearing Indian Premier Narendra Modi’s photograph, reports BBC.

The Taliban praised suicide bombers who died during the war against the former government and its Western allies and offered their families sums of cash and promises of land, the movement's interior ministry said in a statement.

The death count in landslides and floods set off by incessant heavy rains in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand mounted to 47 last night.

The mainstream Indian print media today editorially commented on the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, opining they reflect a “conspiracy to instigate the violence.”

The Pakistan Navy detected and blocked an Indian submarine from entering Pakistani waters on October 16, the military's media wing revealed on Tuesday.

India has delayed committing supplies of vaccine to the Covax global sharing platform, two sources told Reuters yesterday, a day after one of its key backers, the WHO, said the agency could not “cut corners” to approve a domestically developed vaccine.

Singapore yesterday began quarantine-free entry for fully vaccinated passengers from eight countries, part of a plan to ease restrictions as the business hub gears up to live with the coronavirus.