With Covid-19 cases on a sharp decline over the last few months, India may soon allow foreign tourists for the first time in one and half years, the country’s home ministry officials said.

Myanmar anti-junta dissidents have carried out a bomb attack on security forces near Yangon, with several killed in an ensuing firefight, the military and media said.

Some Afghan girls returned to primary schools with gender-segregated classes on Saturday, but older girls faced an anxious wait with no clarity over if and when they would be able to resume their studies at the secondary school level.

Girls were excluded from returning to secondary school in Afghanistan yesterday, after the country’s new Taliban rulers ordered only boys and male teachers back to the classroom.

Taxi fleets in Thailand are giving new meaning to the term “rooftop garden,” as they utilize the roofs of cabs idled by the coronavirus crisis to serve as small vegetable plots.

At least three people were killed and about 20 wounded in a series of blasts in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Saturday, two sources in the city said.

Malaysia on Saturday expressed concerns that Australia's plan to build nuclear-powered submarines under a new pact with Britain and the United States could catalyze a nuclear arms race in the Indo-Pacific region.

Five including four Bangladeshis were charged at Malaysia’s Magistrate’s Court with abducting a Bangladeshi male and demanding Tk one million (about RM50,000) ransom in August.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has questioned the “acceptability” of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, saying it is not “inclusive”.

The U.S. military said on Friday that a drone strike in Kabul last month killed as many 10 civilians, including seven children, and it apologized for what the Pentagon said was a tragic mistake.

Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth yesterday after completing the country’s longest-ever crewed mission, the latest landmark in Beijing’s drive to become a major space power.

The head of the world’s largest vaccine maker said yesterday it was “unethical” to give third doses of the Covid-19 vaccine while developing nations are struggling to access first and second jabs.

Increasing extremism and radicalisation are the biggest threat to global peace, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday at the nine-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, and drew attention to the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

Workers in the Afghan capital Kabul replaced signs for the country’s women’s ministry with those for the Taliban’s moral police yesterday, as female former employees of the department said they had been locked out of the building.

India has told China that their bilateral relations will only develop when both countries pull their troops back from a confrontation on their disputed Himalayan border, the Indian foreign minister said.

The third chartered flight bringing civilians from Afghanistan to Qatar since U.S. forces withdrew last month took off on Friday with around 170 passengers on board, including U.S. and European citizens as well as Afghans, a Qatari official said.

India has told China to avoid viewing bilateral relations from the perspective of its ties with third countries and said Asian solidarity would depend on the example set by India-China relations.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said any suggestion the world body can solve Afghanistan’s problems is “a fantasy” and that its capacity to mediate for a more inclusive Taliban government is limited.

China yesterday denounced a new Indo-Pacific security alliance between the United States, Britain and Australia, saying such partnerships should not target third countries and warning of an intensified arms race in the region.

The government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday said it will not cooperate with an International Criminal Court (ICC) probe into his notorious war on drugs, or allow any investigators into the country.