More than 18,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since the Taliban took over Afghanistan's capital, a NATO official said on Friday, pledging to redouble evacuation efforts as criticism of the West's handling of the crisis intensified.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Taliban barring at least two female journalists from their jobs in Afghanistan and attacking at least two members of the press covering a protest in the country were “ominous signs” that the militant outfit have no intention of respecting women’s rights or the media.

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him, the German public broadcaster said.

From the surging crowd of people outside Kabul airport, a small girl is lifted up over the high perimeter wall and passed into the hands of an American soldier.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday the Taliban's desire for international recognition is the Security Council's only leverage to press for inclusive government and respect for rights, particularly for women, in Afghanistan.

“On ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference,” longtime Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in his first press conference. “(But) based on experience, maturity, and insight, no doubt there are many differences.

Protests against the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan have spread to more cities, including the capital Kabul, while the militant group called on the country’s imams to urge unity at Friday prayers, the first since they seized control. 

The last surviving senior Khmer Rouge leader denied responsibility for genocide committed more than 40 years in Cambodia during his closing remarks Thursday to an international tribunal. 

Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob moved closer yesterday to forming the next government after securing a parliamentary majority from the same coalition that collapsed earlier this week. 

Thousands of Afghans were packed yesterday between Taliban checkpoints and a US-imposed ring of steel around Kabul’s main airport, desperate to get aboard any flight out following the return of the hardline Islamist group. 

The Taliban must decide whether it wants to be recognized by the international community, US President Joe Biden said in an ABC interview aired yesterday, adding that he did not think the group had changed its fundamental beliefs. 

At least two people were killed and 59 injured — two of them critically — in an explosion targeting an Ashura procession in Bahawalnagar on Thursday, Punjab Home Minister Raja Basharat said.

At least 218 Rohingyas died or went missing at sea in 2020, as they desperately sought refuge in Southeast Asian countries -- either from Myanmar’s Rakhine state or Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps, a new UN report says.

Several people were killed on Thursday in the Afghan city of Asadabad when Taliban fighters fired on people waving the national flag at an Independence Day rally, a witness said, a day after three people were killed in a similar protest.

As the United States and other Western powers pressed on with the evacuation of their nationals and some Afghans on Thursday, the rest of Afghanistan waited to see whether the nation's Independence Day would stir more anti-Taliban protests.

The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that Afghanistan will not be able to access IMF resources, including a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights reserves, due to a lack of clarity over the recognition of its government after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

Sahraa Karimi had been waiting in line for nearly three hours to withdraw money from a bank in Kabul on Sunday when the bank manager came over and urged her to leave, with the sound of gunfire echoing in the distance.

Myanmar’s security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi from power six months ago, an advocacy group said yesterday.

Afghan women and girls who have won freedoms they could not have dreamt of under the last Taliban rule that ended 20 years ago are desperate not to lose them now the Islamist militant movement is back in power. 

Four student leaders from Hong Kong’s top university were arrested yesterday for “advocating terrorism”, police said.