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.

Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob looked set to form the next government after gaining a parliamentary majority from the same coalition that collapsed earlier this week, media and lawmakers said on Thursday.

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.

At least three people were killed in anti-Taliban protests in the Afghan city of Jalalabad yesterday, witnesses said, as the Islamist group moved to set up a government and Western countries ramped up evacuations from a chaotic Kabul airport. 

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.

Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday wrote “I fear for my Afghan sisters” in an op-ed published in The New York Times in the wake of the Taliban’s stunning takeover.

Haibatullah Akhundzada was appointed leader of the Taliban in a swift power transition after a US drone strike killed his predecessor, Mullah Mansour Akhtar, in 2016.

Afghanistan may be governed by a ruling council now that the Taliban has taken over, while the Islamist militant movement's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, would likely remain in overall charge, a senior member of the group told Reuters.

Afghans who arrived in Germany on Wednesday described chaotic and terrifying scenes at Kabul airport before they were evacuated to safety and said they feared for lives of loved ones they left behind.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani is in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf state's foreign ministry said on Wednesday, after he left as Taliban fighters seized control.

The United States, European Union and 19 other countries on Wednesday released a statement calling on people in authority in Afghanistan to guarantee the protection of women and girls in the country, as fears mount that the Taliban will use its recently won power to disempower thousands.

At least three people were killed and more than a dozen injured after Taliban militants opened fire during protests against the group in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters.

More than 2,200 diplomats and other civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a Western security official told Reuters on Wednesday, as efforts gathered pace to get people out after the Taliban seized the capital.

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 on Wednesday.

Girls wearing white hijabs and black tunics crammed into classrooms in the western Afghan city of Herat just days after the Taliban's takeover.