US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday that the Afghan security forces' first job was to make sure they could slow the Taliban's momentum before attempting to retake territory, as Afghan forces plan to consolidate forces around strategically important parts of the country.

Parts of India’s west coast have received up to 594 mm (23 inches) of rain, forcing authorities to move people out of vulnerable areas as they released water from dams about to overflow. The hill station of Mahabaleshwar recorded its highest ever rainfall - 60 cm in 24 hours.

A warehouse fire in northeastern China yesterday left at least fourteen people dead and twelve seriously injured, state media reported. 

China has supplied over 10,000 Covid vaccines to a Myanmar rebel group operating near its southern border, its spokesman said yesterday, as Beijing seeks to halt the influx of cases from the coup-wracked country. 

Philippine authorities moved thousands of residents in the capital, Manila, out of low-lying communities yesterday as heavy monsoon rains, compounded by a tropical storm, flooded the city and nearby provinces.

Beijing has announced sanctions on seven American citizens and entities in response to a US advisory on deteriorating freedoms in Hong Kong, just days ahead of a visit from a senior Biden administration official.  

The Indonesian island of Bali is running out of oxygen for its Covid-19 patients as infections surge, the chief of its health agency said, as Southeast Asia’s biggest country struggles with the region’s worst Covid epidemic. 

China shut down ports and railways yesterday as it braced for Typhoon In-Fa as parts of the country struggled to recover from devastating floods earlier this week. 

Indian income tax authorities tonight said it has found tax “evasion” of Rs 700 crore over six years by the Dainik Bhaskar business group whose leading Hindi newspaper and TV channel were critical of the government’s Covid handling.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been named the new chairperson of the parliamentary party of Trinamool Congress in a move aimed at giving her a higher national profile ahead of next parliamentary elections in 2024. 

Myanmar has appointed a new temporary head of its embassy in London, Britain's foreign ministry said on Friday, replacing the previous ambassador who was ousted after breaking ranks with the military government over its February 1 coup.

Pakistan called on the United Nations on Friday to investigate whether India used Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to spy on public figures including Prime Minister Imran Khan.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck south of the Philippine capital early on Saturday, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

Indian PM Narendra Modi’s main political rival Rahul Gandhi yesterday demanded an inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal, accusing the government of “treason”, according to an AFP report.

Indian tax authorities have raided a prominent newspaper and a TV channel that have been critical of the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, triggering accusations of intimidation. 

Thirty-seven people have been rescued from a migrant boat with 45 people on board that sank south of Turkey, and Turkish naval ships and an aircraft are continuing search and rescue operations, the defence ministry said on Friday.

At least 67 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages.

A Trinamool Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, Shantanu Sen, was today suspended for the remaining period of the month-long monsoon session.

Afghanistan's Vice-president Amrullah Saleh has hit out at Pakistani trolls by tweeting the iconic picture of the signing of the instrument of surrender by Pakistan’s army in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

India has reported the first human death due to Avian influenza as an 11-year-old boy succumbed to the virus H5N1 in Gurugram, a satellite city of Delhi, in Haryana state.