The United Nations appealed for almost $200 million in extra funding for life-saving aid in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover sparked a host of new issues.

As Covid-19 cases and deaths exploded in India in April and May, New Delhi’s premier Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and several others ran so short of oxygen that many patients in the capital suffocated.

Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the first day of the Afghan school year, as professors and students wrestled with the Taliban’s restrictive new rules for the classroom.

Afghanistan: From Soviet occupation to Taliban takeover and US defeat

The Taliban named Mullah Hasan Akhund, an associate of the movement's late founder Mullah Omar, as the head of Afghanistan's new government on Tuesday, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the movement's political office, as deputy.

Afghanistan is facing the collapse of basic services and food and other aid is about to run out, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

The Taliban on Tuesday fired shots into the air to disperse crowds who had gathered for an anti-Pakistan rally in the capital, the latest protest since the hardline Islamist movement swept to power last month.

Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the first day of the Afghan school year on Monday, as professors and students wrestled with the Taliban's restrictive new rules for the classroom.

Myanmar's shadow government, formed by opponents of military rule, called for a revolt against the junta on Tuesday, setting out a strategy that included action by armed militias and ethnic forces and urging bureaucrats to leave their posts.

A Taliban spokesman has said the group reserves the right to speak out in support of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, remarks that run counter to senior Taliban leader Anas Haqqani’s contention that the organisation would not interfere in Kashmir.

The Taliban are preventing around 1000 people including dozens of American citizens and Afghans holding visas to the US or other countries, from leaving Afghanistan, US media reports said on Sunday.

The Taliban yesterday claimed total control over Afghanistan, saying they had won the key battle for the Panjshir Valley, the last remaining holdout of resistance against their rule.

The Philippines will lift a stay-at-home order in the capital Manila this week as it trials “granular lockdowns”, an official said yesterday, in a bid to rein in coronavirus cases and revive the economy.

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud inaugurated the Bangabandhu  Sheikh Mujibur Rahman media centre at the Press Club of India in New  Delhi yesterday.

Myanmar’s military rulers have agreed to an Asean call for a ceasefire until the end of the year to ensure distribution of humanitarian aid, Japan’s Kyodo news agency said, citing the envoy of the southeast Asian bloc to the crisis-torn nation.

The Taliban claimed victory on Monday over opposition forces in the Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul, declaring that it completed the Islamist group's takeover of Afghanistan and promising to announce a new government soon.

Senior Taliban officials met in Kabul on Sunday with the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, who promised to maintain assistance for the Afghan people, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said.

About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck in Afghanistan for days awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave, an organizer told Reuters, blaming the delay on the US State Department.

More than 500,000 farmers gathered in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh yesterday, police said, the biggest rally yet in a months-long series of demonstrations to press government to repeal three new agricultural laws. 

Four Pakistani paramilitary guards were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in the