The Taliban claimed control over two of Afghanistan's biggest cities on Thursday, according to media reports, as the United States and Britain said they would send thousands of troops to help evacuate their embassy staff.

Amid rapid gains by the Taliban and after they took control of the 10th provincial capital of Afghanistan, the Ghani administration has offered them a share in power, Pakistani media ARY news reports quoting Afghan media.

A northeastern Indian state that has for years been a big transit point for illicit drugs originating in neighbouring Myanmar has launched a massive crackdown on the trade, seizing record amounts and arresting nearly 2,000 people since May.

The Taliban on Wednesday denied targeting and killing civilians during an offensive against Afghan government troops, calling for an independent investigation and seeking to assure Afghans that "no home or family shall face any threat from our side."

A powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck off the Philippines on Thursday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, as initial warnings about the risk of tsunamis were lifted and with no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.

Pregnant women should be vaccinated against Covid-19, based on a new analysis that did not show increased risk for miscarriage, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

New Zealand plans to allow quarantine-free entry to vaccinated travellers from low-risk countries from early 2022, as it looks to open its borders again after nearly 18 months of pandemic-induced isolation.

Baby food, vegetables, fruit, cereals, meat, fish and other foodstuffs will have to meet stricter limits of cadmium and lead content before they can be sold in the European Union, according to new rules that will be applicable from the end of August.

German police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of passing documents to the Russian intelligence service in exchange for cash, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Two people were killed and over 40 were feared buried under the debris after a landslide trapped a bus and other vehicles in Kinnaur district of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh today, officials said.

Facebook said on Tuesday it had removed a network of accounts from Russia that it linked to a marketing firm which aimed to enlist influencers to push anti-vaccine content about the Covid-19 jabs.

Forest fires in Algeria killed 42 people on Tuesday, including 25 soldiers deployed to help put out the blaze, the government said, as thick clouds of smoke covered much of the mountainous Kabylie region east of the capital.

After weeks of struggling to fill the job, a senior magistrate in Haiti on Monday announced that a judge has been named to lead the probe into the assassination of president Jovenel Moise.

Wildfires fanned by blistering temperatures and tinder-dry conditions have killed at least seven people in Algeria, the interior minister said Tuesday, adding the fires had criminal origins.

India today asked all citizens living in and around Afghanistan’s third largest city Mazar-e-Sharif to return home by a special flight this evening, amidst reports that the Taliban are preparing to launch an attack to capture the city.

Guinea confirmed a case of Marburg disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday, the first recorded in West Africa of the lethal virus that's related to Ebola and, like Covid-19, passed from animal hosts to humans.

The United States said it was up to Afghan security forces to defend the country after Taliban militants captured a sixth provincial capital on Monday, along with border towns and trade routes.

Rohingyas have no desire to be citizens of Bangladesh and their only goal is to go back to Myanmar, said Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights today in response to recent World Bank report that suggested refugee integration in 14 of the host countries.

The UN climate panel sounded a dire warning today, saying the world is dangerously close to runaway warming – and that humans are "unequivocally" to blame.

More than seven decades after the Indian communists gave the slogan of “ye azadi jhoota hai”, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has decided to mark the country’s independence day with fanfare on August 15 and will hoist the national flag at all its party offices.