Myanmar anti-junta dissidents have carried out a bomb attack on security forces near Yangon, with several killed in an ensuing firefight, the military and media said.

Workers in the Afghan capital Kabul replaced signs for the country’s women’s ministry with those for the Taliban’s moral police yesterday, as female former employees of the department said they had been locked out of the building.

Having had only six years of formal schooling, paint tycoon Goh Cheng Liang, 94, believes strongly in helping needy students get an education.

The Taliban yesterday thanked the world for pledging hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Afghanistan, and urged the United States to show “heart” in future dealings. 

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is a shattering earthquake that will shape the Middle East for many years, a senior Gulf official has said, warning that – despite the group’s promises of moderation – the militant group is “essentially the same” as last time it was in power.

The Taliban co-founder and now deputy prime minister of Afghanistan released an audio statement yesterday saying he was alive and well after news of his supposed demise went viral on social media.

Protesters have destroyed around a dozen military-owned communications towers in Myanmar, witnesses and reports said yesterday, after the country’s self-proclaimed shadow government issued a call for a “defensive war” against the junta.

The Taliban’s interim government in Afghanistan includes two representatives from one of their most feared factions -- the Haqqani network. As expected, they have emerged as key players in the new setup, after the Taliban routed the US-backed Afghan military and captured Kabul on August 15.

Expectations were building as the Taliban were taking time in announcing a government after taking over the country in a lightning offensive and decimating oppositions on the way.

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.

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.

North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog said in an annual report, highlighting the isolated nation’s efforts to expand its arsenal.

Singapore has fully inoculated 80% of its 5.7 million people against COVID-19, the health minister said on Sunday, becoming the world's most vaccinated country and setting the stage for further easing of curbs.

Changi Airport will reopen Terminals 1 and 3 to the public from next Wednesday (Sept 1), following a three-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the occasion of Genocide Remembrance Day, the Rohingyas called on the governments across the globe, including the UK and US, to declare the crimes against the Rohingya community as genocide.

Myanmar’s junta is considering raising village militias to combat opposition to its rule, state media said yesterday, as it struggles to assert control more than six months after seizing power.

A week after the Taliban’s lightning seizure of Kabul, growing numbers of people in the Afghan capital are facing a daily struggle to get by with their jobs gone, banks still shuttered and food prices soaring.

Afghanistan’s ethnic diversity has been at the centre of politics and conflict in the country for more than a century, and these divides are expected to play a role in the Taliban’s formation of a new government.

More than 500 tonnes of medical supplies including surgical equipment and severe malnutrition kits due to be delivered to Afghanistan this week are stuck because of Kabul airport restrictions, the World Health Organization said yesterday.