The European Union on Wednesday said the “caretaker” government unveiled by the Taliban in Afghanistan failed to honour vows from the new rulers to include different groups.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi said the United States and its allies have more of a duty to supply economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan than any other country, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

A video of the Taliban’s Minister of Education Sheikh Molvi Noorullah Munir went viral online, questioning the relevance of higher education.

China on Wednesday banned private tutors from giving classes online or in unregistered venues such as residential buildings, hotels and coffee shops, ramping up its effort to stamp out all for-profit tutoring.

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

A fire tore through an overcrowded block in a jail in Indonesia's Banten province in the early hours of Wednesday, killing at least 40 people and injuring dozens, a government spokeswoman and media reports said.

The Taliban announced their new government yesterday, with a UN-blacklisted veteran of the hardline movement in the top role, after the group swept to power in a lightning offensive which toppled the US-backed president. 

The Philippines yesterday reimposed a virus lockdown in the capital Manila, a day after announcing the lifting of stay-at-home orders for more than 13 million people.

A Vietnamese man has been sentenced to five years in jail for spreading Covid-19 after he breached home quarantine rules. Le

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.

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.