President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Tuesday that the United States is on pace to complete the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan by Aug. 31 depending on cooperation from the Taliban, the White House said.

The United States has evacuated more than 4,000 American passport holders plus their families from Afghanistan in the ongoing airlift from Kabul, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.

The Taliban yesterday urged skilled Afghans not to flee the country, as the new rulers of Afghanistan warned the United States and its Nato allies they would not accept an extension to the agreed August 31 evacuation deadline. 

Indian pharmaceutical firm Gennova Biopharmaceuticals’ Covid-19 vaccine, the first homegrown mRNA-based shot, was found to be safe and effective in an early-stage study, the government said yesterday.

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.

China yesterday held up America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as an example of Washington’s “selfish” foreign policy, hitting back at Vice President Kamala Harris’s accusations of intimidation in Asian waters.

The UN human rights chief yesterday said that she had received credible reports of serious violations committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, including “summary executions” of civilians and Afghan security forces who have surrendered.

The coronavirus pandemic may have pushed as many as 80 million people in developing Asia into extreme poverty last year,

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will run for vice president in next year’s elections, his party said yesterday, after months of speculation about whether he would seek to stay in power.

US President Joe Biden sent CIA Director William Burns to meet Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday in the highest level official encounter since the militant group took over the Afghan capital, a US official and a source familiar with government activity told Reuters on Tuesday.

Western forces at Kabul airport worked frantically on Tuesday to get people out of Afghanistan before an Aug. 31 deadline, as US President Joe Biden faced growing pressure to negotiate more time for the airlift of thousands trying to flee.

The Taliban have appointed a new finance minister, an intelligence chief, and an acting interior minister in Afghanistan, the Pajhwok news agency reported on Tuesday.

The Taliban were in position near the Panjshir valley and had retaken three districts in northern Afghanistan that fell to local militia groups last week, a spokesman said on Monday, though there were no confirmed reports of further fighting.

The Taliban said yesterday they would not extend the August 31 deadline for Nato forces to leave Afghanistan, jeopardising hopes of extending the evacuation of thousands of foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans.

India’s capital New Delhi opened its first “smog tower” yesterday aimed at reducing the air pollution blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year, but experts were sceptical.

Bangladesh has called for peace in Afghanistan, security of its people, and quick evacuation of foreigners who got stranded following Taliban’s takeover on August 15 after the US withdrew troops.

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.

Iran restarted exports of gasoline and gasoil to Afghanistan a few days ago, following a request from the Taliban, Iran's Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters' Union said on Monday.