Sri Lanka’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” after months of shortages of food, fuel and electricity, the prime minister told lawmakers Wednesday in comments that underscored the country’s dire situation as it seeks help from international lenders. Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament the South Asian nation faces “a far more serious situation” than the shortages alone, and he warned of “a possible […]

A powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, flattening stone and mud-brick homes and killing at least 1,000 people. The disaster posed a new test for Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and relief agencies already struggling with the country’s multiple humanitarian crises. The quake was Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, and officials said the toll could rise. […]

An explosion ripped through a mosque in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province on Friday, killing at least one worshipper and wounding seven others, a Taliban official said. Dozens of people had gathered inside the mosque in the district of Imam Sahib for Friday prayers when an explosive device that had been planted there went off, said Obaidullah Abedi, the Taliban-appointed spokesman […]

An Islamic State affiliate has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul that killed at least two people and injured seven. The attack on Saturday was “an act of revenge” following insults made by members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party about the Prophet Mohammed, ISIS-Khorasan said on its Telegram channel.Nupur Sharma, a spokesperson […]

An international watchdog said Friday it will keep Pakistan on a so-called “gray list” of countries that do not take full measures to combat money laundering and terror financing but raised hopes that its removal would follow an upcoming visit to Islamabad to determine its progress. The announcement by Marcus Pleyer, the president of the Financial Action Task Force, was […]

Five British men held by the Taliban have been released, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office said in a statement Monday. The men were arrested nearly six months ago on charges of “violating Afghan law and the Afghan people’s traditions,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted. Mujahid did not provide any further details on the charges against the men or their […]

Militants attacked a road construction labor camp in southwestern Baluchistan province overnight killing three workers and wounding five others, officials said Saturday. The assailants late Friday opened fire on the camp, burned vehicles and destroyed machinery in a mountainous part of the district of Harnai, said Farah Azeem Shah, spokesperson for the Baluchistan provincial government. She said the camp was […]

In the last decade, especially during the previous two years after the COVID_19 epidemic and the Ukraine crisis, China has rapidly increased its economic-military power and, consequently, its position in the international system. China now has the world’s second-largest economy and third-largest military power with nuclear weapons. This trend has led the United States to slow down this process and […]

Islamabad High Court [IHC] Chief Justice Athar Minallah’s directions that the Federal Government should serve notices on General Pervez Musharraf and all other “successor Chief Executives” [former Prime Ministers] to explain why legal proceedings should not be initiated against them for alleged “subversion of the Constitution” through “undeclared tacit approval of the policy regarding enforced disappearances,” is indeed praise worthy. […]

June 15 marked the second anniversary of the China-India clash in Galwan, a remote area in Ladakh along the Sino-Indian border. Two years after the clash, which resulted in the death of 20 Indian army personnel and at least four Chinese soldiers, tensions along the border remain real and the future course of bilateral relations is uncertain, at best. The […]