The European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson, has expressed hope that dialogue among Afghans will take place inside their country. “I would hope that dialogue can take place inside their country. I don’t think there is a need to exclude Afghans from outside, but I think my experience is that to be able to have a meaningful dialogue […]

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, Economic Deputy of the Prime Minister, on Sunday said that the 20-year war did a lot of harm to the environment, especially in terms of air quality and nature. Addressing an event to mark a national tree planting campaign organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock in Badam Bagh area of Kabul city, […]

Like most Western industrialised countries, Taiwan experienced a sustained decline in fertility rates and increased life expectancy that together resulted in population ageing. But due to the fast fertility decline in recent decades, the pace of aging has been continuously accelerating — Taiwan became an ‘ageing society’ in 1993, an ‘aged society’ in 2018 and will become a ‘super-aged’ society […]

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Saturday spotted more than 40 Chinese vessels near Pag-asa, one of the islands occupied by Manila in the South China Sea. Coast Guard personnel stationed on the island – also known as Thitu – reported a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessel, a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel, and 42 suspected maritime militia vessels, […]

The United States and China have entered a phase of competition for technological advantage, intensified by pandemic-induced supply chain vulnerabilities as well as a fundamental reorientation of global power dynamics where technology has come to play an unprecedented role. According to Eric Schmidt, the former Google leader, “Many Americans still have an outdated vision of China… the United States now […]

Security forces carried out an operation against a Daesh hideout in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on Friday night, killing six individuals, officials said Saturday. Abdullah Insaf, a spokesman for Herat police, said that the operation began at 10:00 p.m. in District 14 of the city. He said that Daesh members had been inside a building when the operation started. Six […]

A total of 5,051 individuals have been arrested on drug trafficking charges in the past year, Interior Ministry officials said on Saturday. Mohammadullah Ahmadi, the operational director of the counter-narcotics department of the Interior Ministry, told a conference that those arrested also included four foreign nationals. In addition, more than 500 tons of various drugs and drug utensils as well […]

While the world has been distracted, even amused, by the diplomatic tussle around China’s recent high-altitude balloon flights across North America, there are signs that Beijing and Washington are preparing for something so much more serious: armed conflict over Taiwan. Reviewing recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region raises a tried-and-true historical lesson that bears repeating at this dangerous moment in […]

There’s something irrational about President Biden’s knee-jerk dismissal of China’s 12-point peace proposal titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” “Not rational” is how Biden described the plan that calls for de-escalation toward a ceasefire, respect for national sovereignty, establishment of humanitarian corridors and resumption of peace talks. “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution […]

Leading members of the fundamentalist group blame supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada for the country’s unsustainable drift The clash of internal currents is wearing the movement down a year and a half after it regained power in Afghanistan. He did not even appear in public when the Taliban regained power two decades later. Hibatullah Akhundzada praised his movement’s advance in every […]