The United Nations is seeking to verify reports that Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are allowing girls of all ages to study at Islamic religious schools that are traditionally boys-only, the U.N.’s top official in the country said Wednesday. U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva told the U.N. Security Council and elaborated to reporters afterward that the United Nations is receiving “more and […]

A top United Nations official has called for more frequent and direct engagements with de facto Taliban authorities both inside and outside Afghanistan to address the country’s challenging relations with the international community. Addressing members of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, Roza Otunbayeva, the secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, said engagement does not equate to legitimizing Taliban rule. “It […]

Summary:China is leading the international rulemaking process to regulate deep-sea mining, but Washington can still blunt Beijing’s advances (and protect the environment in the process). There are still no international rules for the nascent deep-sea mining industry, which is only now gearing up to exploit the untold wealth of the international seabed. This immense area beyond national jurisdiction contains abundant […]

Just like India wants to balance between Russia and the US, so too does Russia want to balance between China and India, with this coordinated Indo-Russo interplay being at the core of the presently unfolding global processes due to those two’s complementary system-shaping capabilities. It was recently announced that Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will soon visit […]

Uzbekistan announced that Qatar has expressed support for the Trans-Afghan Railway construction project. The announcement was made following a meeting between Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and visiting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Tashkent. “Particular attention is paid to promoting new joint investment projects, in particular in the fields of green energy, industry, agriculture, infrastructure development, the […]

White House on Tuesday rejected claims that the US left a bunch of weapons in Afghanistan, calling it a “farce.” John Kirby, spokesman of the US National Security Council, said at a press conference that what the US did over the course of 20 years in Afghanistan was helping equip the Afghan National Security Forces. “Now — and as we […]

Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a meeting with the special envoy of Russia for Afghanistan on Wednesday that relations between Kabul and Moscow are strengthening by the day and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is grateful to Moscow for supporting Afghanistan in international forums. According to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign […]

Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history. We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation — no nation has ever done anything like […]

Attacks by armed opposition groups and Daesh have decreased in Afghanistan, the United Nations Secretary-General said in a new report released on Friday. Between 1 August and 7 November, the United Nations recorded 8 ISIL-K (Daesh) attacks in three provinces, compared with 27 attacks in six provinces during the same period in 2022, the report said. The United Nations recorded […]

Amid ongoing criticism of Pakistan’s expulsion of Afghan refugees, the country’s caretaker prime minister said on Friday that he is responsible to his own people, not illegal aliens. Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said that Pakistan is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention but has registered the refugees based on an agreement with the UNHCR. He emphasised that undocumented refugees in […]